tipping the scales

the home health nurse came for her last visit this morning. she was soo nice, and i have to admit, i am sad she wont be coming anymore. it was a nice reassurance to have the boys weighed and checked out every few days. but dr. n agreed, we really dont need the home nurse anymore. little by little we are cutting those ties to the nicu - the last step will be keegans monitor. another phone call today uncovered that we should have keegans results tomorrow - fingers crossed!!

the great news is that the boys are growing wonderfully! max was 7 lbs 6 oz today and keegan was 7 lbs 4 oz!! i can't believe they are both in the 7 lb range now. they look soo big to me now, but compared to when fin was born they are still tiny little guys.

here they are (max left, keegan right)...

good health

today we took max and keegan to the eye doctor and to the pediatrician for their 2 month checkup. first, let me just say, i cant believe these boys are 8 weeks old tomorrow!! we had good reports at both doctors offices.

the eye doctor was tough. max and keegan both got drops to dilate their eyes - that wasnt bad at all. well that is where the easy part ended. after waiting a bit for the drops to do their job, so ensued the pain. i have to inject that i am really grossed out by anything eye related, so take this with a grain of salt - but i will add that the whole thing rendered jon speechless (not an easy task). so the thing about a baby is that you cant just say open your eye - so this little metal clamp was used to hold each eye open for the exam. just the clamp alone brought on terrible screams from each of my boys. and frankly, that was it for me - it was all i could do to hold myself together. thank goodness jon was there. so once clamp is in, the doctor had to use this poker looking thing to press on the sides YES SIDES of each eyeball. so in otherwords - the clamp *really* opens the eyes. thankfully each eye only took about 2 minutes to examine - i dont think any of us could have taken any more. poor little keegan cried soo hard that he broke blood vessels on his forehead. so keegan went first with j holding him. i guess the plan was that i would hold max - but after i saw that i just passed max over to j and took keegan. i just looked at j and he knew i couldnt be the one to hold max. max and keegan were soo brave - but jon was equally brave. the doctors assistant told us after the exam that she cried through the whole first exam she ever had to do there with a baby. the good news though is that neither of the boys have ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) - which was a huge relief. we will go back in 6 months for a check up to rule out some other preemie related issues. i did ask the dr. if we had to use the clamp and poker thing again and he assured me we did not. one more thing behind us!

dr. n. visit was good and relatively quick. he did agree that max may have reflux so we are going to be doing some experimenting over the next few days to try and figure out what is going on. max gets soo cranky in the evening and early morning hours and is sometimes gagging when he eats. one of the things we are going to try is eliminating dairy from my diet for a week to see if he tolerates the breastmilk better. given that my husband affectionately calls me 'mouse' because i love cheese soo much this will be a tough week. when the dr. suggested forgoing the dairy for a week jon looked at me and said "oh - that is not going to be easy". but it is only a week and hopefully max will get some relief. in terms of the apnea monitor for keegan we still dont have the results of the first download. i am increasingly frustrated with this monitor and we were hoping to give it the boot. another call to the monitor co. today revealed that it can take as long as 2-3 weeks to get the download interpreted by the dr. because he only comes into the office one day a week. must be nice! our feeling is this whole monitor thing is crap. dr. n. even said that there is no evidence that these monitors prevent anything bad happening, but basically its a CYA thing. so we are just going to pray that the results come back quickly and as we believe there are no episodes on the download. if there are episodes, keegan will have to stay on the monitor a bit longer.ugh!

all in all though - it was a really good day. we havent been out with the boys, other than to dr. visits. we learn little lessons each time we take them out - todays lesson: i absolutely must buy a bigger diaper bag! you need a lot of stuff for two babies.

ok, time to sign off. but i must say before i go - i am soo thankful that we continue to get good reports at each dr. visit. today was certainly a day to count our blessings!

girls night out - ahhh!

i went out tonight for the first time since october with the girls. in fact it has been soo long since i have had a chance to be social like this, that i cant remember my last outing! it was great to be out - a much needed breather from the stress that has been my life recently. ironically, i walked into the restaurant and the first person i saw was one of the NICU nurses - boy is annapolis a small town sometimes. it was a fantastic night - great conversation, great food and even a great beer (or two)! jon held the fort down at home, and even said i could take the whole night off (meaning no middle of the night feeding for me). anyway, here i am unable to sleep...

tomorrow we have the day of dr. visits. (pediatrician and eye dr) hopefully it will be an uneventful day. i guess i must be a bit nervous about it or i would be sleeping soundly. ok - i am off to search for some tylenol pm.

bright eyed

the boys (max left, keegan right) are definitely starting to develop personalities. max is very much like fin, in both looks are personality. he loves being held and rocked to sleep. i am seeing some signs of colic or perhaps reflux with max - so i am anxious to hear what dr. n. has to say about this. max is less interested in what is going on around him, and more interested in sleep generally.

keegan is very bright eyed - he takes everything in around him. like his mother, he is going to be a people watcher. he is very laid back and is happy putting himself to sleep, just give him a binky and he is good to go. he also likes the new bird his big brother fin picked out for him last week.
















