Michael's first official word is: cracker. Yeah. He is a boy. : ) He can say "da da" and "ma ma" and babble, but his first word that he knows what he's saying is cracker. He says it more like "ka-ka". And he knows what it means....food! He is also trying to say something when he claps his hands. I think he's saying "clap" but it's not very clear. He has no idea that I'm "ma ma" and K is "da da" so we'll have to work on those!
Samuel is also talking, but nothing is too clear. He says "oooh ahh" while he's crawling. And "ah" for oh-oh. He also has the bad habit of trying to crawl through the kitchen chairs and getting stuck.
They both put everything in their mouths. I have to watch them very closely when we're outside. They're quick. Michael had bird poop in his mouth once...disgusting. I was sitting right there. That is why we don't spend a lot of time outside. Unless they're in their stroller. They get sick of that, though. I would, too.
Michael is spending the night at the hospital with Daddy. I had K go because it's snowy and I'm a chicken about that. And he wanted to go. But I think I'd rather be there. I don't like not knowing what's going on. What if Michael needs me?!
He has bronchiolitis. However you spell that. He is coughing and wheezing. K took him to the pediatrician on Saturday and he prescribed steroids and gave K some stuff for our nebulizer. We've been giving him all that. But he still wasn't getting better and this afternoon was worse. He got a fever and was too tired to eat. He just was sleeping and sleeping. Scary! So I called and made another appointment with the pediatrician for tonight and they sent him over to the hospital. Which is what we thought would happen so K took all the stuff he needs to stay overnight.
K called a little while ago and said they were sucking a lot of gunk out of him. I wish I had one of those vacuum suckers they have at the hospital. It's hooked up to the wall and they turn it on and it has vacuum suction to suck out their noses. Both boys love it. Ha! Michael will also have oxygen and probably an IV. Poor kid. He looked so miserable this afternoon.
And Samuel has started coughing and wheezing a bit too. So I started him on the steroids and nebulizer treatments. Hopefully it won't get as bad as Michael's. Please pray for the boys. Emma is coughing too but she isn't wheezing.
So...on a happier note. (I feel like this blog is depressing lately, sorry.) My sister and her husband came last weekend. (I hope they don't get sick.) But my sister and I spent Saturday afternoon going all over town. It was nice to get out of the house. We went to Babies-R-Us, the mall, chick.fil.a, Once.Upon.a.Child and I picked up an Easter dress for Emma that I found on c.raigslist. I actually didn't spend a lot of money, except probably in gas. Because you don't see T.arget on the list, do you?!
Do you ever have one of those days where you're stuck at home and wishing to be somewhere else?! Yeah. It's one of those days. I was supposed to go to MOPS this morning, but Michael has a yucky sounding cough. And Emma has a runny nose. So we're home. Emma was supposed to have her very first Valentine's exchange. We made heart Valentines. I cut them out and she colored on them. Then we stuck smarties on them. Easy. Maybe I'll send them with her to the nursery on the 14th.
I just hope Samuel doesn't get anything. Sigh. On a happier note, it's Friday! Yay! And the Super Bowl is on Sunday. I like to watch football but I'm really honestly looking forward to the food. Hopefully everyone will be well and we can go to the party our Sunday school class is having.
Now Emma is sleeping - it's lunch time. She was up at 5:15 so we'll see if she takes an afternoon nap, too. And the boys are in bed. We'll see if they go to sleep. They both need to, but Michael just doesn't like to nap in his crib. Here's hoping they sleep!
We're all doing fine here. Michael has a bit of a cold, but it may have something to do with him getting teeth...? He has one on the bottom right but don't they usually come in twos?! I keep waiting for the second one to pop through. He is putting everything in his mouth. I mean everything.
I can't believe it's February already. January was super busy so it went by quickly! We had Christmas with my family, Emma's 3rd birthday and infant dedication at church. Those were 3 of the 5 weekends. The other two we spent here relaxing. Aunt M took the kids' pictures last weekend. I love her pictures! Emma was in rare form and took some silly pictures. We didn't get a very good picture of the 3 kids together (the best one involved Emma looking like she was choking the boys and the boys looking like they weren't enjoying it), but the individual ones and the ones of the boys together turned out really well.
