Saturday, October 15th

Today has been a good day! We slept at home last night and came down to the hospital about 7:30am. Ben was too tired to eat during the night so he took his feedings through his feeding tube. The nurse that was here overnight reported that Ainsley was very content all night and had just started to wake up more and get a little fussy.

All day today we have bottle-fed Ben and he is up to 35ml every 3 hours. He gets most of it down and usually leaves between 6ml and 10ml to put into his tube. They also check how much is left in his stomach from the previous feed before we start each new one. It is a little gross but they do this by putting a syringe on the end of the feeding tube and pulling back up the stomach contents. They can also pull any air/gas out of the stomach this way. He usually starts out eating pretty well then gets tired at the end and can't quite finish. This is perfectly fine at this point and we are letting him decide how much of the work he wants to do and we'll do the rest.

Ainsley is still getting 8ml in her feeding tube every three hours. She will go up to 11ml tonight. She was not digesting her formula very well so at this point she is on breastmilk only and she is not having any residual left in her stomach before her next feeding. This also means she is hogging all the "good food" from her brother. Hopefully I will eventually have enough milk for both of them! The other big news for Ainsley is that she got her nasal cannula off today. She is now breating completely on her own with NO help! Her oxygen saturations have stayed where they should be so she is doing great with that!

Now the goal for both is really to continue to eat well and get plenty of rest so they can GROW!

First Bow!

First Family Photo!

Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers!

Friday, October 14th

Today started out a little rough. We went to see the babies and feed Ben at 5am. Ben didn't want to take his 2am feeding so they had to put a feeding tube in. We knew this was a possibility but he had been doing really well so it was disappointing and Mom had her first tears in the NICU. However the emotions were short lived and when we came back for his 8am feeding he took it all by mouth. He has kept up the feedings all day and the feeding tube is there for "back up" in case he gets too worn out to eat. We have really been leaving him alone in an effort to not get him too tired. We try just to hold him to feed him and then maybe a few minutes longer. He seems to get more rest in his crib. He got his IV out today so he is now only connected to his heart rate and respiration monitor which will stay on until he goes home. His main goals right now are to continue to eat well and rest so he can grow!

Ainsley has had a pretty eventful day as well. She was holding steady this morning and did not really have any changes but when we came back to the hospital this afternoon the room was strangely quite...because she got her CPAP off! She is now on oxygen through her nose. Since she got rid of the CPAP she got her umbilical line out and we got to hold her for the first time - so AMAZING! We also got to feed her. She started at 5ml and got 1ml of breastmilk and 4ml of formula. She did quite well for her first ever feeding. We are also trying not to stimulate her too much so we enjoyed holding her for awhile but are now letting her rest most of the time in her bed.

Here she is after the CPAP was removed and before she got her nasal cannula.

Here's Mom getting to hold her for the first time!

Holding hands

Dad giving Ainsley her first bottle

We had to limit visitors a little bit to no more than two at a time and not more than about 30-45 minutes. It's hard because we want everyone to be able to love on them but we understand they need to rest so they can grow and do their best.

I was discharged today. They were completely full and asked if I would want to leave a little early. I was totally up for that since I wanted to get stuff moved around and settled into the babies' room. Since we got out by 11am we got a $30 gift card to Target - CRAZY! But awesome! We took some stuff home and started a load of laundry. Well, Jeremy started the laundry and I took an hour nap. Then we stopped at Target and came back down to the hospital. We are going to sleep at home and be here during the days. The bed in the room is NOT comfortable.

We are feeling pretty good although tired and I'm still pretty sore. We are trying to remember to take care of ourselves too which is probably the hardest part. Who ever thought it would be so hard to remember to eat?

Again we want to thank everyone for all your support and thoughts and prayers. They are working!! Praise God for these two amazing miracles!

Thursday, October 13th

I am going to try to do regular updates through the blog while the kids are in the NICU.

Today has been a good day so far. We went over to the NICU at 5am to feed Ben and check on Ainsley. Ben is doing very well with his feedings so far and they are starting to increase them. They started at 10ml every 3 hours and are going to increase by 5ml every 12 hours assuming he tolerates it. I'm not sure what his goal is right now though it will increase as his weight increases. He is likely getting his IV out today and can get rid of his pulse oximeter so that is two less wires! He is hard to get dressed and undressed anyway because as soon as you unswaddle him he starts flailing like crazy but with all his wires it is even harder. We'll be glad to see those go completely! Ben also got a "big boy crib" last night. He is maintaining his temperature so he didn't need the warmer anymore.

Ben likes to keep a good grip on that paci

Mom and Ben

Ainlsey is doing pretty well also. They had to turn up her oxygen on her CPAP again last night which was a little disappointing. However when we went over this morning she was doing SO well. Her respirations are down from 90-100/minute to 30-50/minute (based on what I see on her monitors when I'm in there). She is working WAY less hard to breath. It was so hard to watch her breath before because it was so fast and labored. It wore me out just to watch! When her doctor came in around 11:30am he was not happy with how long it was taking her to get off the CPAP and he just thought she should be getting better faster. Because of this they decided to give her some surfactant. To do this they had to put her on a ventilator, get the surfactant into the lungs, and then try to get her back on the CPAP. They have to give some sedating medicine to get her on the ventilator so then it can sometimes be a little hard to get babies back off, so they warned us that she could be on a ventilator for awhile. However, this wasn't the case with her - she did awesome! She went right back on the CPAP and they have steadily been decreasing it since the procedure. Right now she is on room air through the CPAP. Hopefully later she'll be able to try breathing without the CPAP though they said she will need some oxygen - I'm assuming just through a nasal cannula. Once we get off the CPAP, it is my understanding that the umbilical line can come out and then we can hold her. She can also start eating at that point. Right now she is getting her nutrition through her IV.

