Champs!

My boys are Champs! They are continually improving and steadily gaining weight. I see them every day and get to breastfeed them while Im there. They are both latching and taking more and more from me each day. I weigh them before I nurse them and then weigh them again afterwards to see how many mL's/grams they gain. They are also taking 4 bottle's a day and a week ago it took them 30-45 minutes to finish a bottle and now it only takes them 10-15 minutes! Ryder is a bit anemic right now so he is getting an iron supplement and both of them are finally off the caffeine therapy (they give premie's caffeine to keep their heart rates up and thus avoid dips/bradycardia's or apnea's). The pediatrician is going to take both my boys off their heart monitor's (another HUGE milestone) tomorrow or the day after....no more leads/lines and pulse oximeters! YAY!!! They still have their "gavage's" or NG tubes (nasogastric tube) because they are still getting a few feeds a day through that. They get too tired bottle feeding and breast feeding so they will feed them via NG tube so they can sleep through the odd feed. The last criteria that the boys need to meet in order to come home is 2 solid days where they took ALL oral feeds....meaning no more NG tube and the car seat test where they sit in the car seat for an hour while hooked up to a monitor for that hour to make sure they dont have any apnea's. They are about another week away from coming home and I cant wait. These last 6 weeks are starting to take a toll on me and I really want my baby's to come home! I am utterly exhausted from trying to be in two places at one time every single day as its both emotionally and physically draining. I spend so much time driving back and forth from the hospital, pumping/labeling/freezing my milk (I HATE pumping), 2-3 hours with my boys, then home to make Brooklyn dinner and chase after her the rest of the day, then the boy's laundry (all their sheets, receiving blankets and clothes that they are constantly peeing/spitting up on, then running around town to pick something up off Craigslist that we need for the twins, trying to figure out some easy recipe's for casserole's to fill my freezer and trying to figure out my EI claim (its a complicated one) and lastly, trying to figure out if we are going to put Brooklyn in day care 3 days a week OR if we are going to hire some help. Oh ya, and Chris and I have to rip out all the carpet upstairs for the new carpet install arriving on the 29th. I am so busy and the twins arent even home yet! Its only going to get busier.

I just miss my boys so much and am ready for them to come home! That being said, I am nervous about having a demanding two year old with two new born's at home. Im sure there will be some growing pains like any new addition to a family but I just worry that Brooklyn is going to try and get away with murder once she realizes I cant get up off the couch in a pinch to discipline her or take something away from her because Im nursing the twins. And as for potty training....we havn't stuck with it because Im gone every day and Chris works a lot so there hasnt been enough time to devote to it unfortunately.

The boys are neck in neck for weight and length...Ryder is 5 lbs 9oz and Cruz is 5lbs 8oz and they are both 18" in length (they were 15" when they were born).

Meeting her brother's for the first time...

Its been a while since I blogged last. I have been very busy with little Miss Thang who turned 2 on SUnday and visiting my boys at the hospital every day. Lots of changes.......

The boys finally broke the 5 lbs mark last night! Yahoo!!!! They are growing so fast, its incredible. They are so big now compared to the little 2 1/2 lbs they were after they were born and dropped weight to 2 lbs 9oz and 2 lbs 14 oz. The nurses said they had to cut off their hospital ID bracelets the other day and put on new ones because they were so skin tight.....proof that my little munchkins are growing quickly!

They are such amazing little boys. Ryder has been nursing off me for about 5 days now and Cruz latched for the first time yesterday. They are 35 weeks gestation tommorrow so we should see them master the suck, swallow, breath over the course of this next week as it tends to be harder for premie's to do all three at once until they are full term. Cruz would take a few sucks but then stop and get confused (poor guy)....Ryder has latched much faster and takes much more milk from the breast than his brother. I have been test weighing the boys before I breastfeed them and then I weigh them afterwards to see how many mL's they are getting from me which is pretty neat. One day Ryer got 28mL's off me and then yesterday he only took 5 mL's so there are some ups and downs but at least they are latching and both boys are working hard to figure it out. I am at the hospital every day and it still breaks my heart to have to say good-bye everyday....I want them to come home soooooo bad!!!!