We're looking forward to a more relaxing February. Our good friends from Nebraska are coming to visit in a few weeks and we are very excited to see them again. They have a daughter who's close to Emma's age and her and Emma love to play together. Their playing involves running around and screaming. I guess that's how 2 and 3 year old girls play? They also have a daughter who was born last October, so she's close to the boys' age. I'm sure the boys will tease, I mean, play with her when they all get older.
My sister & husband are coming this weekend. I'm excited to see them! They are expecting a little girl in May. I may have mentioned that. But it's so fun to see how much she's 'grown' each time we see them. So fun! And we get to go shopping. Hopefully. If she is up for it!
When we got home, Samuel was sleeping in his car seat, so I let him sleep. He sounded pretty good. I got lunch ready for Emma and I and Michael watched. Then...Samuel woke up and started wheezing again with retracting. The pediatrician said if that happened I had to take him to the emergency room. I started a hot shower (to help Samuel breathe) and called K to come home from work to stay with the other two. Then I sat in the bathroom with him and ate my sandwich. The pediatrician called our house about 10 minutes later and asked how Samuel was doing. I told her that he was wheezing again and she told me to take him in.
I threw some stuff in a bag for me and checked his diaper bag while he laid in the warm, showery bathroom. When I went back in to get him, I realized that we had used all the hot water and it wasn't steaming anymore! By then K was home and packed up Samuel while I did a few last minute things like go to the bathroom, etc. Then we headed to the hospital. I figured we would be staying overnight, but you never know. Also, K's parents were spending the night at our house that night.
When we got to the hospital it took me a little while to find the emergency room. By then Samuel was sleeping again and sounded much better. I finally made it to the ER and talked to a crabby check in guy and headed over to pediatric triage. After they checked us in, they hooked Samuel up to a heart rate/oxygen level monitor. It was a good thing I'd been through the NICU experience with them, or I would have been really freaking out. After he got checked into a room, they did another epinephrine treatment and decided to watch him overnight. His oxygen levels were good, even when he was wheezing, but we had to stay because he regressed before. The doctor/resident guy told me that it was because he "failed outpatient treatment."
Well, nothing was super speedy, so we were in the ER for quite a while before they got us up to a room. It was in a children's hospital so everything was brightly painted. After we got up to a room they checked him out and weighed him. 17 lbs. 13 oz. at almost 6 months. He does like to eat. Eventually the pediatrician at the hospital came in a chatted with me and checked on him. I really liked the nurse we had at first and I liked the pediatrician. K came to visit later that night and brought me supper while Grandpa and Grandma babysat. It worked out fine because we weren't allowed to bring the other kids to visit because of h1n1. I stayed overnight with Samuel. I liked having the one on one time with him just to snuggle and hang out with him, although he spent a lot of time sleeping. Poor baby. He was probably so glad to be able to breathe well again.
He did great overnight. The pediatrician said that night time is the worst during croup, so that was another reason to keep him overnight to monitor him. In the morning, they gave him a dose of oral steroids and we got to go home. Again after waiting for a while for every step. But that's just how hospitals are. K came in the morning to hang out and bring Samuel home. They got home around 2:00 I think. I had to run some errands...read: shop. It was crazy, crazy...especially at my favorite T*rget. But I ended up finding some stuff to buy.
Now Michael is coughing and has a runny nose, but it's not the barky cough and he isn't wheezing...yet. I just hope I never have to hear that again. Ever.
Well, now that we are on the mend, I have some time to write about last week. Samuel started getting a runny nose on Wednesday morning. Which turned into wheezing by Wednesday afternoon. I took him to an urgent care doctor Wednesday night because of the wheezing and he had eye junk. They gave him a nebulizer/albuterol treatment and said his lungs sounded better afterwards. They also "checked" his oxygen levels. It's hard to do on little fingers with a device made for adult fingers. Anyway, as soon as she checked it, the nurse called in a semi-frantic voice for the doctor. This scared me. His original reading was 78%, which I don't believe because he wasn't blue or anything. But after his nebulizer treatment, it was up to mid-90s if you go by the same device. The doctor gave us a prescription for albuterol and a nebulizer to rent and said to give him a treatment every 3 hours or so and come back the next day.
