Busy as bees!

Hello, everyone! I’m sure my blogs will be much shorter from here on out since my free time has been considerably reduced. But all of my babies are asleep (Kevin included) so I have a few minutes to spare. 🙂

Most of you know the girls came home last week. We were able to practice what things were going to be like for one night at the hospital. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep. We dutifully awoke every three hours to feed the girls and give them the slew of medicines they still need to take. Plus the day before we were rushed through a whirlwind of instructions on how to operate the oxygen tanks, apnea monitors, and nebulizer the girls were coming home with. Just a side note to you all…if you can possibly avoid using Apria for home medical equipment, please do so. I’m still waiting for equipment that was promised to us almost two weeks after we’ve brought the girls home. They don’t even have the Tendergrip stickers for their faces to keep the cannulas on! I’m a bit disgruntled to say the least.

So now that we are home, things are still very hectic. But we are home! The first few days were pretty rough as we weren’t getting much sleep at all as we got up every three hours to feed the girls and give them their meds. Such is life with a baby, right? And we have it times two! But the girls have been growing nicely, and our home healthcare nurse told us that because they’ve reached the 8 lb. mark we can let them sleep for a little longer at night. They’ve been putting away four to five hour stretches at night! So now we feel much better, although the occasional nap is still a must. 🙂 Plus my mother-in-law has come over quite a bit to help out as we try to get into a rhythm, and both my father-in-law and my dad have brought us meals so I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to get Kevin and myself fed. Most of my “cooking” at this point has been the girls’ bottles. I joked with Kevin’s mom yesterday that I thought I had been done with chemistry in high school! I’m certainly doing a lot of math in my head as I figure out the ratio of milk to formula plus the rice cereal that gets added, not to mention all the meds that have to get mixed and administered. Science was never my best subject but I don’t think I’ve messed anything up yet. 🙂

The girls have adjusted to being home very well. They sleep a lot. We have a swing we regularly put Abigail in since she is the more fussy of the two, and it seems to calm her down very well. Eva has been having some feeding issues, and me being the paranoid mother that I am have called the doctor several times about it. When the girls were still in the NICU they had a ph probe done to determine the severity of their reflux. The gastroenterologist evaluated the data and determined they had borderline reflux (whatever that means) and called it negative. So he took them off the Prevacid, and silly us, we thought the MD after his name meant he knew what he was doing. I’d like to invite him to come clean up all the puke that Eva has dealt us and then have him tell us she doesn’t have reflux. It’s ridiculous. I called our pediatrician and after describing her history and current symptoms she determined it was likely reflux and put her back on the Prevacid. Abigail hasn’t been having the feeding issues (yet) so she’s not on the Prevacid. But Eva has been incredibly fussy during feedings, refusing to eat at times, which scares me to death. Otherwise she’s a very good baby. But she’s still eating and gaining weight so we haven’t had to panic yet. And speaking of weight, Abigail now outweighs Eva. When you see them both side-by-side it isn’t much of surprise; Abigail is decidedly the chunkier baby. Anyway, I currently blame Eva’s feeding problems on the Enfacare formula that the hospital dietitian switched the girls to the day we left the hospital. Again, not the smartest thing these people have done. Ugh.

We miss our nurses very much! But we are so glad to be home. So here are some pictures of our journey home, plus our first few days as full time parents! Ok, I gotta run…time to get the bottles ready again and change some diapers!

A big day for us...leaving the hospital!

Bye bye Morgan; we'll miss you taking care of us!

In the same crib...finally!

All dressed up in our homecoming outfits

Mommy cuddling both girls...still a bit hard with all of the wires and equipment. 🙂

Eva and Daddy watching either hunting or the Lobos smash BYU; I can't remember which.

This is one of my favorites!

Bath time for Miss Eva!

All clean, Mommy!

Abigail still doesn't like baths.

But she's much happier getting dried!

Getting a nap in whenever we can. 🙂

Crib time!

Daddy helped me find my thumb