Three Months!

Check out our new digs - we've graduated to the feeder/grower room!

To my sweet, sweet babies-

It's been 3 months since you've come into my life. How has it been 3 months already?!? That is a quarter of a year - you are 1/4th of the way to 1 and that blows my mind. My time with you is flying by and you both are growing so fast!



Audrey, my little Sassy girl. Your personality is SO big and your cheeks are even bigger! You weighed 1 pound 5 ounces when you were born, and as of yesterday you weigh 5 pounds 7 ounces. You still love your daddy more than anything and you eat like a champ. The nurses try to keep you to a schedule but you're on your own time now, and most of that time is awake time. You're alert a lot more often and I absolutely cherish our "girl talk" time. I tell you all about the world and you stare at me with those HUGE eyes and make the best faces and I love it so much.



My handsome little Grayson. You are such a ladies man! The nurses all love to snuggle you and you love them all right back. You got your daddy's sleeping habits, which is to say you sleep a LOT and again, I hope you keep it up once you get home. You're a very serious baby and when you're awake you always look around like you are trying SO hard to understand the world around you, and I love the faces you give me when I'm talking to you. You have just about outgrown your preemie sized clothes (ok, you have totally outgrown them but I'm determined to get at least one wear out of everything) and you now weigh 5 pounds 10 ounces!

I love you two so very very much. Every night I go to bed thinking that there is no way possible that I could ever love you more, and every morning I wake up and that love has grown tremedously. You two are the most amazing babies.

All the way to the moon and back-
Your mama

Happy Father's Day

Audrey got his eyes. Grayson got his hands. I hope they both get his unbeliveably witty sense of humor, his sense of strength in adversity, and his ability to love without boundaries. I hope Grayson grows up to be just like him and I hope Audrey grows up to marry someone just like him. He is the very best father I could have ever hoped to have for my children.



Watching you fall in love with our babies has made me fall in love with you all over again. Happy Father's Day, honey.



PS And a special shout out to my very own Daddy... thank you for for setting a fantastic example of what a father should be and thank you for loving me regardless of my teenage years. I love you!

Eating My Words

I may have been wrong yesterday when I said that baby boy clothes aren't cute.

Because this frog hat?



It's totally giving the butt ruffles a run for their money.

Sugar and Spice

Wanna know what one of my new favorite parts of having a little girl is?

Are you ready?

Can you handle the cute?



BUTT RUFFLES! OMG!

(Don't worry Grayson, I still think you're handsome. But little girl clothes are so much cuter.)

This Love That Surpasses Knowledge

http://tipsontriplets.wordpress.com/

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook today, asking prayers for this family. They lost their triplets at 22 weeks.

22 weeks.

I was put into the hospital at 22 weeks. I was in labor at 22 weeks. Their story could so easily have been my story.

Reading this has brought up so many, many emotions, some I've worked through once already and some I've been ignoring and some I didn't even know I had. That story - it mirrors mine in so many ways. Praying for extra days, just one more day, just get us to that point. Scary statistics and questions that no parents-to-be should never be asked to answer. Begging the doctors for shots and pills and the magic silver bullet that would just fix it and save my babies. Those were some of the darkest, scariest days of my life and I can recall those emotions so vividly and reading those words - my words, but on someone else's story - has brought those emotions raging back.

And it has shown me, again, how profoundly blessed I am.

I beat those odds. I was able to make those few more days and now I have my babies. We have had a long and hard NICU stay but I have my babies. Babies that are not only alive but that are healthy and growing and thriving and are, eventually, coming home with me.

My journey has been hard but it could have been so much harder. My story could have had their ending. I skirted the edge of that pain, I felt the suggestion of what it could have been, and to have to feel the full brunt of that is something that I cannot even comprehend. My heart aches for that family. If you can spare a prayer tonight, send one up for them and their sweet angel babies.

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:16-19

Another Post About My Boobs

Remember that time I got an infection and had to dump all my milk? And how I was so worried that I would never be able to catch up and my children would starve?




Nevermind.

Pour Out Your Hearts

Today was a much better day! The cupcake-and-sleep combo did me wonders.

The babies had a better day, too. They didn't get cupcakes unfortunately, but they did both a round of "just in case" antibiotics and some fresh blood so they were all happy and pink and pretty (Stephanie Meyer would be so jealous).