So Wednesday night I gave him a treatment every 3 hours and neither of us slept very well. The treatments didn't really seem to help, but since I didn't know what else to do, I kept giving him the albuterol. He also had a barking cough...
Thursday morning I took him in again to the urgent care clinic and said that the treatments haven't been helping. They checked him, did another albuterol treatment and the doctor told me he had bronchitis and wrote him a prescription for oral steroids. I'm not a big fan of steroids after having taken them for my throat, but if it would help him breathe better, then I'd do it. Samuel was still wheezing a lot and coughing and pale but he really was still happy.
Thursday night he slept in a bouncy seat next to our bed. I didn't sleep very well since he was still wheezing and coughing his barky cough. (I'm pretty sure you know where this is going.) Well, Friday morning when I was changing his clothes, I noticed that he was really struggling to breathe. His skin was sucked up under his ribcage with every breath (now I know it's called retracting). I was pretty scared and called a nurse at our pediatrician's office. She said I needed to have him seen, but they were full and to call a different pediatrician's office in the same health system. I did and fortunately got an appointment in an hour. I gave him a couple alubterol treatments but that didn't help at all. And I gave him his steroids in his bottle. I should note that Samuel is a great eater and was still very hungry, it was just hard to eat when he couldn't breathe.
I loaded everyone up early and got on the road and made it most of the way there and then got lost. I was 15 minutes late. The receptionist had to ask if the doctor could still see us. When we got back to see her, she basically said right away that it's croup and he's pretty bad. She was a really sweet doctor. They gave him an epinephrine treatment in the nebulizer (used to treat croup - not the albuterol) which helped right away. He sounded so much better. And they also gave him a steroid shot since he was so bad. She also had us wait there for a while just to make sure he was okay. Then we went home...
We got the go ahead last night to take Micah home. We will be taking him home tomorrow! Yay! Nathan has to stay since he had an "event" on Wednesday - his heart rate dropped to 80 bpm for a little while and then it went back up which set off the monitor's alarms. I was at the NICU when it happened. I told him not to do that again. The babies have to be "event" free for a few days before they go home. I wouldn't feel comfortable having him at home if that's happening anyway. The nurses did say it's pretty normal for that to happen in a preemie.
Both boys had their boy surgery this morning and Nathan did better than Micah I'm told. I think Micah is going to be my wild-man while Nathan will be more laid back. It just seems like they are that way right now.
We are going to get Emma tonight, too. I'm excited to see her again! I miss her! My sister-in-law has been doing a great job with 4 kids, but I'm sure she's ready to be back to 3, too. The house has been pretty quiet (& clean!) lately. I'm ready for some noise again!
The boys are doing really well. Both have been eating all their "food" by bottles for a few days (they had feeding tubes in until 2 1/2 days ago). Now they need to grow or maintain their weight for a few days. They are hovering around 5 1/2 pounds. I'm sitting here waiting until the next feeding (at noon) so I can give one of them their bottle. K will be here to feed the other one. I gave Nathan a bath in the sink this morning. Micah will get one today, too, I'm just not sure when.
And yes, I've still been taking my naps. I think I'd get pretty bored sitting here all day. Of course, it will be totally different when they are at home. I see the end of my daily naps coming soon! Emma has been doing really well spending the week with her cousins. I'm ready to have her home, but it will be harder to spend time with Nathan & Micah until they come home.
The nurses here have been great! I've liked most of them. There was one nurse that was a get-'er-done type that I didn't appreciate, but most of them are great! They will answer any/all of my questions and they take wonderful care of Nathan & Micah.
Fortunately, they are fraternal and I have no problem telling them apart, thank goodness! I was wondering about that before they were born!
