Stinky Boys

After tucking them in tonight, I checked on the boys.  A foul odor wafted by when I opened the door.  It could only mean one thing: someone had a big poo.  Matthew was snoozing quietly, but poor little Nathan was tossing and grunting.  Sure enough, the stink intensified near his crib.  I took him downstairs to daddy so I could finally take a shower *smirk*.  

Tonight's anecdote reminded me of something that happened when they boys were less than a week old.  They were staying in the NICU, each of them in their own little mini crib.  Matthew and Nathan were occupying two of the seven cribs in the Level II NICU and their corner was partitioned off with a curtain.  It was the Sunday after they were born and we were in a rush to get to the hospital to see our babies because it was heartbreaking to be at home without them.

Because of their prematurity, their little gastrointestinal systems were immature.  They weren't exactly working very efficiently, so when they had gas, they had GAS!  Seriously, their little "pooties" were as potent as a trucker's after Old Country Buffet.  The NICU nurses, who had seen it ALL, were even holding their breaths and commenting, "Wow, little fella!" when they changed their diapers.  Whew, we had stinky boys!

(Granted, it could have been the prune juice, Mylanta, Senokot and fiber muffins I passed on to them through the breast milk.  But the nurses say no, so I will no longer take responsibility for the smelliness.)

That Sunday morning, we were anxious to see our babies, anxious to hold them and snuggle them and most of all, to bring them home.  We walked ever so s.l.o.w.l.y from the parking garage, as my feet were swollen like footballs.  I think that may have been the morning that a nurse(!) saw me waddling down the hallway, holding my belly up so as not to pull on my recent incision, and say, "better keep that baby in there a few more weeks!"  What?!  I had no energy or sense of humor to give her a piece of my mind at that moment, so I tried to give her a dirty look.  It's kind of funny now!

We flashed our badges to get in, greeted the nurses and asked for a recap of the night, even though I already knew how it went because I'd called during the night, and walked over to our little corner.  Pulling back the curtain, we were slapped in the face with a wall of sewer stink!  The whole corner of the room reeked!

We couldn't help but laugh out loud that we had the stinkiest babies in the NICU.   To this day, we wonder if the nurses remember them as The Stinky Aulds Boys? 

Our last moment in the NICU, packing Nathan up to take him home on June 4.