Not only do I have an amazing family, but we have an amazing church family and friends as well. Melissa has lined up people for every day this week to come help out. Also, our two favorite NICU nurses, Janet and Staci, are coming on Thursday to visit! We have been overwhelmed with how generous everyone has been with their time!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Calling in Reinforcements!
I have the most AMAZING family in the world! I mean, there are not very many moms who will come stay with you for a month and pull night duty with you the entire time she is here! And sisters? I honestly don't think that anyone has sisters better than mine! Mom has been gone for a week and Melissa has already pulled night duty twice and has come to help during the day a few times too! Katie has found a friend to watch her kiddos and booked a flight to come all the way from Chicago to help for a few days. Oh, and did I mention that mom is coming back again next Wednesday? Honestly?? I am SO BLESSED!
Not only do I have an amazing family, but we have an amazing church family and friends as well. Melissa has lined up people for every day this week to come help out. Also, our two favorite NICU nurses, Janet and Staci, are coming on Thursday to visit! We have been overwhelmed with how generous everyone has been with their time!
Not only do I have an amazing family, but we have an amazing church family and friends as well. Melissa has lined up people for every day this week to come help out. Also, our two favorite NICU nurses, Janet and Staci, are coming on Thursday to visit! We have been overwhelmed with how generous everyone has been with their time!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Roller Coaster
Tomorrow marks 5 weeks that the girls have been home and it has been quite a roller coaster! I know that I posted a few weeks ago about happy babies, but they have been anything but happy babies (except for the occasional good few hours maybe once a week) since they have been home...I just haven't had time to update about our saga lately because I am constantly trying to pacify one or two screaming babies:(
When the girls were in the hospital, they were on a great schedule and were rarely fussy. I was there often enough and for long hours to know how my babies typically acted. We brought them home from the hospital on a Wednesday night, and by Thursday afternoon, they had morphed into babies I didn't even recognize! Phil and I kept saying, "They didn't do this in the hospital" or "They never acted like this in the hospital". We were clueless as to what was going on and what we should do about it.
The other day, a woman came to the house that was following up on their developmental progress since leaving the NICU. She asked me all sorts of questions about things that they are able to do, their sleep patterns (or lack thereof), eating patterns, etc. It was going fine until she asked me, "If you hold a toy out in front of them, do they reach for it?" I thought about her question and sadly realized that we had never held a toy in front of them. They are never happy for more than a few minutes here or there and so we never really "play" with them. After she left, I felt awful! What kind of mother have I been to these babies?
We have been to the doctor several times over the past few weeks because we seemed to have reached the end of our rope on multiple occasions and were hoping for some sort of relief. They have reflux and are now on Prevacid twice each day (they were only on it once per day for the first 4 weeks) and this seems to be helping a little bit. Once we switched to reflux meds twice per day, we felt that they were still screaming and still seemed to be in pain (however this pain did not seem to be from the reflux). After visiting our pediatrician again yesterday (he is really great and even called me today to see how they were doing), they are now on some gas drops that seem to be helping as well...at least today has been a good day. He seems to think that they have a VERY bad case of colic on top of a bad case of reflux. We have gotten our hopes up a few times after they have had a good day or a good morning or afternoon, only to have them crushed by several hours of incessant screaming. We even drove around for an hour and a half last night so that we could enjoy some peace and quiet!
We are praying for us and for them (and we know so many others are praying too and we are so thankful!), but have often asked each other, "Why is God doing this?" We don't know why God is doing this, but we do know that what He is doing through this is what is best for us even if we seem miserable and even if we have NO CLUE why anyone should have to endure such a thing. When I am tempted to throw myself a pity party and ask God, "Why me?" I am reminded of not only how faithful He has been through our entire pregnancy and NICU experience, but also of the families that I know that are dealing with things with their children that are so much more difficult and heart-wrenching and more permanent than what we are dealing with.
My prayer is that the Lord will give us patience to endure the upcoming weeks until the girls grow out of this and that we would rest in Him and His peace. He has blessed us with two beautiful and healthy little girls and I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that they are blessings...even when they are screaming!
