Just a quick note to say at noon today Andrew decided to join his brother Max in our room. Needless to say, we’ve had our hands full since. More later.
Category: Text Post
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Starting a New Chapter
11:05pm
We are only in our first day and it’s already an amazing amount of work.
I spent the night last night but rushed home for a shower and change of clothes this morning. When I got back I went with Brenda to finally meet Andrew. She was feeling really bad that Max is getting so much love while Andrew down there by himself except for the short visits from family members throughout the day.
From there the rest of the day was a blur of baby feedings, people coming and going, visits to the NICU to see Andrew with family, helping with the breast pump machine, taking Brenda for a walk down the hallway, cleaning the breast pump parts (several times), talking to doctors, nurses, and other parents in the hallways, and occasionally taking a photo or two. I finally had “breakfast” at 2pm because it was the first chance I got.
I took more video then photos today, but some of the photos I took or posted below, and the rest are on the Flickr site. Click here to see all of them.
My Mom, sister Debbie and niece Madison will head back to Michigan tomorrow. It’s been great having them here since it was such a last minute trip for them. It’s hard to plan a trip when it can happen at any given moment. I really missed my Dad not being here but am grateful to have so many others. The boys send their love out to him (they both told me to make sure I put that on the website).
We were able to sneak Madison into the room today so that was great for everybody. We passed her off as my daughter from a previous relationship and had her wear the “new baby” hat. Nobody questioned it.
Brenda had a big day. She made great progress on both breast feeding as well as using the pump, she walked down the hall and back, took a shower, was taken off of the IV and other monitors and had a real meal. Her blood levels have shown signs of recovery so she will not need a blood transfusion after all.
Max is doing great and able to feed from a bottle now, and will breast feed fine once the milk starts coming in. He spent most of the day with us in the room and visited with people.
Andrew is doing great as well and is scheduled to come up to the room tomorrow around noon or so. They wanted one more night to be sure he was now eating OK, but he last 2 feedings went well and his breathing problems are no more.
For the first time since this all started to happen, I spent a half hour or so holding Andrew and really had a moment with him. He woke up for me and listened to me talk to him, often making eye contact. It was hard not to get totally choked up thinking how lucky we are to have two precious gifts of life. We tried for so long and at times thought it just might not happen for us, so seeing them now it’s still hard to believe they are ours. But we’re so grateful that they are and love them with all that we have.
I promise future entries here will be shorter, but I received a lot of email today asking for a update on everybody so I tried to be more detailed then usual.
Another update late tomorrow, but probably not much before midnight!
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Andrew Meets his Mom
Andrew is more then a day old but Mom finally gets to meet him. He’s still in the NICU but should be up in the room by noon Wednesday.
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Twin Photos
As I take more photos of the twins and mom (mom to come soon) I’ll add them to this page. So you can click on the link now to see the small number of photos I’ve posted today, and click later to see more added to the group.
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Update on Mom and Babies
4:40 pm
It’s not even 5pm yet but we’re both pretty exhausted (not that I really did any work, but still).
Andrew was born at 8:05am, and Max at 8:06.
Max checked out fine pretty much from the get go and was up in our room by 10am. Andrew was OK, but having some labored breathing due to having fluid still in his lungs. As a precaution they took him to the NICU for further observation just in case he needed some extra help. Because he’s on a different floor and only 2 people at a time can visit, he has not had as much interaction as Max has had. But we hope that will change by tomorrow.
About an hour ago we were told that he’s doing much better and will probably be in the room with us later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Brenda has a rough day. Although everything went well, she lost more blood then what they normally like to see so it’s been more of a challenge to get her back to normal. But finally this afternoon they were able to get her back on track and she’s looking and feeling much better.
My friend Mike took some great photos, and I’ll have those posted in a week or so after he has time to review them and get me a copy. I’m really thankful he was able to help out because I realize now I would have taken very few photos after they were born. He was able to get many photos of everybody that was here with the babies.
I had a video camera with me today but never even turned it on. Once it all started to happen I just forgot all about it.
It’s too early to say for sure, but it looks like Brenda will be here until at least Wednesday if not Thursday if all continues to go well, and I think we’ll be taking the babies home at that time as well.
That’s all for now. Time for a nap.