Rosie and Lilly Owens

On Thursday 3^rd November, and after nineteen hours labour, Sam gave birth to our beautiful twin daughters, Rosie and Lilly.  Rosie was born at 5:45am weighing 5lb 1 ounce and Lilly at 5:55 weighing 5lb 5 ounces.

It was a very difficult labour and delivery – times two of course – sparing you the gory details.  We’ve had Lilly for the last couple of days but Rosie had some breathing difficulties and had to be incubated in intensive care.  Both were also on antibiotics.  Just this morning we were united as a family – very emotional – a combination of tiredness, excitement and relief.  Sam had only seen Rosie once up until this point.

Rosie and Lilly have very different characteristics and personalities.  Lilly is very laid back – a nightmare to feed – taking very much after her mum.  Whereas Rosie is always awake and energetic, drinks like a trooper and farts like a steam train, need I say any more.  It’s very hard at this stage to say whom they look like, they both have light coloured hair, Lilly is more blond and Rosie mousey brown, a combination of both of us.

It’s very easy to distinguish Lilly, she has all the bruises – and looks like she’s gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson – a result of being delivered by foresepts.  Just this morning the nurse – who hadn’t seen here before – reported her to the doctor as she was concerned about the bruises, thinking it was some form of abuse.  We knew nothing of this until the doctor arrived and quietly prompted her to read the baby’s notes, where it was all explained.

Thank you to all our family and friends that have been calling, texting and leaving well wish messages.  Sorry it has taken this long to upload some pictures, it didn’t seem fair or right to upload pictures until we know they were safe and well with their mummy and daddy.

All our lover and best wished

Davey, Sam, Rosie and Lilly.

On Saturday we took delivery  of our baby buggy, yet another kin’ flatpack (grrr….) – thankfully it was less arduous to assemble than the nursery furniture.  This was our last major item and we are now ready to take delivery of two new babies…bring them on Sam :).

Our options were limited given we needed a system that would carry two seats and two cots. We had a side-by-side or front-an-rear option – the Multiple Births Society of Ireland recommended the front-an-rear as its easier getting it and out of doorways etc.  We were worried it wouldn’t fit through our L-shaped hall but it wasn’t an issue.

We did have a laugh trying it out in our apartment with our two models, Oscar and Scamp :).

I had to share this with you.  We’ve just started to wash all our baby cloths and prepare the hospital bags – only four or possibly five weeks to go.  How cute are those tiny socks.  This was only one load of washing :-).

In the second picture you’ll see our travel rucksacks still lingering in the background – we don’t have it in us to put them in storage.  Given our current circumstance we might as well put them in the bin :-).

Any expectant parent will tell you that it dosen’t really sink in that your baby(ies) are upon you until work begins on the nursery.  Researching and preparing the lists of required furniture, clothing, toiletries and mandatory gadgetry takes far longer than anticipated and is more enjoyable than expected.

That process started for us over three months ago.  Thank god for the internet.  Having twins requires longer lists and a little more thought around costs versus practicality.  Forearmed with lists and internet comparisons we visited many of the high street baby stores.  Our plan was to negotiate a discount if we were to purchase everything from our lists in one foul swoop.  As expected, some stores were hungrier than others.  As seasoned hagglers from our traveling days, and given the current economic climate, we walked away grinning with levels of discount we didn’t think possible – ploying the manager and attendants with chocolate muffins probably helped!

We had a few weeks wait before our furniture arrived.  It was on a Wednesday and our friends and old neighbours Kim and Tim were arriving from the UK for the weekend on the Friday.  It was a bit of a rush but we managed to assemble all the flat packed boxes (grrrr…) just in time.

We ordered two solid oak cot beds, two chest of drawers and a cot top changer.  We have only assembled one cot bed for now as we plan to sleep the two in one for the first few months.  Car seats and buggy will arrive nearer the due date.

We are really please with our efforts.  A big thank you Kim and Tim for the beautiful teddies.

It’s been a while – over two years in fact - since we’ve blogged on daveyandsam.com.  While having the commentary and pictures of our travels are great to look back on, it was rather sole destroying keeping it updated non stop for 13 months.  If I’m honest, I was blogged out and sick of it by the end.  But now that I’ve had two years to rest my fingers, it’s time to get back on the horse so to speak!

There is another reason why I’ve gotten a sudden urge to to start blogging again and that’s the pending arrival of our twins sometime in November.  We are really excited and counting down the weeks and days.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be easing myself back in with updates on our preparation and all the bits and bobs we are purchasing etc…and how Sam is doing of course!

This  is yet another chapter in our lives and we’d very much like you to follow us on this journey.  Like our travel posts, you can enter your email address on the sidebar (to the right) to receive all our updates via email.  If you’re a Facebook fan, you can get the updates there too.

All the best for now.

Davey and Sam

Sam in the early stages of pregnancy at week 13.