Settling In Quite Nicely

Stealing away for a few moments to blog finally! We're all getting used to our new life around here. The sleep depravation is as bad as I imagined. I just don't do well on little-to-no sleep. Matt, on the other hand, holds up pretty well being sleep-deprived. Amazingly, I'm finding a way to function through the days. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to do it. So far I'm pulling life out of me from somewhere??

I'm crazy about these babies. Cole is so patient and a real go-with-the-flow kind of guy. He's such a good baby and is so alert and aware of things going on around him. Camryn is the sweetest girl. She's definitely our drama queen though, which I find endearing of course. She wants to be held all the time. And although I love the snuggles, let it be known that I ordered a sling carrier off Amazon.com and selected overnight shipping. I'll let you know if I figure out how to actually wrap it around me with her successfully in it. I'm pretty motivated to have my hands free and be able to do more around here so it will be figured out!

The babies have been so good at the Pediatrician's the past few weeks. While they're still too tiny to register in any percentiles on charts, their weight gain and growth overall has been going great for them. Today Cole's stats are: 6lbs. 4oz. 19 3/4 inches. Camryn's stats are: 5lbs. 6oz. 19 inches. I take that back--one of their measurements did make it to the percentile chart. It was Cole's head which came in at a whopping 5%!

Yesterday we had to go visit a Pediatric GI Surgeon. Of course, only my children would have to visit such a doctor. Both of their inner bottom parts are a bit too narrow which makes it a little difficult for them to fully dirty their diapers at times. Luckily surgery is NOT necessary. Instead we will do a dilation technique with them for the next couple months to kind of stretch things out to "normal" for them. I assure you, we're getting plenty of loaded diapers--this will just make things easier on them to get it all out right. I'll leave it at that and spare you all the other details on this topic! Here are some recent pictures to share...

Matt and Cole (and Mario) watching their first KU Football game together

Aunt Cheryl and Camryn

Cole's first bath at home! My cute little elephant

...And all swaddled and warmed up after the bath

Cam's first bath at home! My little lamb

...And then all swaddled and warmed up after

The best is being swaddled up, cuddled next to brother

Really, they do like their little Ocean Play Mat. I'm trying to distract them until it really is time to eat here. Instead, it was just a scream fest at this particular moment. "JUST GET US OFF OF HERE AND LET US EAT!!!" And then they had to wait even longer while I went to get the camera to take a picture of their twin screaming episode!

Precious Cole. Love this cute shirt. True, he definitely looks like his Daddy. But we also think he looks a lot like an adorable old man--like Benjamin Button!...

And just a picture of his cute Bear Bottom Pants

Settling in quite nicely indeed. They love to lounge in their chairs in front of the TV. This is Cole's #1 favorite spot. And Camryn stays pretty peaceful laying here as well once she's too asleep to realize someone isn't actually holding her.

Each day is a new learning adventure and I love every second of it. This week I'm working on the best way to bottle feed both of them at the same time. Thank goodness for bouncy seats.

Can't wait to update again soon!

We're All Home!!

Soon after our previous post the babies started eating incredibly well--and more and more on their own. So well in fact that last Saturday (a week ago) the NICU doctors ordered to take their feeding tubes out! They stayed in a few more days to make sure they could handle eating each meal on their own--and then on Tuesday they got to come home! So proud of our babies...and boy, do they ever like to eat!

For the babies' last night at the hospital, they do this thing called "Care by Parent" night. For this, we have to stay at the hospital all night and a good part of the day where it's just us taking full care of the babies with a nurse nearby for any kind of emergency. That night was brutal. The first time being out of their familiar NICU environment (of loud monitors and beeps, etc.) the babies freaked out! We were literally awake every minute. At one point the only way to get them both to stop crying was for me to carry them both up and down the hospital hallways...for an hour. They finally went to sleep and were a little less stressed about 10am the next morning. Brutal. But they got a good report the next afternoon and we loaded up to officially come home!

Here's Matt loading up all the stuff before all 4 of us headed home

Camryn riding in her car seat

Cole riding in his

Check out their cute "going home" outfits

Throwing their hands in the air. I like to think they're saying "YAY we're home!"

Cole's whole body language and facial expression here is cracking me up (his expressions usually do!) And here is Camryn making her way closer into him for cuddling

Their hospital bands...not much bigger than Matt's ring

And Camryn's quickly made it to her favorite spot--snuggling up against Cole. Matt decided to join in on the cuddle time for a bit.

Meeting Mario for the first time. Mario has calmed down for the most part, but was EXTREMELY excited at first. Now he is alert to their every sound and doesn't stray too far away from them.

Me. Probably butchering yet another swaddling job.

Mario likes to drop his toy for us to throw whenever we're feeding the babies.