I was thrilled to find a tiny, little strawberry birth mark on Ryder's tummy yesterday! I was over the moon when I found it because I worry we wont be able to tell them apart for some time. I mean I can still see that Cruz's skin has a much redder pigment to it right now while Ryder looks much more pale but that will change and of course Ryder has a bald spot on his head from where the nurses shaved it for his last IV bit once that all goes away, it will be very difficult to tell them apart...they really are identical and if Ryder get's upset, he turns red too and so then I really cant tell them apart unless I look for the little bald spot on his head so I was very happy to find a teeny, tiny birth mark on Ryder's tummy....although it's only the size of a poppy seed......its still enough to differentiate between them. Hopefully it doesnt disappear, lol. I remember my daughter having two little specks of a strawberry on her neck as a baby but it has since disappeared.

We still have no idea when the boys will come home. This next week is crucial because if we can get them to take ALL their feeds by breast or bottle, then they can remove the NG tubes and the boys will be closer to going home (the problem is that I can only go to the hospital once a day to put them on the breast as finding child care for Brooklyn 7 days a week is some times tricky). It all depends on how well this next week goes. They say most people go home around the time of their due date (which was Sept.22md) but Im hoping that since they have done so well this entire time, that they will be able to come home sooner than that. Only time will tell.

Brooklyn turned 2 on Sunday so I had a little party for her here with a few close friends/family. She loved the bouncy castle we put up in the back yard as did all the kiddies and it was a lot of fun for all. I planned the party pretty much the day before in one Costco trip as I have been very busy with commuting to the hospital to see the boys and taking care of Brooklyn while Chris is working. Unfortunately her Daddy had to work on Sunday so he missed the party but he was their in spirit. Thanks to everyone who came to make B's day so special:)

Brooklyn also met her twin brother's on Saturday for the very first time and she immediately leaned over their crib and tried to give the baby's a pacifier....I think she's going to be one great little helper. She was sweet and tried to give them a kiss but then Daddy had to take her to the family room on the NICU so Mama could feed the little munchkins. I cant wait until we are all home under one roof. I miss my boys so much!!

1 Month old!

Two peas in a pod
Cruz 1 month old

I can't believe the boys are 1 month old already! They were reunited into their crib again today (YAY!)....now lets hope that isolette life is permanently over! Ryder is doing much better although he is still hooked up to an IV and is almost finished his round of pre-cautionary antibiotics. The girth of his tummy has gone down quite a bit and he isnt grimacing in pain when anyone touches his belly. His blood work came back normal but he did test positive for occult blood in his stool so they plan to re-test his stool to see if it resolves but they have ruled out infection at this point and they are both doing really well again.

At one month Cruz is 4 lbs 5 oz and Ryder is 4 lbs 8 oz and they have both grown 2" in length and are now 17" long. They have been moved to a closer hospital which is much nicer but it's still 30 minutes each way (much better than an hour though) and Mama is pretty exhausted. I see them almost every single day depending on whether or not I have child care for our 2 year old and on top of everything we are trying to potty train Brooklyn but its extremely difficult when Im gone all the time and she has a different care giver almost every day as friends and family have volunteered when they can to watch her which I am very greatful for. Luckily she loves people and she is very social so she enjoys a new face every day but the potty training is next to impossible without consistency. I want to potty train her before the baby's come home because once they are home, I will be glued to the couch or the rocker feeding, burping and changing them around the clock and I wont be able to help her on the potty very much. I will have to rely on daddy when he's around and family when they are here.

We bought a used minivan a few days ago (its a 2009) and Im willing to bet the salesman has never seen two people so disappointed in having to buy a vehicle, ha ha. In fact, he even commented on our lack of enthusiasm, ha ha. Everyone says I will love it eventually and Im sure I will lugging three kids around and carrying two car seats but it was hard to trade in my vehicle and take a loss on it and it will be hard to go from leather interior to cloth seats and lose some of the features my 2006 CR-V had. We HATE the fact that the windows don't go down in the back seat and that you cant put 2 car seats on the back bench (only one according to the salesman) and of course we wanted the ceiling mounted DVD player for 3 kids but the upgrade to the next model up was an additional $8,000. We pick up the new van on Wednesday.

I guess every day cant be a good day....

Cruz minus his twin brother
Ryder back in the dreaded isolette
Ryder's head IV
Cruz on Aug.5th

Our twin boys have been plugging along just perfectly with virtually no hiccups at all so-to-speak but today was a disappointing day.....

