One year ago Zoey and Stella were healthy enough to come home for the first time from the NICU! They were both in the hospital for 2 weeks after birth to gain weight and for Zoey, to be able to stabilize her own body temperature (wondering if this had any connection to her extra cranial fluids?) and for Stella, to learn to eat well (which is definitely not a problem now!). They both came home together (yay!) and were so tiny that they still didn’t fill out preemie clothes, were just under 5 lbs. and the car seat straps didn’t tighten enough to fit around their bodies so we had to pad around them with NICU wash cloths. Packing them up in the NICU that night was so amazing and moving that we didn’t get any pictures of it, except for a grainy one on JD’s phone. There was so much stuff crammed into the stroller around the babies that they sent us home with that it seemed we were leaving for the wilderness for a year (well.. that’s kinda true). The NICU staff walked us out, gave hugs and all kinds of advice. I think we both had feelings of joy and relief mixed with overwhelming fear of what lie ahead. Just 2 days later we celebrated 6 years of being married!

I have very few memories of the last year, but some of the most vivid ones are of the NICU and the caring, reassuring conversations the nurses had with me while I sat in that darkened quiet room with my girls as they slept.  And the long, silent, awkward ride up to the NICU in the wheel chair by a hospital worker when I would come every day to visit but wasn’t well enough to walk there myself. Then there was the young, unmarried mother of twin 2 yr. old girls that found out 1 week before she delivered (about a week after I delivered our girls) that she was having another set of twins. They also turned out to be twin girls. She was pacing around in the NICU waiting room in her gown not even 24 hrs. after their birth in a horrible daze. She was laughing off and on too with a worried look on her face, while her family swirled around her on their phones spreading the incredible news.

Its amazing how life can change literally in one heartbeat- mom and babies’- and leave us reeling with so much joy and so much anxiety at once. I remember hanging on moment by moment. Calling the NICU every 3 hours, even through the night, to keep tabs on how much each ate, Zoey’s temperature, have a little conversation with their nurse and when they’d be home. It seemed like they would never come home and now, a year later, I can’t imagine not having a house full over chattering, bickering, dancing, smiling and screeching ladies. I think often of how lucky we are and how close we teetered to the fragile edge on many occasions through the pregnancy, birth and 1st year with Zoey and Stella. The gravity of those early, worrisome, sleepless and fleeting days will surely never leave me.

This weekend has got me thinking about “highs and lows”.  My great friends from the U of R Warner School (where I got my Masters in Science Education and still seem to not be able to tear myself away from) will be familiar with this if you ever spent any time in class with April (Dr. Luehmann)!  I used to love starting class hearing about everyone’s personal and professional highs and lows lately, realizing they are so intimately attached.  This reflection on how things are going has always stuck with me (kinda like Warner!) and I find myself often thinking this way, reevaluating moments, taking stock of experiences and just simply how things are going.  Its an awesome way to critically evaluate work, personal stuff, etc. and learn from your own experiences- highly recommend it!  The highs and lows from this weekend make me think about what our metaphorical “swimmies” just might be lately…

Rather than detail an update on our weekend, I’ll just highlight the “lows” so we can end on a high note!  Now that I write this I can look back on it with a sense of humor that was not at all visible last night!  The puke hit the fan- literally.  Lucy started throwing up about 2am last night and didn’t stop until about 7am-about 8 times.  We would change her and 1/2 hr. later here we go again.  Not sure what caused it and it seemed to disappear after this morning.  Poor kiddo.  We had her in the tub at 3am, which was so funny because she thought it was great and rather than peel her beloved bear blankie from her covered in thrown up strawberries and milk and cause her great emotional turmoil (if you know her well, you know the “special” relationship her bear blankie and her have), we just put him in the tub too.  It was so funny seeing this blankie floating around with her and she thought it was great (this was a surprising high actually!).  Might as well clean him too!  Then JD started in with it too- thank god not as bad, but he was also in rough shape!  I was praying that I wouldn’t be next.  Throwing up with stitches 8 inches across my abdomen and inside my belly didn’t sound like a good time!  Still thanking god that it didn’t get me as of yet.  The night/morning ended with me sleeping on the living room floor in a makeshift sleeping bag comforter thingy, JD on the couch and Lucy next to me on the portacrib mattress surrounded by waterproof bed pads and towels in anticipation of the next episode.  The rest of the day we laid low and tried to sleep a lot.  The bonus for us was that Lucy was really snuggly and we got some close family time we haven’t had in a while.  Eventhough I still have trouble physically caring for Lucy as I continue to heal, it was nice to not have to rush anywhere today.  So, in a way there was a silver lining.  As I write this, we are all much healthier but still tired.

