Simply Simons: March 2015

Kate & Olivia spent two weeks in the NICU, which was a lot less time than I imagined. They tell you your baby will get to leave around their due date, but often babies get to leave sooner than that. They say that one day, the babies just start thriving and before you know it, you feel like the NICU is kicking you out the door! Well, that's exactly how we felt. When I got a phone call from Dr. Richardson asking if we had car seats and to bring them in when I came that day because the girls could go home in 48 hours, my jaw fell to the floor. It was kind of bad because I was so shocked I couldn't remember anything else he told me during that phone call. What a whirlwind.

Before I get too ahead of myself, Kate & Olivia were in the NICU mostly to grow and gain weight. They were treated for jaundice as well, and were on oxygen for half of their stayl. In order for them to go home, they needed to be able to take all of their feedings without their feeding tube. Robbie and I were at the NICU every day. At the beginning, I would go twice a day, and he would join me at 7:00 after he got home from work. Towards the end, I was at the NICU for every feeding--10, 1, 4, and 7. They said if I wanted to exclusively breastfeed the girls, I needed to be there as much as possible so I could feed them whenever they woke up. After we introduced a bottle to the girls, the nurses bottle fed for all of the nighttime feedings. In order to keep my milk supply up, they put me on a strict pumping every 2 hours schedule, and then once at night. I would go to the hospital, change the girls, take their temperature, feed them (which sometimes took 1-1.5 hours), pump, head home, and then drive back sometimes just 30 minutes later to do it all over again. It was a crazy time, but we were willing to make any sacrifices necessary to get our girls home.

I LOVED our doctors and nurses. I will be forever thankful to Launa and Lucille for taking such incredible care of our girls. They taught Robbie and me so much and helped us feel confident as new parents. Of course there were some doozy nurses that really frustrated me and weren't helpful at all, but magically we only had them a couple of times. Thank goodness. I had one-on-one help from the lactation consultants and occupational therapists. They were amazing and celebrated any sort of development in our girls. I felt like we had a whole team of cheerleaders. The NICU really was a positive, happy environment. We were blessed to never get a call with really hard news and my heart goes out to those that experience real setbacks in the NICU. We got a call from the doctor any time a change was being made. They did an excellent job keeping us in the loop and making sure we had the support we needed.

Our parents were the only ones allowed to visit the girls in the NICU and had to use a code to get in. We sure loved when they came! Those were precious times. We all got different colored wrist bands each day and had to sign in once every 12 hour shift. They had a parents room with crackers and drinks and I made it a tradition to grab graham crackers on my way out every day. For some reason, they tasted so dang good! It's the little things, right?

It was hard to see an I.V. in Olivia's head. It was hard to work so hard at nursing and think your baby did amazing, only to put them on the scale and see they hardly gained anything. It was hard to wake up every night at 3:30 (funny now that I would love to have that schedule again where I could go right back to sleep after pumping) to pump and then struggle to fall back asleep. It was hard driving back and forth from the NICU 4 times every day. It was hard to see 5 different cords attached to our babies. It was hard to see bruises all over Kate from failed attempts at getting her I.V. in again. It was hard to watch the nurses suction the air out of their tummies while the girls flailed about, obviously uncomfortable. It was hard not to have our babies at home with us. The NICU was hard, but we really did have many happy times.

We were happy to come and hear that Kate had pooped after not pooping for quite a while (once again, it's the little things!). We were happy (elated, really) to hold our girls skin-to-skin for the first time. That is a feeling I will never, ever forget. We were happy to hold them during their feeding and felt like the luckiest if their eyes met ours. If I was having a hard day, that would always get turned around the minute I walked into the NICU and said hello to my girls. We were thrilled when their I.V.s were taken out, and even more thrilled to hear they didn't need their feeding tubes anymore. And then to tell us they could come home without oxygen? That was huge! We felt so incredibly blessed.

Bringing them home was the BEST. It felt so unreal as we walked up to the NICU with two empty car seats. We had scrambled the day before getting our place ready for the girls to come. Robbie rented a carpet cleaner and went to town on the carpets, couches, and rocking chair. It was a perfect ending to have Launa working that morning. She walked us out to the car, gave us a hug, and sent us on our way. We begged her to come with us because, heck, we had no idea what we were doing. But it all worked out in the end. We laugh now about the first night we were home with them. We left our door all the way open and set our alarms because we were worried their crying wouldn't wake us up.

Hahaha. Boy were we ever wrong. I haven't set an alarm since. We close our door as much as we can without closing it all the way :)

We finally feel like we are getting the hang of things. We're still learning every day and know there is much, much more to learn, but we love these girls with all of our hearts!