The boys were really gassy on Friday and Saturday and were finally transferred to a closer hospital last night (yay!) but.....unfortunately Ryder is still suffering from a painful tummy that is getting continually more distended. It looks like a balloon and is quite taught. He cries out in pain when the nurses palpate it, poor guy is hurtin'. Cruz's gas has resolved and he is doing fine but today Ryder's vital signs alarm kept going off and he must have de-saturated 5-6 times in the first 15 minutes I was there! (ie.decrease in oxygen levels). He even changed color during one of them which was really anxiety provoking so I re-positioned him and stimulated him by rubbing his chest a bit as his nurse was on her break so his Mummy-Nurse was watching over him. Ryder hasn't had this many bradycardia's and de-sats ever (which means decreased heart rate and decrease in oxygen levels)! They had been running tests on Ryder all morning to rule things out like NEC which is "Necrotizing Enterocolitis", a condition where the intestines become infected and can begin to die. "This disease usually affects premature babies and is a serious condition that may require surgery and has a high morbidity and mortality rate" BUT THANKFULLY the Doctor believes he has ruled this out because Ryder doesn't have any other symptoms and the x-ray's he had done this morning showed lots of air in his tummy but no fluid, thank goodness. At this point the doctor also wants to rule out infection and sepsis so I spent all morning going back and forth between my two boys because they put Ryder back in an isolette (crappy!) for 48 hours to observe him (keep an eye on his distended tummy) start him on an IV again and separate him from his brother in case he does have in infection. Unfortunately they had to shave part of both their heads today to put the IV in his head (it's the easiest vein to access in premie's) so him and his brother have been separated yet again and both lost some hair to boot. They have since done a CBC (complete blood count) and are testing for occult blood in Ryder's stool in order to rule out infection. They also took blood from Cruz's head because the doctor is worried that Cruz may have an infection too if Ryder does. Not the kind of day I was expecting to have.

The doctor came to speak with me though and explained he wants to treat Ryder's problem aggressively because its better to error on the side of caution and he worries that if it is sepsis or infection, they dont want to wait too long to treat it with medicine so they have started Ryder on antibiotics and DW5 (sugar water) just in case and in order to keep his sugars up as he is now NPO (nothing by mouth). They tried to stimulate him to pass gas but he just cant and the one toot-toot he did have wasn't big enough to decrease the girth in his poor tummy. Im praying it's just really bad gas at this point and the doctor isn't too worried but once we get all his test results back in the next 48 hours, we should know what the problem is. Please pray for gas and flatulence:)

On a brighter note....I got to breastfeed baby Cruz this morning for the first time and that little 4 lbs monkey latched for a good 15 minutes! I couldnt believe it...it was so sweet:)

They generally dont latch quite this early but he is a champ in more ways than one! Melt my heart!!!!

I cant wait to see them again tommorrow....hopefully Ryder will pass some gas in the mean time and the girth of his poor distended tummy will go down. Poor lil' fella:(

So in love with my double blessings!

My boys change so quickly....in just a few days, Cruz had caught up a bit in regards to weight gain and I think they are starting to look more and more alike at this point. I thought they looked quite different for the first 3 1/2 weeks and now that Cruz's face is filling out, I see them starting to look identical.

They look amazing and were supposed to be transferred to a closer hospital tommorrow but while I was cuddling them today, the transfer got cancelled due to not enough beds in the NICU at the other hospital (the have to have 2 open beds to accept them). I got my hopes up as we have been waiting for this transfer for a week now! Bummer!!! Im pretty tired of the one hour commute through major highway construction and cant wait for them to be transferred out to the closer hospital.

Anyways, my boys had a grumpy day today (first time for them) and as soon as I got to the NICU the nurses told me my boys were "grizzly bears" today and believe there was something I ate that was excreted in my breast milk that made them really bloated and gassy!! Sorry boys, I have a weakness for asparagus and Im certain thats what it was because the only time my daughter was ever gassy or fussy was after I had eaten asparagus:(

I had a glimpse of the chaos to come once my boys are home....both of them crying and both of them wanting Mummy at the same time. Thankfully the nurse was there to hold one while I held the other and later Aunty Jess arrived to cuddle too but the nurse let me cuddle both of them at the same time again and they fell asleep instantly while I fell deeper in love staring down at my double blessings! They get cuter every day!! I am in love with the photo of the two of them up above.

I made some "oober" cute crib name tags for my boys yesterday and stuck them on their crib today....I think they are pretty FAB myself, ha ha. You can check them out in the third photo above. We (Jessica and I ) also did clay molds of Cruz's foot today and Ryder's hand.....Thanks Aunty Jess for helping me with that....it was quite a mess to do Ryder's hand...we had plaster everywhere for that one because he freaked out once we dipped his hand in the cold gel. I will post pictures once they dry tommorrow. I cant wait to see their little fingers and toes in clay....wonderful keepsakes!