jon went back to work today -so i am on my own. fin spent the night at granny and pops last night so i could ramp up to being on my own. i am going out with the girls tonight, for a much needed girls night out. i cant wait! tomorrow we go for their two month check-up and their second rsv vaccine. this rsv is serious stuff - and is keeping us indoors for now. we are also taking them to the eye dr to rule out any issues that preemies sometimes encounter. i cant believe they will be 8 weeks already on wednesday - and we still have not reached their due date.

adapting to change

i have been thinking alot this week about change and how long it takes for change to settle in. as i have said, change happens in an instant - and often when you least expect it. but that says nothing about how long it takes you to get used to the changes. i couldnt be happier to have these two new people in our lives. but i cant help but wonder, how long is it going to take me to get past the whole experience of getting them here?

i feel like i am over the bedrest now, but even that took awhile. part of the delay was going to the hospital every day. then it was the physical impact - it took many weeks for me to be able to go up stairs without feeling every muscle in my legs strain. now that i take stairs with ease, and i am not at the hospital every day bedrest seems like a distant memory. but the rest of the birth experience and the nicu stay is sticking with me like an uncomfortable pain in the side. i was prepared for the c-section and that part was relatively simple - but having my boys rushed to another room before i even got to see them was tough. at one point after they were both born and i was still on the operating table i heard dr. j. ask someone how they were doing. the response was b is doing ok, and baby a had a really rough start. it is still hard to take that i didnt get to hold max for days.

it does take awhile to settle in to change - i am still working on it. it is odd the things that trigger your memory too. watching grey's anatomy this week was tough because they were treating a baby in the nicu. as a crier, i was crying my eyes out while i was watching it. but i couldnt help but wonder, am i always going to feel this way when i see a sick baby? is it always going to take me back to that raw place of the early days of max and keegans lives? how long will it take be removed from those raw emotions? will i ever be removed from them?

i got film back today online from the throw-away cameras that we used while i was on bedrest and in labor. that was a trigger too - seeing pictures that i didnt even realize had been taken of the first time i held keegan while i was on the operating table and the first time i touched max on his way to the nicu. its funny, many of the pictures didnt turn out (those cameras are fickle) but those "first" moments were captured and i am grateful for that.

what could be better?!

the best big brother w/ lil bro max (left) and keegan (right)...















fin and daddy give keegan a bath















keegan in the bath















max in the bath















our little tax deductions (keegan left, max right)

oh, the joys of home monitoring

well, keegan did have to come home on a monitor. it is a pain in the arse for several reasons. foremost, is that we truly believe he does not need to be on it. basically, it was described as a CYA thing. so here is how the day goes with a baby on a monitor. sometime just after you fall asleep from the early morning feeding (generally right when you really get into a deep sleep) the freaking machine starts dinging for some random reason - usually a loose lead (the part attached to k). and when i say dinging, think smoke detector loud - if you are standing right under the smoke detector that is. so you are startled out of bed and in this bleery eyed state need to figure out which lead is loose. mind you the baby is double swaddled and under the third blanket to keep him warm. after a few minutes of this mind numbing dinging you decide none of the leads are loose - so you turn the stupid monitor off. just turning the monitor off requires pressing a series of 3 buttons in the right order (not so easy to remember at 2 am!). then you strip the baby down, change all the leads - which involves pulling the old ones off (imagine ripping a bandaid off) and putting new cold ones on, turn the machine back on. if that didnt wake the baby up, then the monitors self test will- which involves more mind numbing dinging. then alas, things are working again. so you get back in bed, hope your three-year old is still sleeping through all this racket. and just when you fall asleep - the freaking thing decides to ding just once to let you know it thinks your child is having an apnea. so you are up again - looking at your child, who is happily breathing with no problem. so lights off, back to sleep. DING,DING - again, it thinks your child it not breathing. lights on - oh look, child still breathing! basically, it is set so that it doesnt register shallow breathing - which is sometimes how a sleeping baby breathes. anyway - you get the idea. we are tired of this machine. so we call the company, after about 10 false loose lead alarms yesterday morning alone and ask them to come download the information. jon had to practically beg the guy to come do a download - not to mention that it took 3 phone calls just to get the technician to call us back - unacceptable! they obviously want you on the machines as long as possible, since that is how they get paid. so monday they are coming to download - hopefully keegan will not have to be on this machine too much longer. fingers crossed we can turn this damn machine back in and never look back!

a really great day

the first night with max home was tough - really tough! we tried to keep the schedule the boys had in the nicu, and failed miserably. they were up every 1.5 hrs or so to eat. jon and i were practically delirious! i think part of the problem was the breastfeeding - the boys just dont seem to be getting enough that way. everytime i breastfed them, they were hungry again in 1.5 - 2 hours later. but if we gave them a bottle of breastmilk, they would last for 3-4 hours. obviously we are more interested in the 3-4 hour breaks! so for now, i am pumping and we are doing the bottle thing. i give props to any mom who breastfeeds for any amount of time. and double props to any mom who breastfeeds twins for any amount of time - boy does it require the patience of a saint and the stamina of a marathon runner (neither of which i have ever been accused of being).

