We had a peaceful weekend after a week of doctor visits and trips to the pharmacy. Zach’s eye and Marissa’s tummy are both doing so well! We went to church yesterday, then out to lunch, and they were angels. Since Marissa is a rather noisy digester, I was sure she was going to work on a diaper rather vocally right during the service, but she managed to grunt only a few times 🙂 They both have the cutest little diabolical cackle… and they use it so inappropriately! We’ll say something funny, and one of them will say, “He he he!” Then the other one will pipe in for the next comment. They are already using turn-taking conversationally… we’ll talk to them or to each other near them, and they wait to share their thoughts until the conversational pause. Both of them talk to their bottles as well. Matt found a little turtle toy that has a mirror on it, and both babies were entranced by the adorable face staring back at them. Zach smiled at himself even!
We’ve taken some great pictures, notably in one preemie outfit that Zach has nearly outgrown. His Grandpa Olson may not get to see him in it in person if he keeps growing constantly, so we had to document the outfit for him. If the camera wasn’t upstairs, I’d upload it right now. Sometime later. You’ll see it soon, Grandpa-O and you’d definitely approve.
Thanks for your prayers for us and our babies. We’re so thrilled about them (they are 3 weeks old tomorrow!). We’re finding time to sleep and we even found time to finish Heroes, Season One. Yowza! That show is so engaging– we love it!
Monthly Archives: September 2007
honest
This is hard. Basic care of feeding, diapering and putting babies to sleep can be exhausting every 3 hours. I assume all parents out there already know that and all non-parents assume that is a no-brainer:) We’d be up every 3 hours with 1 baby or 14 🙂 But overlaying those responsibilities with the extra medical concerns of preemies adds a mental tax that I didn’t plan for and don’t know how to handle. It doesn’t help that I’m still sick myself from this sinus infection!
Marissa was almost hospitalized again today. She’s been eating SO very well, but her digestive system isn’t processing food out of her as quickly as she can cram it in. Her little abdomen was distended this morning to the point of being rock-hard and completely round. She isn’t constipated. We called, we got an appointment, and I spent the late morning and entire afternoon at the pediatrician’s office with her. We were seen, she had an x-ray (at 2.5 weeks, that’s so early!), then lab work (pricking her heel and squeezing out a tube of blood), then lab work again because they did it wrong the first time, then another peds appointment to check out her testing results. Thankfully, I got to bring her home this afternoon and she is recovering and doing great. She was amazing all day and I was glad my mom was here to take care of Zach at home. I can’t imagine how much more stressful it would have been to bring him along and drag them both (and their monitors and carseats) from room to room for all her tests. Her results came back with good news– it isn’t a blood supply issue to her abdomen issue (which would create a whole whirlwind of other problems!) and she isn’t constipated and she is resolving things on her own. She’s full of lots of air in a painful place where air shouldn’t be: the small intestine. That has been resolving slowly throughout the day and we’re watching her closely. It is such hard work for her to digest right now… she squeals in pain sometimes and it’s heart-breaking. I was glad her pediatrician thought that re-hospitalizing her may cause more problems than help and that with constant monitoring, we can wait and see, because I can’t imagine the twins apart from one another for more than short periods of time. We’d have done whatever she needed, but I just know that they especially need each other right now. I need them too!
Sigh. With each new problem area that has come up, I’m amazed at how well they come through and how we always avert disaster, though sometimes narrowly. The Lord is taking such good care of the babies and He’s taking care of me too. I was so sick when I had my c-section and getting sicker by the minute! But I had great medical care that saved my life and the lives of our babies. The Lord continues to rescue us each time. It’s just really hard. Supposedly, it’s all a piece of cake after I get them potty-trained, or so a very sweet older woman who mothered twins told me. I’m looking forward to this piece of cake!!! Cream cheese frosting, please.
