The twins are asleep right now, so I'll try to quickly catch you up on the story so far.
After 4 years of trying, we got pregnant through IVF. Yay! Found out shortly after that we were having twins. Double yay! In the 5th month, we found out Jake had a cleft. The Dr. had been monitoring him closely through ultrasound because there was another congenital deformity that occasionally shows up on my husband's side. So when they very somberly told us about the cleft, we were like, "is that it? Ok, we can handle that!" (Really freaked the nurses out ;) Of course, there were the usual feelings of disappointment, fear, and guilt that we had to work through. But from the beginning we were determined not to treat him any differently than his sister. He was never 'my poor little guy with a cleft.' He was and always will be simply 'my son.' Here he is at 2 weeks old, sleeping with his arms up. :)
Feeding Jake was difficult at first. Once he got a little bigger, we introduced the pigeon nipple. Except for some mild reflux, he eats just as well (sometimes better!) than his sister. At 2 months, the twins hit 10lbs and we started them on a regular schedule. The guidelines in the book 'Babywise' have been perfect for our family. They eat every 3 hours (give or take 15min or so) throughout the day. Bedtime is at 8pm, they wake up once a night for a feeding between 1 and 3am, and get up at 8am. Since we started this, they have been so much happier and calmer! Now we wake up with smiles and go to sleep (relatively!) quietly. I'm hoping that the predictability of the schedule will help Jake settle more easily after each procedure.