When the girls were in the hospital, they were on a great schedule and were rarely fussy. I was there often enough and for long hours to know how my babies typically acted. We brought them home from the hospital on a Wednesday night, and by Thursday afternoon, they had morphed into babies I didn't even recognize! Phil and I kept saying, "They didn't do this in the hospital" or "They never acted like this in the hospital". We were clueless as to what was going on and what we should do about it.
The other day, a woman came to the house that was following up on their developmental progress since leaving the NICU. She asked me all sorts of questions about things that they are able to do, their sleep patterns (or lack thereof), eating patterns, etc. It was going fine until she asked me, "If you hold a toy out in front of them, do they reach for it?" I thought about her question and sadly realized that we had never held a toy in front of them. They are never happy for more than a few minutes here or there and so we never really "play" with them. After she left, I felt awful! What kind of mother have I been to these babies?
We have been to the doctor several times over the past few weeks because we seemed to have reached the end of our rope on multiple occasions and were hoping for some sort of relief. They have reflux and are now on Prevacid twice each day (they were only on it once per day for the first 4 weeks) and this seems to be helping a little bit. Once we switched to reflux meds twice per day, we felt that they were still screaming and still seemed to be in pain (however this pain did not seem to be from the reflux). After visiting our pediatrician again yesterday (he is really great and even called me today to see how they were doing), they are now on some gas drops that seem to be helping as well...at least today has been a good day. He seems to think that they have a VERY bad case of colic on top of a bad case of reflux. We have gotten our hopes up a few times after they have had a good day or a good morning or afternoon, only to have them crushed by several hours of incessant screaming. We even drove around for an hour and a half last night so that we could enjoy some peace and quiet!
We are praying for us and for them (and we know so many others are praying too and we are so thankful!), but have often asked each other, "Why is God doing this?" We don't know why God is doing this, but we do know that what He is doing through this is what is best for us even if we seem miserable and even if we have NO CLUE why anyone should have to endure such a thing. When I am tempted to throw myself a pity party and ask God, "Why me?" I am reminded of not only how faithful He has been through our entire pregnancy and NICU experience, but also of the families that I know that are dealing with things with their children that are so much more difficult and heart-wrenching and more permanent than what we are dealing with.
My prayer is that the Lord will give us patience to endure the upcoming weeks until the girls grow out of this and that we would rest in Him and His peace. He has blessed us with two beautiful and healthy little girls and I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that they are blessings...even when they are screaming!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Cute Pictures From the Week
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| Daddy and his girls |
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| Sweet Anna |
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| Sweet Kate |
Sleeping beauties...don't be fooled, this is a rare moment!
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| Sisters! |
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Just Call Me Martha Stewart
Melissa is definitely the crafty and creative one in the family...but I decided I would give this project my best shot! A friend of mine came to the house today to take pictures of the girls and I decided to make the girls some tutus! I can't wait to see how the pictures turned out!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
An Afternoon Out
On Wednesday, Charlotte and Becky came to the house and watched the girls for a few hours while mom, Lis, and I went to get pedicures. Of course the weeks leading up to this we had days warm enough to wear flip flops, but now it is in the 30's...go figure!
Thank you Charlotte and Becky for watching the girls and thank you mom for pampering me!!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Happy Babies
Well, thankfully the drastic change in my diet seems to have made a HUGE difference! (Not to mention helped me out a bit - I am only 4 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight!) Hopefully I can start introducing foods little by little soon, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I will have to avoid dairy and tomatoes/acidic foods for as long as I continue to nurse. Don't these sweet babies seem so much happier??
Getting out of the House
The weather here has been unseasonably warm and absolutely gorgeous! Since we don't want to take the girls out anywhere (it being RSV season and all...our neighbor's baby actually just had RSV:( poor little guy), we have taken advantage of the great weather and taken several walks through the neighborhood. Last week Melissa came over and we all went for a walk! Mom and I have taken several walks as well, but she will never let me even take her picture, let alone post it to the blog!
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