Today was bath and weight day too, and my kids have hit a definite growth spurt. The last time they were weighed was Thursday, and Grayson was 4lb2oz and Audrey was 3lb15oz. Today? FOUR POUNDS TEN OUNCES and FOUR POUNDS FIVE OUNCES. Holy moly! We officially have two 4 pound babies, and we're totally knocking on 5 pounds. I'm afraid Grayson is going to outgrow all his preemie stuff before I even get to put him in it.

Wanna see what else we have been up to?




Open beds! Grayson is in a normal, regular ol' full-term newborn crib! Audrey still needs a bed with a warmer but we are OUT of the isolettes! (Also, I'm very glad that our NICU's care level is not directly proportionate with the age of some of it's equipment. Nice wood paneling, no?)




PO feeds! I have to be totally honest and tell you that I have no idea what PO stands for but I DO know that it means we can feed the babies by mouth! Evey day we get to try one bottle feed and one breastfeed (don't worry, I won't share those pictures here) with both babies. Miss Piggy Pants has taken to it like a champ, and Grayson is good while he can stay awake which unfotunately isn't for long. It'll take practice but this is another huge step for my babies!

Also? The nurses have taken to saying "two to four weeks" now instead of "four to six weeks". Be still my heart.

Trust in Him at all times, o people, pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. -Psalm 62:8

Mama Said

I'm having a day.

Don't worry, everything is ok with the babies.

And really, I'm fine too. We've been incredibly blessed these last 10 weeks with a relitively smooth NICU stay. (Sidenote: how has it been 10 weeks already?!?) It's just that sometimes? It can be totally overwhelming. And exhausting, in every sense of the word. And very "omg if I have to walk down this hall and be buzzed in through these doors one more time in my life I'm going to scream". Right now is one of those times for me.

You're not supposed to know things about the other babies, but in a bay-style NICU it's hard not to. And this week, I overheard that the baby next to Audrey has NEC. I'm not going to tell you about NEC - not because I don't want to but because as a preemie mom it is probably my second biggest fear - and typing out the gory details that a NEC diagnosis can include would probably be the proverbial straw for this camel. A transport team came yesterday and packed that little baby up and shuttled him to a bigger hospital that is better equipped to deal with his diagnosis. That poor little guy has been weighing on my heart.

Then Audrey had to get a blood transfusion today. There's nothing even wrong with that, she's started making her own red blood cells but she's not quite making them fast enough. She's a little tired and the extra blood will probably give her a boost. But they had to start and IV to do the transfusion. And we got all our IVs out weeks ago, and it was such a "one more step forward" kind of thing, and now we're back to the needles. And watching your baby get stuck is never ever a fun thing. On top of that, we missed our once-a-day breastfeeding because of it, which was a major major bummer for me.

So now, I'm going to go eat a cupcake. And maybe skip my 3AM pumping so that I can get some good sleep. And I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning!

These Days

We've been busy around here! There have been lots and lots of new things going on, plus I have lots of back-logged stuff to tell you about. Let's catch up, shall we?

-We had our March of Dimes walk on May 7. I raised around $350 which isn't much, but I started only a week before so I was pretty darn proud! I had some wonderful friends walk with me and we saw a lot of our nurses there too. It was awesome to hear so many NICU success stories and so fufilling do be proactive about supporting my babies. I can't wait to really get involved with next year's walk!




-I had my very first Mother's Day and Chris and the nurses made it SO special. I got breakfast in bed, some gorgeous flowers, cards from Chris, the babies AND the dogs, and charms for my Pandora bracelet. Chris got me a charm with the babies' birthstone, and when I went to visit the babies they both had charms for me too (a little girl charm from Audrey and a little boy charm from Grayson). Chris even had one of the nurses take some awesome pictures of the surprise!




-I went back to work to finish out the three and a half weeks that were left in the school year. It was bittersweet, and that's all I'll say about it (because, you know, writing unflattering things about people on the internet makes it public). My school friends managed to sqeeze out a little time to throw me the most wonderful shower though!




Annnnd here we are! It's June now, which means I can officially say "the babies will be home by next month" which is kind of exciting (and by "kind of" I mean OHMYGOODNESSEXCITING). Stay tuned for a big update about all the baby progress going on!