MerryMommy

Soft goodnight kisses. The Three Hundred Sixty Fifth As sweet as the First. The first sweet baby good night kiss seems like ages ago, yet I can still feel it on my lips. I would have given anything to hold my babies all night that first night. Tonight, I gently place them in their cribs, rub my aching lower back, and leave the room for a long 11 hours until they wake up to celebrate in the morning. Their first birthday is tomorrow. And tonight is the one year anniversary of the night that forever changed my life. I could never have fathomed the abrupt division of my life before and after Cameron and Joshua. Last July 14th if you asked what my plans were for life with the boys I would have told you: I would be going back to work--how could we afford a family of 4 without two salaries? I would be maintaining friendships that were part of my daily life. I would be showering each day. I would be eating well to provide the best nutrition for my breastfeeding babies. I would be b...

We learn our true strength Not while anticipating, but while reflecting. This is a story about strength. Strength and grace. Strength and grace in the face of life's most unthinkable challenge. This is a story of inspiration. Just before I became pregnant I celebrated the news of a friend's new pregnancy. She was surprised and delighted to be carrying a wonderful, miraculous gift. She shared with me her baby's developments over the next several months, and mused on the joys that were to come. I soon discovered I was pregnant with my twin boys and thought how wonderful it would be to share our pregnancies. I knew we would both have much to learn as new mommies, but did not yet know just how much more learning I would be doing. My friend, similarly, had no sense yet of how much she would be teaching me. Perhaps until right now she still does not know. I had not yet revealed my still new pregnancy to her when she went for her 20 week anatomy ultrasound. I looked forw...

Nine Months. We made it! Took longer than expected, But was worth the wait. As we approached the boys' 9 month "birthday" this week, a friend remarked "Wow! They're breaking even!" And as the words came out we both corrected the remark and laughed. Nope, my boys are overachievers, they broke even 2 months ago. This fleeting comment made me realize how "9 months" is a simple phrase or idea that we readily equate to pregnancy. What other "month" phrases have such a clear definition in our vernacular? 12 months is a year. 9 months is gestation. 7, 8, 6 months? No obvious definitions come to mind. But we all know what happened when a baby is born 9 months after his parents' wedding day. (And let's not forget all those preemies who were born 7 or 8 months after their parents' wedding day. <wink wink>) But to a preemie mom, this colloquial "9 months" no longer has the same import as it did before we wore the...

They'll be viable ? I don't want just viable. I want them to thrive. I will never forget my 24 week sonogram. After months of cervical length checks, my husband and I knew that today's measurement was a significant drop from prior visits. And we knew we had entered the danger zone. As we waited the long wait between sono tech leaving and doctor entering, we looked at each other with expressions that left no need for words.  This wasn't good news. But what did it mean? The door opened and a doctor we hadn't seen before came walking in. Unfortunately he did not have the same excellent bedside manner as the doctors we were used to seeing. Very matter of factly, without even making eye contact, he said: "This is a concerning change. From now on you must be on all modified activity. Nothing more than walking and driving is permitted. You must come back weekly for regular checks." And then... "If you make it through the weekend til Monday, the b...

"These are your babies, We are just helping you care for them." Empowered. I spent my first days post-partum with doctors, nurses, and pamphlets flinging rules and policies at me faster than I could really absorb them, though absorb them I did. While I very much wanted to follow all the rules and do everything "right" in this strange new NICU land, I also very much wanted to just be a mommy. I tiptoed carefully into the nursery, washed my hands dutifully, Purelled before touching any part of the isolette, and asked for permission to touch my babies. Some well-intentioned nurses would tell me: "Feedings are at 8, 11, 2, and 5. So try to come then so as not to disturb the babies in between." This sounded fair enough, I thought. Except that I didn't really know what that meant. Could I only hold my babies at four short, prescribed times per shift? That really meant I could only hold Cameron twice and Joshua twice, because I couldn't yet hold b...

Leave them here for weeks? I never thought I'd say this: NICU Nostalgia I spent months praying that my babies would make it full term enough to come right home with me. The thought of leaving them in the hospital and spending days or, worse, weeks commuting to be with them was unimaginable. I always said "I just don't want to have to leave them in the hospital." I had the picture perfect idea of what our first days as a family of four would look like. None of those daydreamed visions involved watching my babies through isolette portholes, with feeding tubes in their noses and IVs in their tiny little arms. The Neonatal attending doctor came to visit me in recovery a couple hours after the boys were born. I remember him coming in and beginning to rattle through the medical needs they had, what sorts of treatments they would receive, and what NICU policies were. I remember that  he said those things, but I don't remember what they were. I sat listening to a bl...

How much is one gram? Wow, really, a dollar bill? He gained 10 dollars! My appreciation for the metric system blossomed in the NICU. I can't recall a time when I really needed it before, but it soon became the highlight of our day. Each night at the 8pm feed we would get to strip our little peanuts down and weigh them.  Their night nurse wheeled the scale over.  We checked last night's chart so we knew the number to beat.  We g ently plopped a freshly-diapered baby on and watched the red numbers flash before settling... Best case scenario: You gained 15 grams! Great work baby! Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you!  That's 15 dollar bills--about half an ounce. It seems so insignificant in our English unit vernacular. But it's a heavy accomplishment for a guy who is burning precious calories learning to eat and maintain his body temperature all day.  Some days the numbers didn't change much from the night before. Those nights the nur...