Start ’em early, I always say…
Well, our babies have been prescribed caffeine since their NICU days to help regulate their apnea. It’s 2007, baby! You’ve got to start life-long addictions early on! Who discovered that caffeine can even out a tiny person’s breathing? I picture some researcher drinking Mountain Dew at 3am trying to make her numbers work out and having an epiphany as she stared at her 24 oz. beverage 🙂
I had planned to upload the movie I took of the babies’ responses to caffeine, but you’ll have to settle for these pictures until I figure out how to do that. How do you respond to caffeine? Do you conk out like Zach (and Matt) or get wild and crazy like Marissa (and Jaime)?
     
    
    
    
Poor Zach’s eye gets all crusty from his eye infection, but he has a beautiful smile! And, not to be outdone, he is only slightly taller when sitting than the short side of a diaper cloth 🙂
Finally, I got to sleep in this morning during the 7am feeding. When I woke up, I found this (Zach is on the left): What have Grammy and Daddy done to you, sweet boy? They claim you pooped through all the other swaddler options! Ooo, let me join in the shaming and photograph you and show everyone online. Don’t worry, you don’t have to feel ashamed… it’s your horrible parents who did this and everyone understands that 🙂 And here’s how he feels about it (while wearing my favorite preemie outfit of his):
Hard day
Today kind of sucked, and it is all causationally connected to one size newborn diaper, beginning at approximately 7am this morning.
Zach looked all healed from his circumcision and was doing great. We had been putting vaseline on him to keep things from getting stuck together, but he was all better. This morning, his diaper caught a bit of dry skin and peeled it back, causing him to start bleeding (not to mention the pain I’m sure he was in!) I was asleep because I took the 7am shift as my one feeding break for this 24 hour period. I was woken up by Mom and Matt and sent to the store to get some vaseline to help the poor little guy while they took care of him and Marissa. We called his pediatrician to see if he needed to come in and also to announce that his eye infection has moved to the other eye as well. Should we start treating both eyes?
The pediatrician called back and we found out that the bacteria culture came back and the eye ointment he was on doesn’t help clear out that particular bacteria, so we need to go get a different one from the pharmacy. Why have we been medicating him for 3 days with the wrong thing and not been told that until we call them ourselves about it??? Ugh.
I lost another sleep segment to errand-running, including getting some new eye meds for poor Zach, who is handling everything beautifully! The babies have been breast-feeding for 10 minutes of 2 meals a day, which is awesome for them! Both of them are now chugging food like there’s no tomorrow, and we have no concerns about either of them getting enough. It is SO great. Actually, we now have the opposite feeding concerns– how will we have enough milk for these voracious appetites? 🙂 Being sick and on sinus infection meds has made me less able to keep up with them. I hope we don’t run out!
I made it back from errands in time to feed them at 1pm, without time to eat breakfast or lunch yet. I barely kept my eyes open for that one, got them asleep, ate, pumped, and took a small nap.
I was asleep when Matt called so he didn’t know I ran errands and ran some of the same ones. That sucked because he had to waste time away from home taking care of things that were already set! We didn’t miscommunicate, we just didn’t have any opportunities to communicate. It was that sort of day.
Thankfully, we had wonderful food provided to us for dinner and got through an especially jaw-dropping Heroes episode. Now I’m beyond wiped out and probably headed to bed.
Sigh. I felt especially well-rested yesterday for our 3 year, 3 month anniversary, but today kind of blew up. I’m just glad our little guy is healing again and that both Zach and Marissa are eating like champions and filling out adorably (they finally have cute chubby baby cheeks) and that everyone survived.
Pictures
Here are some picture updates:
First sponge bath at home for Marissa:
First sponge bath at home for Zach:
Marissa’s sweet smile:
Marissa’s sitting height is exactly the short side of one diaper cloth! We’ll do a Zach vs. the diaper cloth photo later today when his eye feels better. He’s rather groggy and goopy with eye cream these days. Here he is with Grammy. We haven’t been cuddling them as closely together in their sleep because we don’t want any eye infection germs to pass between them. So they usurped our authority and worked it out themselves! Here Marissa has wormed over to Zach who was bonking her head gently with his hand when I found them this morning.
