A year ago...

One year ago today I was headed to a hospital 75 miles away to be hopsitalized for the remainder of my pregnancy. I was 24 weeks pregnant and our goal was to reach 32 weeks. I prayed I'd make it the whole 8 weeks there so that I could have 2 healthy babies. I was devastated to leave my family, my sweet boys who didn't fully understand that Mommy would not be home for a LONG time. Ian was afraid, and overwhelmed. I know he didn't want to leave me there. Knowing that this was it, the day we had been hoping we'd make it to, and dreading all at the same time. We both knew that when we all left that hospital together again our lives would never be the same. We would leave either with our two babies, with one baby, or with no babies.

I was SO VERY AFRAID, an emotional wreck, but DETERMINED to do what was best for the two sweet girls growing inside me. Everyday knowing that they could hurt eachother while in the womb, possibly leading to a fatality of one or both babies was almost too much to bare. Every move they made, every kick, every hiccup I would wonder, pray, hope that they didn't get too wrapped up around eachother, that they didn't just pull their already knotted umbilical cords tighter, too tight. Being in the hospital would alleviate some of those constant fears. I knew I'd be monitored closely, that's why I was there after all to save my babies. The sacrafices we made then seem so trivial and small now one year later, yet it still feels so fresh, so raw. Like it only happened weeks ago not a YEAR ago.

And of course I didn't make it the entire 8 weeks in the hospital, though while I was there, living that moment, it felt like eternity. I made it just 3 weeks. And had I not been hospitalized and monitored so closely our girls would not be here today. Their cord accident was detected, their heart rates too low, and they were delivered. 12 weeks before they should've come into this world. But they were alive, and so BEAUTIFUL! God gave us the miracle we prayed for.

This year on Halloween we will be trick or treating, and handing out candy with ALL of our children. No fear, just fun, just us as a family.

She likes it...She REALLY likes it!

Madelyn ate her first full container of baby food! It was sweet potatoes, and she loved them. No gagging, no spitting it out, she ate them, and did such a good job. I couldn't believe that when I kept offering her bites she just kept opening, (willingly) and ate. Now we've tried sweet potatoes lots of times, and she'd eat them, but she's never eaten this well. She's actually doing better with solids than Katelyn! It's funny because K does so well with her bottles, & Mady is starting to do better with solids. They are complete opposites. I'm just so excited, this is a breakthrough people!!! I really hope she keeps it up and starts enjoying food. YAY MADY!!!












YUMMMMY!

Random picutres & baby news

Just some random pictures from the past week or two.

Katelyn having her first teething biscuit. Actually it was a baby cookie which I now know is different from a teething biscuit. She gagged horribly on it. It was way too soft for her.





Some brotherly love. Aaron hangin with Mady, watching blue's clues.







I don't know when it happened exactly but I've turned into Mom. Not mommy, not mama. And I get this look now with the MA-OM. Nice!




They've started fighting over toys. It's cute for now, but I know it's just a matter of time when it turns to screaming, and hair pulling!





So the well checks went well last week. It took about 2 hrs with their pediatrician and the nurse to get through it. But Dr. F is great about taking all the time we need. He never rushes us, in fact he took Mady out for a walk around the the clinic, and in his office for a bit. I love that he really LOVES the kids he works with. I'm so glad we've found that kind of Dr. that we will always have a great relationship with, and we trust.

Anyway...the girls wieghed in at 14 lbs 12 oz. for Katelyn, and 13lbs 10 oz. for Madelyn. Not so good for either one, especially not Mady. She's still not going up, but more to the side on her growth curve. But it was a gain so we'll take what we can get! Doc said Katelyn slowed a bit on her gaining too, but over all she's going in the right direction which is up on the curve.

They also both got their first flu shots, and checked out pretty well. We decided to up Mady's dose of prevacid (for her reflux) and also start her on a small dose of reglan. Hopefully this combo will help control her reflux better. It's gotten a bit out of control again. If this doesn't work we will discuss surgery to correct the problem. I guess we should know if it's working or not within a few weeks. She isn't vomiting as much, but is coughing, wheezing, and gagging a whole lot. We can tell it's causing her discomfort. Poor little thing.

Let's see what else...Mady's therapies are going well. She had PT yesterday, and got very tired out after 45 minutes. The sessions are supposed to go for an hour, but the last 15 minutes we just let her play, or I held her while the PT & I talked. I'm happy to report that she's now rolling both ways! Her PT was so happy to see her in action. We also worked on sitting techniques, and tried to get her to put wieght on her legs. She's showing some progress with sitting with minimal support, and she stays up for a short time, so long as she has support at her hips. Her OT (occupational therpaist) is coming on Friday. She's the one that is working with her feedings. Then it's therapy at Mighty Oaks for speech, which is for feeding and to begin signing, and get her working at making more noise. She's really trying hard with making sounds. She even said bababa a few times! Mostly it's lots of cooing, and raspberry noises. So CUTE!!! It's so awesome to hear her voice. For so long she was totally silent, not even able to cry. Now to hear her little squeeks, and frog like sounds, it's like music to my ears.

