Happy Eleven Months!

Our babies turned 11 months old yesterday!  We can hardly believe it!  What a fun weekend we had doing "big boy" stuff to celebrate.  In a nutshell:

Nathan thinks tooth-brushing is just HILARIOUS!!

Matthew takes it very seriously (he might become a dentist: we've found him "drilling" his teeth with the Little Tykes battery-operated drill!)

Can you believe that?  How many people live here?

The boys took their last ride in their baby "bucket" seats up to the NICU reunion in St. Paul.

Here's an oldie: riding at about a month old! (Nathan's in the green hat, of course)

Children's St. Paul NICU's hallways are lined with quilts depicting their NICU survivors.  Matthew and Nathan have a patch on this year's quilt!  It's in Column 1, Row 6: you should recognize their birth announcement photo, trimmed in mint green.

Here's our family picture taken at the reunion...aren't we cute?  It almost looks like we're outside!

The boys loved playing with the parachute

and watching the big kids in the bounce house.  Nathan really wanted to join them!

Maybe next year we will join the March of Dimes Walk for Babies that they did before the reunion...it looked like everyone had a lot of fun walking!

Roar!  We also played with cousin E's old dragon costume!

We seriously have the cutest kids!  It's been the best 11 months of our lives!

Fight for Preemies

November 17 is the March of Dimes fight for preemies day.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would learn so much about preemies, but I did. 

We knew that carrying twins, I was at risk of giving birth prematurely.  However, I had a fairly easy, uncomplicated pregnancy.  Every doctor's visit went well; the babies were on track and growing steadily.  Even though I was getting uncomfortable during the eighth month, I felt certain that I would make it to my 38-week sceduled c-section date.

I wish now that I would have paid closer attention during our Expecting Multiples class the night they talked about preemies.  All I remember was smirking at my husband when the instructor said that half of the couples in the room would wind up having one or both babies spend time in the NICU, according to statistics.  Not us, I thought, these babes are showing no signs of wanting out.  I kept the paperwork handed out that night, thinking, I won't need this, but I'll keep it just in case.

The funny thing about keeping it just in case?  I never had time to read it.  My water broke and the boys were born four hours later.  You can read the birth story here. 

I had on-the-job training.  Here are a few things I learned:

1. Babies learn to suck, swallow and breathe during gestational week 36.  Since my boys were born at 35 weeks, 3 days, they were whisked to the NICU immediately.
2. They have to be fed through a gavage tube until they can do it on their own.  Nathan pulled his out more times than we could count.  That's why you see extra tape on his face in this photo.
3.  Preemies need to maintain their body temperatures outside their isolette.  Nathan was the first one weaned off of it, but then his temperature dropped and he had to go back in for another two days.  Here you see Matthew the day they were born in his isolette.  He spent 3 days in there.
4. They can't go home until they've accomplished breathing on their own, eating orally, and maintaining body temperature.  Matthew experienced respiratory distress at birth, but quickly recovered and did not need oxygen.  It took us a total of ten more days to get both boys' temperatures correct and eating orally. 
5. The most important lesson I leared: ours is a happy story.  We are the fortunate ones.  We were sent from the fancy-pants Level III NICU down to a less-comfortable room in Level II NICU, but soon learned that meant we were showing signs of going home soon.  In the bone-weary post-partum days of NICU life, "soon" sounded like "forever."  Seven days later, we took both boys home, a dream come true for the other preemies with whom we shared the room.
   

Of course, I learned invaluable lessons on breastfeeding and caring for preemies from the staff at Children's St. Paul.  The wonderful nurses who cared for them were kind and gentle; I owe them a debt of gratitude for putting up with me and my post-partum dimentia! I've heard that they host a NICU reunion every spring - I hope that's true so we can show off our babies, who, by the way, are now 15 POUNDS EACH!  That's almost triple their 5 lb, 5oz and 5 lb, 9 oz birthweights.

Nathan and Mom at birth, and two weeks ago. 

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.