Birth story continued...

When I left off, I was recovering in my room waiting to get the ok to be wheeled down to see my babies.  After a few hours it was finally time!!!  My sweet post-partum nurses got me dressed and ready in my wheel chair.  At this point I was still catheterized, so I got to bring my lovely pee bag with me.  M pushed me in my chair.  The hallways felt like they went on forever.  Finally we got to the NICU door.  We pushed a button that alerted the NICU nurses we were there.  They have a camera at the door so the nurses can make sure you're someone they recognize.  Tight security.

The doors open and the first two beds on the ward are my babies.  M wheels me in between their beds and I look back and forth between the two beds at the teeny little bodies, bodies that I made, bodies that had been wiggling at me from the inside until that day.  It was a strange moment.  In that moment I was really meeting my babies for the first time.  I was filled with so much love, yet seeing them full of IV's, tubes and breathing apparatuses (at that point it was just nasal canulas) made me really upset.  I'm not sure how much was hormones, how much was a month of bed rest, how much of it was true sadness, etc, but I cried.  Hard.  I sat in between them and held their little hands.  I kissed their sweet heads.  I couldn't bear to see them like this.

As I sat there crying during what should have been a very happy moment, the NICU nurse Crystal came to introduce herself.  Through alligator tears I asked her a thousand questions, many of them redundant and repetitive.  She tried to bear with me, but I could tell she was annoyed with my hysterics.  I caught onto the vibe and started to ignore her.  I wasn't here to talk to her, I was here to love on my babies.

I spent several hours there that first night.  I got to feed {M}!  I cuddled and snuggled them.  I hope they felt how much we loved them, even from the very beginning.  Around 11p we went back to my room.  It had been a long day and I still hadn't rested.  I would never truly rest again...even as of this very minute.  That night was full of waking.  First it was all the scheduled medications.  Then my urine output was very troubling. Then my IV blew-had to get a new one at 2a.  Then I got blood thinner shots about 3a because I'd been on bedrest so long they were concerned about a blood clot.  You get the idea, no sleep.  How can a girl sleep when her children are across the ward without her???

At some point the nurse came in with a NICU update.  The babies had to go on CPAP.  Fudge.  This was the first of a lot of bad news we'd receive in those first few days.

The next morning we got up with the sun to go visit our babies.  Both had cpap masks on and more IV's.  They hadn't eaten yet and wouldn't get to for several days.  Another day full of tears and questions shot at whoever would listen in the NICU.  Were they going to be ok?  Our "just a quick once over for observation" NICU visit had turned into an indefinite stay.  Queue mommy guilt.  What if I would have pushed the Dr's to let me go another week or two?  Could I have prevented GD?  Why did I get pre-e?  I should have excersized more and ate less.  I'd later find out that there's nothing I could have done to change their situation.  

The day passed much like our first NICU visit.  We met the babies Neonatologist Dr. Struebel.  Also a mother of twins :)  She.was.AWESOME.  She came to my room and talked to me, mother-to-mother.  We talked a long time about what caused this and what we were going to do to get them healthy.  At that point she predicted they'd be discharged by the time I went home.  Ha!  Regardless of that overestimation, we loved her.  There's no way she could have known what was really wrong with our boy.  

Day 2.  Day 2 was tough.  Still hadn't slept at all and the weight of my babies condition was a heavy one to bear with a body coming off of twin pregnancy hormones.  I spent my days crying.  I cried all day long.  Literally.  I was so full of guilt, I couldn't take it.  Why did I agree to deliver at 36 weeks?  Everyone around me reminded me that 36 weeks was awesome and my body wasn't a safe place for my babies anymore.  They had to come out.  Sometime that afternoon the Nurse Practitioner came to my room to tell me that {M} was going on a ventilator.  He was down trending and needed MORE help.  Hysterics.  