Thanks to everyone who gave me info on the baby signing. Thanks a ton to my awesome Grandpa, who is taking sign language and gave me this wonderful link http://www.lifeprint.com/ there's so much information there, and so I thought I'd share it. There's a link there for 100 first baby signs. So cool! Can't wait to get started.

I had a wonderful weekend and was able to work at my old job during a class with Ms. Karen Russell http://karenrussell.typepad.com/ Well, it's not really my old job since I DO still work there, just not like before. Now it's just every other weekend. And for those of you who don't know me, yes I'm a scrapbooker and that used to be my job. I managed a wonderful scrapbook store, and got to know my creative side in a whole new way. Not your typical scrapbooker here, more an artist that loves to play with paper glue, and pictures!

Peace!

Guess who learned how to crawl?!

Here she is on the move! Katelyn learned how to crawl. It's been about a week now, and boy can she move. She first started out pulling herself with her arms (army style), and within 2 days she started being able to stay up on her knees. She's getting fast too. She can now be found in any room in the house at any point in time. I guess it's time to invest in some baby gates. Honestly I didn't think she'd get this down before her first birthday. She is just so determined, and she learns so fast. She loves her new freedom, and will crawl to the kitchen, or down the hall just because she CAN!

GOOFBALLS

These boys are the biggest goofballs, Jacob's cheesiest grin! And notice Aaron with the toilet paper roll microphone in the background singing along to Johnny Cash! Is it weird that our 2 year old's favorite song is "burning ring of fire"?

just some more blah blah blah

What's this 2 smiles at the same time?!!!

Ummm, does this look even the slightest bit cofortable? Notice Katelyn trying to steal her toy.
You'd think they'd be used to the camera by now, I mean I take pictures just about daily. "Mommy's turned into a freak again, what's that weird thing hanging off her face?"
Just thought I'd post some cute pictures of the girls, and a little update. Things are going pretty good around here. Still very busy, I think that will never change but I'd like to hope that it will get normal busy instead of crazy! Madelyn had her first session at mighty oaks children's therapy center. We met 2 new therapists, and they did another evaluation on her. It was nothing formal, just their own eval that they do for new patients. They saw her development everywhere from 0-3 months and some scattered skills in the 3-6 months range. I'm getting more used to hearing this, since this is her 3rd evaluation since august. I really liked these therapists, they were very thorough in their questions and obsevations. They are going to be seeing her every 2 weeks to begin with, since she is having OT through early intervention every week, and PT once a month, they don't want to overwhelm her. The speech therapist is going to start teaching her sign language pretty much right away. They said the sooner we start the better, and it is best to get the whole family involved. Katelyn will be learning it right along with Mady, and the rest of us will be taught through what I learn from the therapist. We also plan on getting some books, or dvds to help (if anyone knows of any good recommendations please let me know). Mady pretty much has a double wammy when it comes to speech. She is most delayed in her language skills (still is just barely cooing), and she also has the paralyzed vocal cord, making it difficult to make noise. Sign language will help her initially, and in the future if her voice never gets strong. The therapists also brought up the fact that it seems peculiar that she has left sided weakness in her extremities, and left sided vocal paralysis. Other therapists have mentioned this as well before. They asked if she'd ever had a brain scan or imaging done to rule out a nuerological problem like cerebral palsy (she has not). This of course got me going again thinking that she may have it. But overall they said since she has minor tonal issues it would probably be best to wait and see how the therapies work for her, then see where she's at in a few months. Whatever, I hate the phrase wait and see, but again it's something I'm totally getting used to hearing.

In Katelyn news, she's getting soooooo close to crawling. She's up on her knees a lot, and is trying so hard to figure out how to get herself to go. She can actually push off just a bit, which is giving her the desire to try even more, and even harder. It's going to be very very soon! She hasn't cut any teeth, so I don't know what's going on there. I really think she is teething, and has good days and bad days. Feedings have not been great with her, she won't take as much in her bottle, and is still completely refusing solids. I'm starting to worry that she really will never eat solids! We have the most success with bananas, and I can only dip the spoon in them, if she has any more than that on the spoon she throws up. She definitely has an oral aversion there, so we're trying some techniques that we've learned for Mady in her therapies, so hopefully Katy will benefit too, from some of what we do with Mady. I won't even get started on Mady's feedings. I am afraid to have her weighed next week, there is just no way she's gained adequate weight with what she eats. We'll see though, she may surprise me.

Well so much for a quick update! I guess I had more to report than I thought. Stay tuned, there's well check visits to report about next week! Hopefully I'll have something interesting to talk about when the day comes where there's no Dr. and therapy appts to fill my posts up with.

Bring on the teething

Katelyn is teething. I am sure of it. She's been very very fussy today, and not eating a lot at once, just chewing on the nipple after a few ounces or so. She is currently fussing in her crib right now as a matter of fact. It's going to be a long night, and a long how ever long it takes for her teeth to come through. I'm sure Mady will be close behind on this milestone as well. I say bring it on! At least it's "normal baby stuff", I'm sure I'll be eating those words when both girls are screaming all night long. And so it begins, teething with 2 babies this time! Time for some motrin and some cuddling to get her back to sleep and comfy, and maybe a glass of wine for me! Wish me luck, as this new adventure begins!