1 year, part 2

m & k,

the next few days are hard to remember what exactly happened when. i know it seemed to take *forever* for me to be able to get out of bed and take a wheelchair ride to see you again. it was sometime the morning of the 7th, but i cant remember exactly when. as a parent that was the hardest part. i had friends and family visit me the night of your birth and all i had to share were photos. one of our favorite nicu nurses, cheryl, was there for your delivery and took the very first photos of you for daddy to bring to me. they are treasured images.

i remember thinking how tiny you were and how fragile you both looked. max, you looked so unhappy on the ventilator - mad really! and initially you were in separate rooms. daddy had already been schooled on the ways of the nicu and he told me what everything meant and familiarized me a bit with your new home for the next month or so. still, it was hard to get acclimated. i remember daddy and i having a conversation about how you were both in open cribs. we had noted that most of the other babies in the nicu were in isolettes. naively, we thought this meant you would be short termers. we quickly learned that the open beds were for easy access in your early nicu hours and were crushed when you were each moved behind the portholes of an isolette. then a few days later you were moved to a shared room! my greatest joy about that shared room was being able to hold both of you at the same time. full of wires, ivs, etc - i was able to kangaroo both of you and it was blissful!

then began the nicu roller coaster. you both had good days and bad. max - you got a terrible infection on christmas eve. we really thought we would lose you and again were so deflated. the doctors suspected that you had NEC and we would face a rough road ahead. for over 48 hours we waited for news and were finally rewarded with a christmas present that i dare say will never be topped. you just had an infection - not NEC. that was a bright spot along the way! keegan, you were such a trooper - you just went with the flow and took on every new challenge. breastfeeding was easy for you and you earned an early exit to an open crib. we thought we would take you home on new years day, but alas the floor dropped right out from under us again. that day both you and max had blood transfusions. afterwards, you turned bright red like elmo, dropped your temp and went back to the isolette. max was still struggling with breastfeeding, so i was glad in a way that he would have a chance to catch up.

to be cont...