Nathan & Micah (not their real names) arrived last week Tuesday right around noon. They were born at 33 1/2 weeks. I went in for a 9:45 routine doctor appointment and my doctor's office does an ultrasound every time to check heartbeat. Well, we went back a little late (found out later the doctor was doing a c-section on a gal having twin girls whose water had broken). As they were doing the ultrasound, the doctor was in the room and both he and the ultrasound tech noticed that Baby A's heartrate was slow. He decided to send me over to the hospital to labor and delivery (his office is in the same building as the hospital) to be monitored. As we were being wheeled out of the office, K asked "What are the chances of having the boys today?" The doctor said "95%" Fortunately K was with me (he didn't come to every appointment) and we had ridden together (we usually drove separately).
K made a bunch of phone calls and Emma went to our friends' house. His parents also got "the call" since they were going to stay with Emma when the boys' were supposed to be born.
After monitoring and some paperwork and an IV and a change of clothes and a chat with the anesthesiologist and a chat with the doctor and some very nice nurses, I walked over to the surgery room. Not prepared for that, but maybe it was better that way!
The anesthesiologist was wonderful. I told him that with my last c-section, I thought I was going to pass out because my blood pressure dropped so far, so he was ready with the drugs for that & put it in the IV as soon as my spinal was in. This c-section was much better. Nathan was born first at 11:54 am weighing 5 lbs. 2 oz. and was 17 inches long. He tried to cry a little bit. Later a nurse that was in there told K's mom that Nathan didn't look very good when he was born. He had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck which was causing his slow heartrate. Micah was born at 11:55 am and weighed 5 lbs. 4 oz. and was 17 3/4 inches long.
They are both still in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and are expected to be there another 2 weeks. They are doing really well so far and mainly need to learn how to eat without falling asleep (it wears them out pretty quickly). If you think about it, can you pray for them to keep growing and doing so well?! Thanks!
After writing the last post, I realized that another reason that I am sad for the pregnancy to end is that when they're born, they start growing up and growing more independent (which is a good thing!) and it goes way too fast.
Here are some pictures of the boys' room. I think we're pretty much ready for them. Except they need to grow a little more before they're born!
Of course, the room will normally be more messy than this. : ) But you get the idea!
Well, since it's been almost a month since I updated this (sorry!)...here it goes.
I had an ultrasound yesterday to measure the boys' growth & check everything. They are doing well. They are both laying in there sideways/transverse. They are very active when I'm laying down. Other than that, I feel them moving sometimes. Everything looked good as far as I could tell. Their guesstimated weights are: Baby A: 4 lbs. 13 oz. and Baby B: 4 lbs. 9 oz. I'm 32 1/2 weeks along now and have about 4 weeks to go until the c-section, so I'm not sure what to expect for birth weights. I was just hoping for over 5 lbs. Hopefully they will be there soon!
I also have been feeling the effects of being pregnant in the spring/summer this time. (Emma was born in January). My ankles and feet feel like they have jelly in them. Weird!
But I will also be kind of sad about not being pregnant anymore when the boys are born. I don't enjoy the physical part of being pregnant, but I love feeling the babies move inside and just feeling kind of special being pregnant....not that you're not special when you're not pregnant...do you know what I mean? I've been taking advantage of the "expecting mothers" parking spots this time. Mostly because I can't walk too far without feeling tired.
Emma has been spending more time in front of the computer doing 2 of her latest favorite things: Watching Michael W. Smith's "Mighty to Save" on Y.ou Tu.be and looking at pictures of her cousins. If I had a dime for every time she said "I want to look at pictures"...
Other than that, I just mostly sit on the couch with my feet up. We have the boys' room ready. I have pictures, I just need to get them off the camera!!!
The big girl bed has been a smashing success here. We've only had it up for 2 weeks, though. We started with just the mattress on the floor and she fell off that a couple of times. We've since added the boxspring under the mattress and she's only fallen off once. She does, however, kick the wall which is attached to our bedroom and it scares me awake.
