So last Monday, I got to the NICU to find a note by Jacob's bed he had apparently written by himself saying that he had pulled out his feeding tube and he wanted to be like his brothers and eat from a bottle all the time. He also said that he didn't want to be left behind when his brothers went home so he asked that I didn't put the tube back. Seeing that my son was so smart, I listened and approved his request. He did and has continued to do as promised but he is pretty sloppy!! I swear he ends up wearing most of his milk. To this day, he still spills most of it. I think his mouth is still too little to properly grasp the nipple on the bottles and we've tried different nipples with different flows and it's the same story every time. Oh well, I've just started putting him in a "let's get dirty" shirt and away we go! He'll learn.
On Monday I was also told that if things keep progressing the way they had, the boys would most likely come home on Friday. That made me super happy and nervous at the same time, there was still so much to do! I decided to take Tuesday "off" (as if taking care of the boys is a job! haha) to clean the house and to buy the rest of the things we may have needed. So Tuesday I cleaned the boy's room, swept and washed all the floors (trying to get rid of as many Roxy hair as I could) and went to the mall... well I wish someone would have told me what a ridiculous plan that was!!! All I wanted to get a few essentials from Toys R' Us for the boys... I waited in line for a half hour, it was cray cray! As I head over to the food court to grab a quick bite to eat, I hear my name being called out; it was my friend Meg (and cutiepie daughter Mackenzie) who was having lunch with my other friend Sarah (and HER cutiepie son Isaac). I got to sit down and have lunch with them, it was great! Then I head off to Wal-Mart to pick up some formula... well I didn't get any! I stood in front of them and had a mini break down as I looked at all of them and the different options... low iron, fortified iron, extra blah blah blah, less blah blah blah... I gave up and walked away defeated! That night we went to pick up car seats from our friends Mel and Matt (who have been so giving it's hard to say how grateful we are) and it was great as they answered a tonne of questions we didn't even know we had! They clarified the whole formula enigma for us, even helped us figure out how to prepare it (good thing we went as I probably would have poisoned my children...).
Wednesday was a huge snow storm, I missed it all as it started just before I was dropped off and was over by the time I left. Thank God we got a car starter for Christmas from my in-laws! (Shout out to Audio Crew for installing it as quick as they did too) The day passed as any other, that night we went to visit our friends Alicia and Neil as she said she had stuff for us. Well of course, having the amazing group of co-workers that I do, she had gathered all sorts of goodies for us! We got Lasagana, Spaghetti Sauce, sweets, meat pies and all sorts of other goodies. We were also given a calendar to help organize our life for the next year (thanks Liz, it's already been put to good use!!), some hand made slippers (Thanks Pamela) and amazingly cute onesies (thanks Linda!). It was really nice to spend an evening with good friends just talking and relaxing, I think those days are numbered! haha... we also stopped by to see our friends Sarah and Chris who gave us chili, muffins and yummy fudge. It was really nice to see them as well as we won't be seeing much of our friends for the next month as we quarantine the boys until their due date!
We have been well looked after since this whole adventure started and we continue to be! I used to work for my friend Josée's weight loss business ( www.yourwayoursupport.com ) and the members have just been amazing also, I got lots and lots of goodies from them as well, thanks gals!!! I miss you all!!!
Thursday the boys turned 4 weeks!!
The day started off as a good day as I was ready for the doctor to tell me that Friday was still a go for the boys to come home. Samuel and Zachary decided they weren't ready and had heart rate drops through the night... this meant no go for Friday as the doctor wanted them to have zero drops for 24 hours. What sucked was that for the 48 hours prior, they had had none! We had been so mentally prepared to bring them home on Friday that to be told it wasn't going to happen was a great blow! It was another tear filled phone call to my dear husband who has been so cool, calm and collected during this whole ordeal, I couldn't have gotten through it without him! The doctor said he'd prefer to wait until Sunday to make sure they're truly ready. Of course, I wanted them to be as healthy and ready as possible before I brought them home and took them off their heart and lung monitors but I was so sick of the NICU. The wonderful head nurse came to hug me after rounds were over to tell me that it was going to be ok and as I hugged her I told her "you know I love you all, but I'm so sick of this place..." she laughed as I'm sure she had heard that same sentence time and time again. It's true, the nurses, the admin assistants, the cleaners,etc... have become such an integral part of my life and I love them all so much (some more than others of course! haha) but I was SO ready to say goodbye to this place! I decided to take the afternoon to myself anyways and finish what I didn't get done on Tuesday. I got our car seats inspected, good thing too as I totally didn't know what I was doing! haha...
Friday came and we decided to talk to the doctor about the possibility of leaving on Saturday due to the storm that was coming on Sunday. I really didn't want to chance the weather and having to take an already stress filled drive in a storm. I also didn't want to have to wait until Monday! He hummed and ahed for like 5 minutes before making up his mind (Jacob had had a small drop over night so that worried him a bit). Now this was doctor Concrete so I knew that if he agreed that I would feel that the boys would actually be ready! I chose Dr. Mud as the boys' paediatrician so I trust him as well and I'm sure he wouldn't send them home if they weren't ready either but for some reason I'd feel better if Dr.Concrete deemed it so. After a while he said that if the boys passed their 90 minute car seat test, they could go home on Saturday.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
So the boys had to stay in their car seats, hooked up to their monitor, for 90 minutes without their heart rates dropping and without their breathing being disrupted. They did Samuel and Jacob first and I couldn't stay as it was pretty nerve racking so Gabe and I went for lunch to kill some time. We came back and Samuel had just passed his and there was a half hour left for Jacob and he passed as well! Then came Zachary's turn... we didn't leave that time and it was a good thing the other boys had to be fed as I would have watched the monitor for the full hour and a half! Every half hour the nurses would come do a check and it was like Zachary was doing laps and every half hour was another lap finished. Well as you would expect my boys being my boys (they will most likely be rule followers like their mother and they knew the rule was to pass or they wouldn't be going home), he passed like a champ! THE BOYS WERE COMING HOME!!! YEAH!!! and then.... OMG... the boys are coming home... holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!
We spent Friday night in what they call "Care by Parents Room" where the boys stay in there with us and we take care of them as if they were home. The NICU is right outside the door and we can call for help anytime.
 |
| Our NICU hotel room |
 |
| WE ARE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
We are some lucky that the boys are still so tiny as most of what they do is sleep so we have some time to ourselves to sleep and get some stuff done. That's nice and is supposed to last until they reach close to term so we may be in for some false sense of reality!! Of course, they still eat every 4-5 hours but mostly sleep the rest of the time so we also sleep or relax. If we find they start waking up too early or cry because they have cramps, we find all we have to do is snuggle (which is such a hard task!) and they settle down. Once they are hungry though, watch out, they are HUNGRY (they take this from both of us... but mostly Daddy) and they mean business!! The only reason I am able to write this blog is because of this:
 |
| Samuel napping on mommy while she writes her blog, Zachary cuddling with Daddy and Jacob slowly waking up in the swing. |
No comments:
Post a Comment