Half Birthday

Wow!  6 months!  I never thought that getting here would feel like an accomplishment, but then again, I never imagined having micro-preemies.  At this point, we are noticing the kids have very different personalities.  Grayson is extremely social.  He returns your smile when you smile at him and stares in your eyes with his big beautiful blue eyes.  He eats.  Boy does he EAT!  The kids are now ad-lib so they can eat as much as they want as often as they want.  Grayson typically downs about 4-5 ounces every 2-3 hours but does a decent job of sleeping through one of those feed times at night.  He lets you know that he is ready to eat by screaming!  In those times that he is awake and not "hangry" he might babble for you!

Blowing bubbles.

Scarlett is much more quiet and will let you know she is hungry by opening her mouth really wide, or munching on her hands.  If you still don't get it, she will let out a quiet whine.  She is almost exclusively breastfeeding but when she does take a bottle she typically takes about 3 ounces.  We think she is teething because she will chew on her Sophie, bottle nipple, fingers etc.  She doesn't give a whole lot of eye contact, but does babble some.  A surefire way to get a smile out of her is a "smooching" sound by kissing her on the cheek.  She has a special bond with her daddy that mommy is a little jealous of.  She will find me when I start speaking and will track me as I move around the room.  She doesn't seem to do that with the Physical Therapist who visits every week or for mommy.  I think its because my voice booms, something that did not work for my favor in grade school.  Mommy thinks it might be because she gets used to her voice during the day.  She does enjoy sitting in bouncers and kicking her feet.  She also LOVES looking at the ceiling fan and bright lights (windows, tvs, etc.)

We do need to thank many people for helping us get here.  We know that without the support of so many of you this journey could have been significantly harder.  From the people who were paid to help us (although based on the service we experienced most of these people are underpaid!): doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, psychologists, case managers and... , to our friends, both new and old, to our family.  Thank you.  THANK you.  THANK YOU!  Trish is working on Thank You cards so if you haven't seen one yet, know that we are especially grateful and are working to get you a card saying that!

You provided food when it was tough for us to find time to eat.  You lifted our spirits with flowers, cards, and gifts.  You made and bought clothes and toys for the twins.  You sent texts and facebook messages comforting to us, rejoicing and lamenting with us.  You donated to March of Dimes and supported our walk by walking with us and/or eating with us at City BBQ.  And most of all, you prayed with us and for us.  Many of you have never met us, and some of you may never have the chance to hold our babies.  This is the 80th post and below are stats showing where the readers come from and how many times the page has been viewed.

Entry	Pageviews
United States	109872
Australia	1312
Canada	198
France	115
Russia	76
United Kingdom	64
South Korea	64
Estonia	58
Germany	45
Mexico	42

When I look at this, I am baffled.  I pour my heart into these posts but I know I am not JK Rowling, Steven King, or Nicholas Sparks.  I guess that most of my audience is within 3 degrees of connection and heard about the situation and read to see how our million dollar babies are doing (currently at $3.4M, but who is counting other than the people negotiating next year's insurance plan???).  I cannot explain how humbled I am to know that so many people are witnessing God's work first and second hand.  So THANK YOU!

Updates:

So the past 2 weeks have been eventful.  We made it to the aforementioned fundraiser where our team raised almost $200 for March of Dimes!  Then we did the March for Babies in Columbus.

All of our walkers with a couple nurses from Riverside! 

We finished!  

From left to right: The Shea family (Tim, Trish, Ethan, Grayson, and Scarlett),  Cindy and Gabriella Frey.  The Richards family (Matt, Shana, and Grant), the other half of the Frey family: (Pat, Dominic, and Cameron).

I was very thankful our first two outings were with fellow NICU parents because the extra eyes are helpful.  One of the kid's oxygen hose popped off the tank early on and another dad was able to point it out.  It's scary and embarrassing, but if you've been in this situation its probably happened to you.

I think I mentioned we were trying to wean oxygen in my last post.  Both kids moved down to a flow of 0.1 liters/minute.  Scarlett looks like she'll be ready for room air by the end of the month, but we had to increase Grayson back to 0.3.  He was always tired and once he started sleeping through feeds we knew something was wrong.

The last 2 weeks have had several alarms on their apnea monitors.  We think Scarlett's resting heart rate might be near the alarm rate.  We will know for sure when we go to the BPD clinic but we had her hooked up to a Pulse-Ox a couple times the alarm went off and her saturation was at 100 so we aren't too concerned.

Grayson has had several alarms for his respiratory rate being too low.  Medical professionals suggest that babies sleep on their back, on a firm surface, by themselves.  So when we called and explained he has had many of these alarms in the momaRoo, they chastised Trish for letting him sleep in the chair.  But while they are on monitors, I don't know that we can afford to take them out of these chairs when they fall asleep.  They only stay asleep in the bassinets when they are swaddled, and so we typically only do this at night.

For all of you saying "mom a who?"  It is this pod looking thing that moves side to side mimicking the way a mom would rock her baby. It can do a motions in the shapes of an M, W, U, opposite of U, infinity and has variable speed.  It can also play music if you plug in an iPad.  I think the newer models have Blue Tooth!!!

This past weekend we went on our first neighborhood walk and then made it to church!  It was so good to see many of our friends and meet people who have been praying for us that we hadn't met yet.

The best update is that cold and flu season has officially ended.  We would love for everyone to start meeting the kids.  Feel free to reach out if you would like to come by.  I recommend trying to plan a week or two out because we need to work around the the medical appointments.  For all the local SAHMs or non-first shifters, Trish would love to see you during the day so she can talk to an adult.  Of course, I would love to see you too, but reach out to get something scheduled.