Dreams and False Alarms

A wee update

Wow. What a difference a year makes, or two, or three. Last night as we drove home from the hospital, our usual route was blocked by a crafts faire, and I was reminded of walking through that faire on in the midst if the worst ivf ever. But here we are, 2 years later with children. My husband and I marvel at that word at least once a day. Children. Children we talk about, children whose diapers we change, childen we hold against our bodies, children who respond to our voices and our touch. It is an ineffible experience.
For those of you struggling to get pregnant, or wrestling about whether to move on to donor gametes, I hope you find some peace today.
I know, even amongst the dinging and binging of all the monitors in the nicu, two little boys are growing, and changing and waiting for their mama and daddy, and that fills me with such joy.
(baby A cuddling against my chest).

Saturday night smile fest!

Our wonderful primary weekend nurse caught both boys smiling--such a joy to see what their smiles look like.
Baby A is the first picture, and baby J, Mr big cheeks is the second one.
Enjoy!

Pumping my life away, waiting for a better day

Good lord, I hate pumping. Especially at 4am. Oy. I've gotten lots of my problems sorted, but it's just kind of crappy. I ended up renting a second pump because I realized that the right breast is a lot more sensitive than the left and the left was literally under stimulated. The lactation consultant had never seen this solution employed, but it does seem to be working, and that is what counts.

Ok, enough with the complining.

Let me tell you about my boys. Baby a is named Asa (pronounced Aysa), and baby b is named Judah. I'll eventually give them disguised names, but I thought you all deserved to know.

They had a really rough first week, well, 4 days. The were large in size, but had quite immature lungs. Turns out if you stress a fetus, their lungs develop faster (smoking, doing drugs). Guess my clean living backfired on all of us.

As a result of their immaturity, thy both had respiritory disease, and a form of baby emphasyma (sp?), called PIE. J, being smaller and less mature, got it worse than baby A, but they were both on the occilating, or jet ventilator. On wednesday the doctor prepared us for J staying on it for a month. That was an awful day and evening. The next day we spent time with the boys, worrying and crying. And then on Friday morning the doctor called my room to say that J was giving them a window to move to cpap, and she was taking out his tube. That's right a month turned out to be two days! His brother was a day behind, but by Sunday they were both on nasal canula.
Knock us all over with a feather.

On Thursday morning I realized I felt the beginnings of a cold, and so did husband, so we had to stay home until we are symptom free for 24 hours. The virus never fully manifested. On thurdsday I was a weepy mess, but I rested, and on Friday, felt much better, which means today it's back to my boys! I'm pretty sure we had "raveitis"--when you stay up too many nights in a row and you feel vaugly ill.
Now that I have a pumping bra, I'll try to post more often. Spending 1/2 of my waking hours clamping the pump to my breasts was sending me round the bend!
The first picture is of me with J, and the second is of husband with A.

29 weeks or 36 hours out of the ocean

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for your encouragement and excitement. The boys are doing well, and by that I mean they are doing their evolutionary dance if learning how to breathe in this non watery world. They both cried when they ce out, which was such a precious gift--we didn't dare count on it, but suprisingly baby B, the smaller if the two by three ounces, cried more! They were both on cpap and then sypap until around 11am yesterday, but then they were getting too tired, and needing too much oxygen, so they moved them to ventilators. This was the expectation set by the neonatologist we met on sat, so weren't suprised at this development.
Baby A, our 3.1 pounder, is on the 'regular ' ventilator, and was breathing at 21% for a good portion of the day. Of course, that is/was one of many things that happened, but every little bit of normalcy is so precious. Baby B, our 2.14 pounder is also on a ventilator, but the occilating kind, which we hope he can be weaned off of soon. He's also had his periods of using oxygen at 21%, so he is doing his best to become an air breather.
They are big in their way, but obviously so tiny. One of the night doctors thought they were 32 weekers, and urged me to take credit for their big size. I've decided that is a good idea--feeling as if I've done something good for them is so important for my well being.
They are so firece, and working so hard to catch up with all the demands this new world is putting on them.
I'm healing well from my c-section. I'm
up and moving around, today I'll shower, and I'm pumping.
Essentially, the pumping is a wake up call to my brain and breasts. I'm working towards having a big enough dollop of colostrum to have transported up to the nicu to smear inside their little cheeks. So far I've had some drops from each breast, which I've been assured is normal for 36 hours out. My right breast fits well into the pumping horn, and is starting to feel as if the ducts are waking up. The left breast, the bigger one, seems to be at odds with the horn, and I've already got a crack...ugh. We'll meet with the nicu lactation consultant when she is back from being sick.
I have more to say, but the pain meds are kicking in, and I need to rest.

Now it's really real

They are here! Everyone is doing great. Baby A 3 pounds 1 oz. Baby B 2 pounds 14 oz. Apgar scores 7 and 8 for both at 1 and 5 mins . There is a feeling of relief that everyone is healthy and well.

This is real

This is Amy again. They were finally able to get ahold of sarah's regular doc. She has been monitored all weekend by dr. L because her regular doc was out of town @ a conference. As soon as he heard how she was progressing he said he wanted to deliver the babies right away. He was here within 30 mins and now they are in the OR. Mom and dad were both a little shocked that it happened so fast. I just got booted out from the front of the OR door because I was hovering. Despite dad ripping his first pair of paper pants, everything went very smoothly in the transition from the labor and delivery room to the operating room. Before dad went into the OR he looked at me and said "this is real isn't it?" This is real.

Birthday?

This is Amy, Sarah's friend. Today or tomorrow may be the big day. She was admitted on Friday for contractions. They have been monitoring everyone. The boys are rockin and weighing in at 3 pounds or better. All the hearts are thumping away the boys are practicing their breathing and they got a mag sulfate treatment to boost their nervous systems. The nurses and doctors are taking good care of them. They are saying that once she is dailated 1 c they will take her in for the c section because baby a's booty is wedged against her cervix. Sarah want to say that the BEST nurse just came on duty! She laughs at all our jokes and calls the babies by their nicknames already. She also has magic hands and has been doing counter pressure on her back. Yeah for awesome nurses!

28 weeks...whew!

I just wrote this whole long post on my phone, thought I knew how to save it as a draft, and poof! It's gone. Grrrrrrrrrr.

So here's the long and the short of it: the babies are measuring a week ahead, and a smidge more, both have an estimated weight of 3.5 lbs, which, even accounting for the margin of error, means they are on the big side.

My cervix is sort of behaving. My internal is funnelling a bit more pronounced, but I'm not dialated at all, so that is good. Basically, we'll deliver early, sometime between 30 and 36 weeks. That is not new information. He does think I should have a second set of steroid shots at 30 weeks--we'll see what our doc says next week.

The next 6 to 8 weeks cannot pass quickly enough. This is scary and exhausting. It's also wonderful at times, but it's quite a lot of anxiety management to not get too wound up over every little thing. I do love these boys, but I'm really looking forward to holding the in my arms rather than in my belly!