Week One

The boys are a week old today, and what a very strange week it has been. The week was a bit surreal, a bit of an emotional roller coaster, and included a holiday. What madness!

My thoughts are absolutely all over the place, so here is the best I can do at summarizing what's been going on.

I was discharged from the hospital on Monday, which was great news because it gave me a lot more freedom to spend time with L and M. (They sound like an episode of Sesame Street - they were also brought to us by the number 2!) Unfortunately, on Monday afternoon we learned that the time together would definitely be spent in the hospital. Due to their rather unusual birth story(ies), and I promise to share my rambling version of it/them soon, they needed to stay on antibiotics for at least seven days, which meant definite hospital time for the week.

Through the week, they have done well and have made all the progress their medical team would expect for preemies, especially given that boys are apparently slower to catch on to life in the great big world than are girls. (Such lazy little boys!) While we have had some issues along the way, right now we have two pretty healthy looking babies who are eating, sleeping, and pooping well. They are still not taking all their food orally at every meal, but Leon is nursing like a champ and taking almost all of his, and Michael is taking more than half orally, which their doctor believes is excellent progress. Apparently with premature babies, there comes a day where everything just clicks into place, and based on their efforts so far, everyone is sure that day for eating will come very soon for these two since they are improving every day.

However, the boys are also facing a very serious issue that has nothing to do with being preemies. In short, the boys are just not producing enough white blood cells, which are needed to fight infection, and everyone is baffled as to why. The NICU at our hospital is considered the second best in the state, following only behind the departments at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. (I'm guessing they are combined or else there is some very odd math going on.) Those departments have already been consulted, and the physicians there are also currently scratching their heads as the boys seem to be happy and healthy in every other way. They are running a battery of tests on them to essentially start ruling out what isn't causing the problem, and they are also going to start performing blood work on me. Right now no one knows the problem, or really what it will mean, so Jeff and I are just doing our best to take things one day at a time and focus on keeping the boys happy and healthy in every other way. I'm learning to fight for them, in a nice way, and so far this has resulted in them being moved closer together (they were in two separate halls), allowed them to breastfeed, and now means they can spend some time together every day.

Meanwhile R is adjusting to life as a big sister, and thankfully she doesn't know any other way of being a big sister. She is technically only allowed to visit the boys once a week. We decided that meant one day per week, and she made two trips to the hospital last Sunday. On her first trip, she was a little overwhelmed and her only comment was "teeny, tiny baby" when she saw M. After some explanation that Mommy had a room at the hospital, and L and M each had their own rooms, she did better on her second visit. She sang to the boys and ended each visit with "Bye, M!" and "Bye, L!" The boys had IVs in their heads since they rip them out every where else, but this didn't seem to bother her. She just looked at them and said, "Medicine!" and knew it was just like Mommy's medicine.

Since we found out about the white blood cell issue, I have been staying at the hospital most of the time, going around 8:00 p.m. and staying til 2:00 p.m. the next day which allows me to be there for 5 of the boys' 6 feedings a day. In between, I am home to nap, shower, and spend time with R. She seems to be doing okay with this schedule as I am still spending more time with her than I do when I go to work. She hasn't quite discovered that I don't get weekends off, but with Gran here to help and take her on adventures, I doubt she'll mind.

R was a big fan of Thanksgiving, and her she enjoyed many of the holiday traditions, even if I wasn't around for most of the day. She watched the parade in the morning, and was happy to fill me in on the details I missed, including Dora and Abby flying by and waving. She watched football in the afternoon with Jeff, and she ate turkey for dinner. But her take on Thanksgiving is similar to her take on birthdays. If birthdays mean cupcakes, Thanksgiving means, "Pump-kin pie!!!" and the pie was CLEARLY the highlight of her day. After all the other drama of the week, we enjoyed just kicking back and eating some pump-kin pie too!