First Few Days Back

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted.  Monday morning, Kaci and I traveled by ambulance back to the hospital where the babies were born.  Monday afternoon, Heath and Kynan joined us and we’ve been here ever since.  Internet coverage is spotty here, and I don’t want to leave the twins alone long enough for me to find a hot spot, so I just haven’t been posting.

Both are doing very well.  Kaci is slowly being weaned off of oxygen and took her very first bottle Thursday.  She drank all but 2 ccs of it! Very impressive considering she has never had a bottle before! 

Kynan polished off an entire bottle for the first time on Thursday.  We were very proud of him.  He is up to 3 bottle feeds a day, while Kaci is on one.  Kaci is gaining weight like a champ, and Kynan is a little bit slower, but he is gaining too. 

The babies’ doctor believes they will be here for 2-3 weeks.  I’m hoping for closer to 2.  I’m staying at the hospital with the babies and haven’t left the hospital since Monday evening when I got some stuff out of the car.  It’s a bit stifling in here, but I just can’t bear to leave the babies alone.

Heath is going to work, then he picks Kalyn and Keali up from his parents and they go home to sleep.  Kalyn and Keali have both gotten to hold their baby brother and sister, and while I think they enjoyed it, I believe that the twins hold little fascination for them!  The girls would hold them for about 20 seconds…just long enough for me to snap a few pictures, then they were DONE!  It’s a good thing we had a grown up helping them hold the babies because otherwise, I think the babies would have been tossed on the floor by a young girl eager to move on to the next ‘fun’ thing.

Kalyn and Keali are looking forward to all of us living together again.  My heart breaks a little bit every time I see them and they sob when we are separated.  Heart wrenching.  Painful.  I can’t wait until we are all together again too.

I’m healing up very well.  Now that over two weeks have passed since that day, I have had time to think.  Though I never wanted a c-section, and I don’t look forward to having another one (if we ever have more children, I will have to have a c-section because a vbac would be way too dangerous given the circumstances in which these two were born so early) the recovery has not been as bad as I thought it would be. 

My doctor stops in to check on the babies and me every day and is very happy that I sleep on my stomach.  I have always been a tummy sleeper, and I’m so happy to be able to do that again!  He says it is a sign that I am recovering very well. 

I still think that the women who choose c-sections are crazy—especially if they haven’t ever given the other type of birth a shot, but I think I could handle it if I did it again.  I would definitely have to have the pain ball again though.

Kalyn drew me a picture at church last Sunday and I’ve hung it in our hospital room.  I love looking at it.

The small hospital where we are has had a huge influx of babies recently.  I asked the nurses what the usual number of babies is for them.  12 a month.  Wow!  Only 12!

This week—how many babies have they had? 13.  In one week.  They are calling them the Ice Storm Babies.  About nine months ago, the end of January, and early February, north east Arkansas had a horrible ice storm.  Many people lost power for weeks—most lost power for at least a few days.  Ice was everywhere and there was nothing anyone could do.  Well…it seems there was almost nothing anyone could do.

Anyway, fast forward nine months and all of the hospitals in the area have seen a dramatic increase in the number of births in the past week and a half.  Yesterday, during the pediatricians rounds (all babies have to be taken to the nursery for this), Julia and I walked out to look in the nursery windows.  There were nine babies in the nursery.  Bassinet room only (get it?  Instead of standing room only?!  Okay, please forgive me for that).  It was amazing to see all those babies together like that. 

Mine are by far the smallest babies, and EVERYONE is fascinated by “the twins.”  Every time I am out there, people are talking about the twins.  It seems HIPPA means very little to the nurses who appear to have told every patient and every patient’s visitors about the twins born here a couple weeks ago who have been transferred back to grow and learn to eat.  I think it’s funny that all of these people know this, and they take it upon themselves to inform other people admiring all the babies about it too. 

There have been a couple of 9 pounders born recently.  They look like giants compared to Kynan and Kaci.  All the babies look bigger than them, but the 9 pounders are huge.  I guess I got used to seeing all the tiny babies in the NICU and I forgot what a full term healthy baby looks like.  Still.  9 lbs?  I wouldn’t want to give birth to that baby!  My biggest was Kalyn and she was 7 lbs. 7 oz.  That is big enough for me.