So far Emma loves being in her big girl bed and at most has gotten out once before a nap or bedtime. After I bring her back to bed and tell her that she needs to stay in bed, she talks to herself and then falls asleep. It's so sweet to see her sleeping in a bed. She looks so grown up. The next step will be to add the frame and headboard and I'm guessing it will get done this weekend.
We've also been organizing and rearranging the basement. Okay, K's been doing the work and I've been supervising. Next we need to get stuff out of the boys' closet and organize/arrange their room. Right now, it is a big mess. But Emma does love playing in there with all the new stuff. We found another crib - yay! And my family had a party/shower for us last Sunday and we got a lot of great stuff! I think we're getting there, well, except for arranging the boys' room and buying massive amounts of diapers. Has anyone noticed that it's harder to find newborn diapers lately? Or maybe it's just me. That's probably it.
One more thing. I love to hear Emma sing along with the songs on the radio. She may not understand or know all the words, but she can sing a few of them (she makes up the rest of the words). Her latest favorites are Mighty to Save by Michael W. Smith and Never Let Go by Matt Redman. In fact, she randomly started singing them yesterday in the morning when I was not having a great day and it brightened up my day. You have to listen pretty hard to guess what song she's singing, but once you know what song it is, you can catch some of the words. And she'll sing along with Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice. Some of it is pretty repetitive, so she can catch on to those words. And of course she knows the Veggie Tales theme song. Maybe she'll be a good singer someday. Which would not be taking after her mommy. :)
I didn't post the pictures of the last ultrasound because they were a little graphic. If you knew what you were looking for. There were a couple of a foot, a hand and a yawn. The yawn was kinda cute.
Now I have new pictures. Profile pictures. Mario was hiding, so his profile shot is from a distance so it's kind of blurry. They are both laying across my uterus. Mario at the bottom with his head one way and Luigi at the top with his head the other way. I don't know any other stats other than their heart rates were at 145 bpm. We will have another "big" ultrasound in 2 weeks to check everything.
Baby B (Luigi)'s profile shot. See his foot up at the top left of the picture?!
Another profile shot of Luigi. In this one his knee is right by his nose.
Here's Baby A ("Mario")'s face. You can see his arm at the top up next to his face. And you can kind of see his eyes and mouth...
Mario's blurry profile shot...
That's all for now! I think next time we'll get some 3-D (or is it 4-D) ones.
We found out last Tuesday that we are having two boys! I was totally in shock. I really didn't expect to have two boys. But they were quite obviously boys. I could even tell. They both are doing great. The ultrasound tech measured some stuff - brain, arms, legs and checked their hearts out. Baby A (who was measuring 5 days different than Baby B at the first ultrasound) was 6 ounces and Baby B was 7 ounces, which they said was great!
My sister and brother-in-law were here visiting last weekend and we decided they should be Mario and Luigi for now. We haven't picked out names yet. Do you have any ideas?! It could get interesting trying to pick out two boys names and both of us agree on them. : )
Here is the one we have of Baby A (above). Apparently he/she didn't want to look at us. Baby A was curled up most of the time so it was hard to get him/her measured.
Here's Baby B looking at us. Of course he/she can't see us... They looked a little squished in their little sacs. : )
We had an appointment today with the Maternal-Fetal Medicine doctor at the hospital here. And they did an ultrasound to check on the babies. They are getting a lot bigger. And they actually look like babies now. With heads, arms, legs and bodies! They couldn't tell what genders the babies are yet, though. Next appointment (Feb. 17th) will be the major ultrasound where they check everything out and we'll get to find out what we're having.
Both babies seem to be about the same size now. (Remember Baby A was measuring smaller at the last ultrasounds?) Although it's harder to get a measurement when the babies are moving and curling up. It was so exciting to see them moving! I haven't felt them moving, yet, though.
I have a few pictures from the ultrasound, but I will need to wait until K gets home so he can show me how to use the scanner. I thought I could figure it out myself...but I couldn't.
Aren't they cute? Okay, so you can't really see them. I was at the ultrasound and will vouch for that fact. They just look like long blobs right now, but I could see their hearts beating. So cool!