They intubated {M} (tube inserted into his lungs) and administered surfactant therapy-basically a synthetic surfactant that coats the lungs to keep premature lungs from sticking together.  Surfactant replacement therapy would go in through the vent tube and into his lungs.  The Dr's assured me they ALWAYS saw incredible results.  Nothing.  It didn't work.  It always works, why didn't it work on my HEALTHY 36 weeker?  

Meanwhile {A} is weaned off the CPAP onto high flow canula.  She was progressing so well, why was {M} struggling so hard?  Life on the vent continued.  It was heartbreaking to see him so upset.  He couldn't cry or swallow around the tube.  He tried to cry.  His face crumbled and he just wanted me to hold him so desperately.  I couldn't.  I could barely touch him.  I spent hours slumped over his bed just touching his soft head.  I cried and told him how much I loved him.  Wow, this is really hard to recollect.  Not hard as in I can't remember, hard as in painful.  He had a UA (umbilical IV) in his belly button-the line ran from the belly button up into the ventricles of the heart.  If that line was pulled out he could bleed to death.  We had to keep him calm.  They had to sedate him a couple times.  Big babies like him weren't meant to be on a vent.  

The next day we came in to see {M} getting an ECHO.  His perfect little heart was thumping away on the screen next to his bed.  The ultrasound tech smiled up at us and tried to make small talk as he looked for the cause of our son's deterioration.  The heart?  OMG, I thought it was just a lung maturity issue, it can't be as serious as his heart, can it?  I asked the tech what he saw.  Of course he deflected me.  That made me panic. Some of the techs tell you its all clear.  The ones that don't have something to hide.  Our nurse that day, Andrea, watched the tech work.  When the coast was clear I asked Andrea what she saw.  She said she thought she saw a PDA.  I had no clue what that was, but she assured me it can occur even in babies this close to term.

A bit later that afternoon, the PDA ("significant") diagnosis was confirmed.  Sometimes they treat them, sometimes they let them heal on their own.  They said we needed to treat {M}'s because it was causing a massive amount of blood flow to the left side of his heart, causing enlargement.  The Neo came over to talk to us.  She explained that he would get his first dose of Indomethacin.  Usually these things closed after two doses.  They finally felt confident that the PDA was the cause of all {M}'s lung issues.  Too much blood was going to that area making the lungs heavy.

First dose down.  They *think* the murmur (caused by the open valve/duct) sounds better.  Another ECHO. PDA still open.  Seriously?  They did decide to extubate though.  He was pulled off the vent and put onto a CPAP.  At this point {A} was on room air (no breathing help) and eating breast milk from a bottle.  As soon as our boy came off the vent they took his UA line out and let us hold him.  We got to truly hold our son for the first time in 6 days.  It was unbelievable.  We reunited the babies and let them snuggle while we basked in all that was new parenthood.  We changed diapers, fed them breast milk bottles, rocked them to sleep and loved on them endlessly.  It sucks that it wasn't in the comfort of our home, but it was the best place for them at that point.

A couple days later {A} came home-April 3!  Bittersweet that we had to leave her brother behind.  More tears.  By this point I was ok with how everything was going.  I knew {M} was truly on the mend and I got to relax a bit.  Everyday {A} and I went up to the hospital to be with {M}.  Everyday we left in tears.  {M} made big strides in the 7 days he remained in the NICU after his sister went home.  He missed her :)  He took to feeds a little slow, but eventually he got it down pat.  Breathing was another issue all together.  He remained on oxygen until last Friday...as in May 13-7 weeks old.  He was discharged on April 10 and the four of us went home as a family!

It was a long hard road, but they are so very worth every bit of it.  They are happy, healthy babies.  They are wonderful eaters and even better sleepers.  Even today, on their 8 week birthday, they are still sleeping 6-8 hour stretches at night.  Thank you Jesus!  Breast feeding didn't work for us.  I'll forever be upset about that.  I never produced enough for two and when both babies got home there just wasn't enough time to pump for such a small amount.  I'm sad, but I'm not going to worry about it.  Hopefully next time around I'll be able to breast feed :)

There you have it.  I'm sure I missed some details, but thats the long and short of it!