Ahhhh. Home at last and in their own bed

We went in for our first Pediatrician appointment on Thursday morning. Except for the part when they both peed all over the Pediatrician's scale, the wall, the nurse, everywhere...it was a successful appointment. We're happy to report that Camryn now weighs 4lbs. 6oz. (she was 3lbs. 14oz. at birth) and Cole is now 4lbs. 15oz. (he was 4lbs. 6oz. at birth). The nurse said if Cole hadn't had a dirty diaper followed up by peeing all over the place right at weighing he would've hit the 5 pound mark. They continue to eat well and we continue to get barely any sleep. But of course it's been so wonderful all being home and we wouldn't trade it for anything!

For now we'll leave you with this image: Here's just 1 full day of dirty daipers! We'll definitely need to stock up on Diaper Genie refills...

Babies Are Here!!

As you all probably know, our babies arrived Wednesday morning, September 1st at 7:37am. They've been breathing on their own so far since the moment they came out! Camryn Summer (who was always "Baby B", thought to be the second one in line) actually got taken out first. Not sure how she managed that one--she's now referred to as "Baby A" for cutting in front of Cole Lawrence, who is now "Baby B". Camryn weighed 3lbs. 14oz. and was 17 1/2 inches long. Cole weighed 4lbs. 6oz. and was 17 3/4 inches long. Here are some pictures to take you a little through our journey up to today so far...

Here is Matt all decked out before heading into the operating room

And here he is all ready for the action with no nerves at all. I, on the other hand, was a hot mess. I love my babies, but I hated every single second of the c-section--of what I remember from it. They quickly put me out (colonoscopy-type sleeping) pretty much right after they took the babies out. Our understanding was that there was some extensive bleeding going on and some serious closing up and stapling to be done. Thank goodness I had a most wonderful anesthesiologist who made things so much better for me! Carol McHorse, I love love love you guys so much for looking out for me with Dr. S. I will never forget his gentle nature and how wonderful he was to me that whole day and the day after.

Anyway--again, Matt, ready for the big moments...

Our baby girl came out first much to our surprise! Here's pretty little Camryn Summer. (And notice Matt multi-tasking with the flip recorder.) I'll post some video (don't worry, not any of blood and guts) soon.

And here's our adorable guy Cole Lawrence

I have absolutely no recollection of this moment below. You can kind of tell from this picture that I'm already pretty much asleep and definitely out of it. All I really remember is the horrible feelings of the c-section, the presentation of the babies (in the pictures above) and then the beginning of the closing, etc. I can see that my hand is wrapped around one of them, but again, no memory of this. I'm glad it was this way and glad it's on camera. And another nurse had our flip recorder. It's all on there too--and you can actually see me slipping away, going completely out of it around this time. At that time you see the nurse kind of look at Matt and say something like--okay, forget this idea, let's move on!

One of my most favorite pictures ever. I can just see his pride bursting like crazy in this picture!

Our babies settling in their warmers at the NICU soon after

I was pretty out of it the first day. While in recovery I apparently started hemorrhaging where some crazy action needed to take place. Again, Dr. S. came in and helped me through what I remember of that kind of scary time. I had more bleeding, some serious blood pressure drop, then a central line put in for a couple eventual blood transfusions. I was kind of in and out of it during that time. At any rate, one of our NICU nurses "broke the rules" and brought the babies up to my room later that evening so I could at least say I saw and bonded with them the first day. Unfortunately I don't remember too much of it. Here's a picture of them in their isolate that they were brought up to my room in. I love this picture, I think they look so precious together here.

A few days later, feeling much better and spending lots of special time with my precious babies! Here's me and my precious little girl

And me loving with my sweet little boy

They were able to maintain their body temperatures well enough that a couple days later they were moved out of their warmers and into a crib together--and wearing their own clothes! They've been such strong, good babies. They started breast feeding with me by the 3rd day and have been doing 2, now up to 3 a day ever since. Several times we've gone in and caught them holding hands when they sleep (or one clutching another's ear, or arm or nose)!

Cole got circumcised yesterday evening. Matt did not handle it well at all! We got the call at home right before it happened and about an hour before we were due to be there for a feeding. Matt was so anxious and concerned for his little guy. We left right away and Matt was sure to give him some extra loving last night after his ordeal. Here he is about an hour after his snip. He appears pretty calm, thank goodness. However, when it came time for feeding, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with that or with us! He was cranky up until this afternoon.

And Matt having some man-to-man bonding time with Cole after his little boy ordeal last night...

This last picture below was actually taken a little bit ago tonight. We had our first bottle feed with them. The fantastic babies that they are--they did so awesome, of course! Matt loved holding both Camryn and Cole this way for about an hour. They all got in a good post-dinner nap! We are so in love with these special, miracle babies of ours. Hopefully things continue to stay good for them and they just keep staying on the up and up. Once they get up to 8 feeds a day on their own consistently (either by breast or bottle) they get to come home. Right now we are at 3 feeds on their own a day. Thanks so much to all our wonderful friends and family for your kind words, thoughts, gifts and help you've given to us over the past week. We are so grateful for all of you and are so thrilled to share this special time with all of you.