Which leads me to the hardest part for me today.  Since most of us were sick last night, we decided not to go to the hospital today to visit the babies.  For one, we were dead tired and also I didn’t want to risk bringing anything into the intensive care unit from the outside and getting them sick.  They need all the calories they can get to stablize themselves, grow and eat well in order to come home.  When I called to tell the nurse we wouldn’t be in today I got the dissapointing news that Zoey had to go back in the incubator again last night.  This is the third time around and I am hoping that soon she’ll gain enough energy to keep her body temperature stable and not need to be in the incubator.  Zoey seems to eat well and is gaining weight, her challenge is just to keep her own body temperature stable and up.  The Dr. was saying that we could expect the babies home early this week, but now its looking like mid to late week.  Needless to say, we’ve had a lot of tears the last week and half, and again today, but we are trying to remember that they are not “sick”- just little- and we have to be thankful for that and that they will be home soon.

Ok- highs!  The major high for me this weekend was going to the hospital Saturday with family to have them visit and hold the babies.  We brought Lucy to play in the NICU family room with one of us while the rest of us went in to see the babies.  This was nice because I got to see her a lot also.  I even got to spend some alone time with her “chasing” her down the hospital hallway since I am feeling a bit better now.  It was so nice to share the babies with the rest of our family and makes the time we spend alone with them so far away from our home so much better.  Sitting in the NICU, especially at night, in the dark and quiet pod they are in there is sometimes “too” quiet and feels so isolated from real life and the relationships that usually start to develop when a baby is born and comes home.  Having our family come with us made it feel more real and also more happy.  Another big high is that Stella is now eating well and lots!  She no longer has her feeding tube (no more “Wilford Brimley white tape mustache to hold the tube in place!) and is doing it all on her own.  She has also been out of the incubator and in an open crib for some time now.  Now, she just needs to gain weight.  Also, both babies are nursing so well that I am hoping that transition at home will be easier.  Even the nurses are surprised at how good they are at it!  Whoo hooo!

From delivery, my red blood cell count was low since I lost a lot of blood and I have been anemic since.  So, I’ve been walking around a little ghostly and tired partly due to this- even the nurses keep mentioning it to me, which tells me I look not so great!  This is starting to subside, the belly is starting to shrink miraculously and the pain has really, really dulled.  I could not be more thankful for this, which allowed me to really enjoy these high moments this weekend!

The last surprising high was how funny Lucy was in between episodes of being sick last night and recovering today.  She was quickly back to her old self!  Its amazing how resilient they are and happy to just be in this world doing their “baby work” and appreciating the everday stuff.  We should all take some lessons from that!

So our metaphorical “swimmies” have to be the “highs” of life that bouy us up- Lucy, being with family, laughing and having a sense of humor and being thankful for what is going great while trying to have perspective on the “lows”.  Send us good vibes that tonight is full of sleep and dreams and this week is full of good news and homecomings!

What is strange though is that I don’t have Lucy with me during the day and can’t fully care for her when we are alone.  It is simply hard to get off the floor and get down onto the floor with her at this point, let alone changing her and lifting her in and out of her crib.  I watch her leave with JD in the morning for daycare and wonder what she is doing with other people and kids all day- that is the hardest part.  This morning, she crawled away from me to JD and called him Mama, giving him a hug, when she was sad.  I was so sad.  Due to me not being able to physically handle her, our relationship is definitely changing and she is relying on Dad more, which is sweet, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad sometimes about us losing some closeness.  I try to maintain perspective that this has to happen and is a natural part of growing a family and is seen in all cultures, but still at 6:30am I want to be the “Mama”!

Anyway, I have seen lots of women on a variety of house arrest, bed rest, etc. online and no one talks about this side-effect much.  Many talk about how boring it is and say in retrospect that they couldn’t have made it through the multiple pregnancy without having someone help with their older child or having their older child go to daycare, which I actually agree with at this point, but man its hard (financially too!).  Anyway, the weeks are going slowly.

So, in multiple pregnancies the pregnancy is counted in weeks more so than a normal “singleton” pregnancy.  A pregnancy with one baby is around 40 weeks and for twins 38 weeks is term.  This means that in a normal pregnancy, anything between 38-42 weeks is a normal term pregnancy and for twins anything from about 34-38 is normal.   They don’t let you continue beyond 38 weeks with twins because of the risk to the mother and babies for growth restriction and high blood pressure issues.  So, I am now at about 29 weeks (30 on Saturday- yay!) and counting.  To be on the safe side, the first milestone to meet is 32 weeks- June 27th.  Next, 34 weeks (in July).  Then, from there, anything else is “gravy” as my Dr. tells me.

Starting next Monday, I will be getting monitored at the hospital each week to check the babies for growth issues or for distress.  They will do a Biophysical profile (BPP) and Non-Stress Test (NST) on each twin (amniotic fluid, blood pressure, heart beat and response to stimulus, etc.) and an ultrasound about every other week.  As of last week, when I had my last ultrasound, each baby is about 2.5 lbs. and 15 inches long from head to feet!  Yikes, where is all that baby going!?  Each of them were “practice” breathing, which is great and shows that their lungs are developing well.  These weeks never felt so long before.  I heard that every day that the babies can stay within the womb, it saves 3 days in the NICU if they are very early.  At this point, if I delivered them, the average a baby stays in the NICU is about 40 days.  Each day is a huge relief and each week feels like crossing another finish line.  Hopefully things will stay this non-eventful for at least 5 more weeks!