They're home!

Alexa

Delaney

Well, the babies came home just over a week ago (on October 10th). Praise God! It has been so nice to have our whole family under the same roof for once! Of course this has presented it's own set of challenges, but it's definitely been good to be together finally. Alexa and Delaney are doing wonderfully. They came home Saturday and when they had their doctor appointment on Wednesday they had already gained nearly half a pound each. Delaney was averaging a gain of 2 ounces per day and Alexa was averaging one ounce per day. The doctor said they're usually thrilled if they are even gaining a half of an once per day at this point. They are growing so quickly and even look almost like "normal" sized newborns at this point! The last they were weighed Delaney weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and Alexa weighed 5 pounds, which granted is still half the birth weight of my other kids, but they seem so big now! Alexa's thyroid levels are much better, and although they are both still a little jaundiced the doctors are not overly concerned about it at this point.

The hardest thing so far has been the lack of sleep. Although they are both great babies and rarely cry unless they are hungry or cold or in need of a diaper change, they still eat every 3 hours or so at this point around the clock. And since there are two of them and I am pumping this can sometimes take up to 1 1/2 to 2 hours in the middle of the night and then you only have another hour or two until it's time to start it all over again. Eugene took part of the week off this week so he has been able to help out with the night shifts at this point, but I don't know how things are going to go once he goes back to work this week!

The harder thing for the older kids is understanding why they are not able to do some of the things we did as a family previously (like leaving the house, for example!). They all adore the babies and are very good at helping out, but I hope they don't end up resenting them as a result of the this temporary change in lifestyle. We are doing are best to keep things as normal for them as we can, but there are some things we just can't help. Taiven especially is having to learn how to be patient as I cannot get him things as quickly as he would like me to at times. Poor kid, he must have asked to "change poopy" about 20 times while I was feeding Delaney the other day. Maybe this will be good motivation for him to start using the potty if I can't always attend to his needs right away! Other than that I can only think of one occasion during the past week in which 4 of the 5 kids were crying at one time, and we managed to survive that so I'm thinking there's hope! :)

Once again I have just been overwhelmed by how supportive everyone has been - bringing meals and gifts, offering to pick up the kids from school or watch the kids during the day, offering to pick things up from the grocery store for us or to come stay with the babies so we can go to church or to come watch the kids so I can get some rest, or just to help in any way they can. I truly have felt so overwhelmed and humbled by this whole process. The hard thing for me will be taking people up on their offers to help, although I've just had to learn to start getting over that because, as Eugene likes to remind me, we need it!

The day we went to bring the babies home from the hospital I was reading my Bible (while pumping, might I add - I've gotten very good at multi-tasking!) and the chapters I read were just so fitting. One of the verses that stuck out to me was "The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy" (Psalm 126:3). How fitting. God truly has done great, even amazing, things for us and continues to provide for us in ways beyond what I could even ask or imagine! I am so grateful to have our 2 healthy miracle babies home with us, even when I am exhausted and dealing with two hungry babies in the middle of the night! The other verse that I read was "Sons (and I'm assuming daughters!) are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him... Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them" (Psalm 127:3,5). Was a looking for a double "reward" from the Lord? Uh, no. But do I feel blessed to have been given two? Definitely. Undeserving, but blessed.

The final verse that stuck out to me was that "He (the Lord) grants sleep to those he loves." I kid you not! It says that in the Bible! To which my response is "Don't you love me anymore, Lord???" :) I guess His blessings sometimes come with a price... somehow I have a feeling it's worth the cost.

Coming home soon???

Somehow I am finding that it's much harder to maintain a blog when you're not sitting around a hospital room 24 hours a day! My days feel much more chaotic these days than they did a month or so ago. As strange as it sounds, I'm beginning to feel like my 6 week hospital stay was God's way of providing a rest for me before the real chaos began! I thought I would feel less torn and pulled in fewer directions once the babies moved up here from GR, but somehow I still feel pulled in different directions! I'm torn between wanting to spend time with the babies and wanting to spend time with my older kids; wanting to catch up with all my friends that I haven't seen in the last couple months and wanting to get things done around the house and elsewhere before the babies are home and I have no time to do any of the above, and the list goes on. I feel like my days are just spent running back and forth between the hospital and home and school, etc., etc. and I am left with very little quality time with anyone! I keep thinking the next phase will be better, but I'm beginning to wonder if it really will or if this will just continue to be a struggle to juggle everything from here on out. The kids have been pretty understanding so far, but I'm wondering how things will go once the babies are home and I have less and less time to devote to them individually!

Speaking of the babies coming home, it looks like they may be able to come home as early as this weekend! They have been eating really well lately and gaining weight. At one point last week they had to have their feeding tubes put back in for a little while because they were just getting too tired, but they have had them back out now for about 4 days and seem to be going strong with the bottles! They both weigh around 4 1/2 pounds now, give or take a little. The doctor took them off of the milk fortifier yesterday, and wants to see if they will continue to gain weight without it, but that is the last thing they really need to accomplish before they can come home, assuming they don't regress in the mean time.

The only other significant thing that has happened in the last week or so is that they had a head ultrasound done, and found that both Alexa and Delaney have grade 1 (small) brain bleeds. The doctors don't seem too concerned at this point and seem to feel as though they will likely resolve themselves, but it is just one more thing to keep praying about.

Our church is doing a series on being "Fearless" right now and our pastor asked Eugene and I to share our story about the twins during the intro. I was really nervous to do it because everything is still so fresh for me and I don't feel like we're totally through it yet, but yet I really wanted to share what God has done and is continuing to do in and through this. It's funny because I think I'm doing ok with things until something like Alexa's hypothyroidism or the brain bleed thing comes up and then I struggle with being fearful all over again. Or I think I'm fine until I go to talk about it and then I randomly start crying. Anyhow, I survived the talk and didn't totally break down (which was totally an answer to prayer given that I couldn't get more than a couple words out all morning without getting emotional!) so I was thankful for that. Here's the link in case anyone wants to hear it. http://www.genesiswired.com/media/audio/. It was hard to keep it to a couple minutes because I feel like there's so much more to be said, but I was glad that we could at least share part of it.

Moe and Kris and Mom and Dad came to visit this weekend. It was fun to have them around, and they were a huge help in disassembling the office and beginning to make it into a nursery! Now all we need is the babies and we'll be all set!

It's kind of fun to see the babies' personalities showing a little more. Alexa seems to have developed a reputation of being the "feisty one" while Delaney tends to be a little more mild mannered over all, but that is all subject to change. I can't wait to spend more consistent time with them to see for myself!