our second night home with max was fantastic (especially compared to the first night). this led to the really great day that we had today. max and keegan woke up a little before seven (after having been fed last @ 2:30am). we fed them again, and then i had some real quality time with fin. we read a workbook all about eagles and spent about an hour drawing eagles and writing a story about eagles. the day continued in much the same fashion. the home nurse came for a visit and weighed max (5 lbs 13.5 oz) and keegan (5 lbs 5 oz). it was max's first nurse visit and he got a clean bill of health. granny came for a visit and i got a nap with m and k. it was a lazy day - in fact i am still in my pjs. but it was soo nice to be here spending it with all of my boys! looking forward to more days just like this one!

max and keegan are now 6 weeks old!

homecoming part A!!!!!!!

its official - we are *all* now home and under one roof as a family. max finally quit the nicu and came home on monday. i recently joked to one of my favorite antepartum nurses that i couldnt take another holiday in the hospital. i guess max got word and decided that he would only spend a portion of martin luther kings day there. when i got the call that i could pick him up in the morning, i blew kisses to my boys here and ran for the door!

i can hardly believe it. what a long wait for these babies, from all the fertility treatments, to the endless days of bedrest, not to mention the sleepless nicu nights - it has been quite an adventure. we are soo blessed to have these boys in our lives and couldnt be happier. ok - if sleep was occurring we could be a little happier. but that will come in time.

meanwhile, see how cute they are...
this is keegan's coming home shot















this is max's coming home shot
















this is max on the right, keegan on the left
















one proud big brother (or at least happy that he finally got to eat the special cookie!)

homecoming part B

no, you didnt miss part A. its part B because keegan, aka baby B, came home on monday!!! it has been absolutely amazing to have him home, and equally hard to have left max behind. it goes against all maternal instincts really to have left max there. rationally, i know that he still needs to be there, but emotionally i want him home. it is like only have half of the equation here. everyone keeps saying that it will give us a chance to work out our routine, and that is true to an extent. max just needs to get and *keep* his temp up to come home. think warm thoughts!

i will say that it is a pain in the arse logistically breastfeeding two babies in separate places. the real trouble is that when i feed one, i am not done. their stomachs are soo tiny still that i have to pump after feeding each one in order to empty myself out. when i nurse them tandem i dont have this problem.

ok, enough complaining- we are truly blessed to have two beautiful boys, no matter the location of each. see how gorgeous they are for yourself (keegan left, max right)...

mommies have bad days too

all along i have been concentrating on whether the boys are having a good day or not. there simply hasnt been time for me. i am in a routine now. get up, spend some time with fin, go to the hospital, spend time with max and keegan, come home, spend time with fin, have dinner, get fin to bed, go to the hospital and spend time with max and keegan again, come home go to bed. all the while, i am pumping every three hours. it makes for long days (and nights). i am not complaining, but somewhere in the shuffle i get lost it is like i am on autopilot. jon does too (get lost that is)- we rarely have time for each other. and we rarely get to go see max and keegan together - which is hard - really hard! anyway, i think today all of this hit me.

the nicu was a whirlwind of activity today. babies were graduating and going home and 3 new babies were admitted. for some reason watching a particular baby be admitted triggered all sort of emotions for me. mostly i was sad about how the delivery of my boys went. it was not the picture perfect delivery i had imagined - not even close. jon and i remind ourselves daily of just how lucky we are that max and keegan are doing so well. but the fact of the matter is that i am sad that they are not still in my belly. i am sad that i didn't get to see them, but for just an instant their first day of life. i am sad that i didn't get to hold keegan for more than instant while i was on the operating table - and then not again for days. and i am sad that it was even longer before i got to hold max. i am sad that i didn't get to breastfeed them for weeks. and sad that i havent been able to go to bed at night with them in arm's reach. i am sad that fin hasnt been able to bond with his brothers yet. i am sad that i have to leave max and keegan each night in the hospital and say goodnight to them through the porthole in their isolettes. i am sad that all they know of this world is the hospital.

the first two weeks that the boys were in the hospital were really hard on me. if you just asked me how i was doing i burst into tears. then somehow i managed to stuff that all away and move on. but now on the eve of the one month birthday for max and keegan i am back to that place of raw emotions - just under the surface. there was something about the combination of being in the nicu for all those new admits and the thought of the boys being in the hospital for one month that just put me right back in that funk. it is true, mommies have bad days too!

up and down again

well, we thought by now we would have one little boy home, but that is not the case. when i went in to take keegan home on new years day the lab results for both boys were not what we had hoped. it turned out that they both needed blood transfusions to help boost their red blood count numbers. sigh.

max and keegan did great with the transfusions. max is really starting to perk up and take more of his feedings by either the breast or bottle. this is great news, because he really wants to be rid of the feeding tube. he pulls it out himself at least once a day! feisty little dude that he is. keegan did well with the transfusion too. however, i think it was a bit more excitement than he was ready for at the time. his temperature dropped and he ended up back in his isolette as opposed to out in his open crib. he has to be in there for 48 hours before he can be in the open crib again. this just gives max a chance to catch up (he too is in an isolette).

here is to hoping that i can bring both boys home together!