Thursday, April 15, 2010

Update on life with twins

I don't have long to write but thought I would try to update everyone since everyone has been asking how we are doing. The twins are great and are gaining weight. Cumorah seems to think she needs to eat at all times. They are total opposites of eachother. Elijah is calm and likes to look around while he is awake. Cumorah thinks if she is awake she needs to be held and fed. They don't really look anything alike either.

They take up a ton of time. I don't think I could do it without Ben here. Ben is the one that gets up with Israel in the morning and gets him ready while I sleep in (I am usually the one that gets up with the twins at night but I wake him when I need an extra hand). During the times I am feeding the twins, guess who is caring for the other kids, Ben. I have no idea how I am going to do it without him. Right now things are going well. We don't really have any down time (even now I am dealing with a crying baby) but at the same time, it is great.

The kids have all been great with the babies and none have shown any jealousy what so ever. Just this morning Luci came up to me and said, "I love the babies mommy." That was so nice to hear. The kids help out a ton. We just have to make sure Israel doesn't pick them up as he has often done. We are doing pretty well with the total lack of sleep. All in all it has been a great experience. I just dread the day we have to send Ben back to Iraq. Don't be surprised if things suddenly take a turn for the worse at that point lol.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Twins cont...

So the twins were doing great and during rounds (the time in the morning where every doc, nurse, PA, NP, etc talk about the babies) we decided to try taking the babies out of the incubator and see if they could hold their temps. If they could, the doc would send them home. When I told them Ben was supposed to be home on Monday he decided he wanted them to come home then. So Saturday night we switched them to a crib. I was so excited! I got all the paperwork done for discharge and headed home for the night.

When I came in the next morning (Sunday) I headed over to wash my hands as usual and realized there was an incubator where the crib was. At first I thought they had moved the babies (they had been in three different NICUs prior to this) and then I realized what had happened. They had been unable to keep their temps up and Elijah had quit eating so they had been put back in the incubator. Then I also got a call from Ben and found out he was not coming in on Monday as planned. It was kinda a depressing day. The new doc (they change each week) said the earliest he would move them back into a crib would be in 48 hrs and the earliest he would let them go would be Thursday.

So I continued to come in each day to feed the babies. My grandma took the other kids on Sunday night so I could spend the day at the hospital. I wasn't allowed to drive yet so my mom would drop me off on her way to work and we would do lunch together then she would pick me up after work. Then we found out Ben was supposed to be coming home Tuesday night. When rounds were done we discovered that the babies incubator had been turned down to 27.5 and it only needs to be 28 to be moved back to the crib so we decided to go ahead and move them out early and see if they could keep up their temps and come home when Ben got here. I was so scared to get my hopes up that night. Sunday had been such a huge roller coaster, especially as I watched other babies being sent home. Every time I heard that stupid car seat video you have to watch before they will release the babies I wanted to scream. I had dreams that night that Cumorah couldn't keep her temp and wouldn't eat. I was convinced that was the case.

When I came in Tuesday morning and saw them still in their cribs, I literally shouted for joy. The nurses in there didn't know me so they thought I was nuts until I explained. They had made it the full 24 hrs without a problem and even passed their carseat tests so we wouldn't need car beds instead. The doc said he wanted to keep them an extra day though cause one of the babies they sent home the day before ended up back in the NICU that morning. Also, he was worried since it is RSV season and the babies had yet to regain their birth weight. I was so disappointed and worried the babies would quit keeping their temps or something. I was talking with the Nurse Practitioner (who also happened to be the wife of the first doc that wanted them home with daddy) and she decided to convince the doc to send them home. Ben wasn't due until 11pm so we thought it would give them 12 more hours to be there and they could go home around 10 pm and be able to see daddy. She talked to him and he said they could go immediately as soon as they had their RSV shots. She I let my mom know and she took the afternoon off work to help me get settled and then headed down to McCammon to get the kids.

The kids were home for a little bit when my mom got a call from her sister, Diane. She was letting us know that Ben had just posted on Facebook that he wasn't coming home yet afterall. He had no other way to let me know. We were so glad she called cause we had been just about to tell the kids he was coming home that night. She sure saved us a lot of difficulty had we had to take it back. I was disappointed but to finally have my babies with me made it all easier to deal with. It turned out the plane Ben was supposed to get on had had some stuff that needed to be fixed so they couldn't fly yet. I had been looking forward to the extra hand during my first night home. Finally, two days later on Thursday April 1st at about 11:30 pm Ben made it to the Idaho Falls airport. The weather was just bad enough that they almost rerouted them to SLC. We were so relieved that they didn't.

Since the twins came home, they have continued to improve. The eat a ton, especially Cumorah. Their temps are staying up fine and they are doing great. The kids are so excited! It is hard to keep them away. Israel has already made bottles for the babies a few times without permission and once made it as far as feeding it to Elijah and then burping him and rocking him to sleep before I discovered what he was doing. I thought he was sleeping the whole time lol. So I am really lacking on sleep but I am loving being the mom of twins and having my wonderful hubby here. I don't know how I will do it when he is gone, but I am just going to enjoy this while I can.