Miss Ainsley

Here are some pictures of Ben with our visitors. We are trying to be patient while we wait for Ainsley to be able to be held so we can get some more pictures with her!

Aunt Liasa and Ben

Grandma Barb and Ben

Grandma Kelley and Grandpa Terry with Ben

Introducing...

Ainsley Barbara was born at 1:52pm on October 11, 2011. She weighed 5lbs 1oz and was 17 inches long.

Pretty Girl

Dad cutting Ainsley's cord

Mom seeing Ainsley for the first time

Benson Lee was born at 1:53pm on October 11, 2011. He weighed 4lbs 15oz and was 19 inches long.

Dad cutting Ben's cord

Mom seeing Ben for the first time

They were born via cesarean section and Ainsley came out SCREAMING. She had APGAR scores of 8 and 9. She was weighed, cleaned and swaddled and Dad brought her over for Mom to see. Shortly after she started having increased work of breathing. She was taken to the NICU and put on a CPAP machine for help breathing. They x-rayed her lungs and she does have some excess fluid that she needs time to clear. This will hopefully help her breathing. She breathes very quickly - generally 90-100 respirations per minute. Ainsley is a little irritable and uncomfortable. The CPAP blows air into her lungs but it also goes into her belly. They frequently pull out of her belly with a syringe attached to a tube that goes down her mouth and throat. Having that air in there is uncomfortable for her and she can be kind of cranky. It is pretty awesome though when Dad goes in and puts his hands on her and talks to her and it calms her down. We can't hold Ainsley yet because of her umbilical line and the CPAP machine. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Benson took a little while to cry and his APGAR scores were 6 and 7. After being weighed, cleaned and swaddled his breathing improved. He went to the regular newborn nursery for monitoring. In the nursery his blood sugar was low and he decided he wanted to go be with his sister in the NICU. His blood sugars have stabilized. His hemoglobin has been a little high and he has had some trouble with his blood clotting when the draw it but it seems to be correcting itself and not causing any major issues. He was allowed to start feeding today. He wasn't very interested in nursing but did take 12ml from a bottle. We will keep trying to nurse until he gets it and doing bottle feeds after attempting to nurse every 3 hours. He has to continue to take 10ml every 3 hours or he will have to have a feeding tube. So far we are two for two! Go Ben! He likes to be swaddled. If he is "loose" he flails around and fusses a lot.

I'm doing alright after the c-section. I am not good at keeping up on taking the pain medications. I get over to the NICU and think I'll just stay for a little while and then get back and rest but I end up staying for 2 hours. We get to help take care of the babies so we can change their diapers and take their temperature and we get to feed Ben. So I'm not staying on a very good schedule with pain meds and therefore not staying on top of the pain. It tends to get out of hand then I react to it too late. I'm trying to do better though. I know I need to take care of me so I can take care of them. The worst part for me right now is the referred shoulder pain which I guess can be from gas - sorry if that's too much information. But it is WAY worse than the incision pain! Crazy.

Jeremy and I would like to thank everyone who has sent emails, texts and messages on Facebook congratulating us and wishing us all well. It means so much to us to hear from all of you!

Mom, Dad and Ben

Dad and Ben

Mom, Dad and Ainsley

Mom and Ainsley

Coming Soon

I already shared this on Facebook but wanted to blog it too. Friday afternoon Dr. Drake called with my lab results for the cholestasis. I had blood drawn on Wednesday to check for bile acid in my blood. This is how they determine if you have cholestasis. The results take 2 days because they have to send it to Utah. So she called Friday and I do have cholestasis.

What is cholestasis? Here is what Americanpregnancy.org says: Pregnancy hormones affect gallbladder function, resulting in slowing or stopping the flow of bile. The gallbladder holds bile that is produced in the liver, which is necessary in the breakdown of fats in digestion. When the bile flow is stopped or slowed down, this causes a build up of bile acids in the liver which can spill into the bloodstream.

This bile in the blood causes extreme itching, especially of the hands and feet. For me it is been mostly my feet. The itching becomes almost unbearable at night. It keeps me from sleeping and I have only been getting a couple of hours of sleep at night - literally two to three hours. I have to get up several times and run my feet under ice cold water to try to numb the itching.

However, the itching isn't the main concern. The elevated bile causes stress on the babies livers which can cause fetal distress, preterm labor, and stillbirth.

Dr. Drake said that singeltons in moms with cholestasis are usually delivered at 36 weeks but twins they will deliver earlier. I will be 35 weeks on Tuesday. We see Dr. Drake Monday at 2:45pm to figure out the plan for delivering the babies. She said they will deliver them this week. It could be Monday. It could be Friday or any day in between.

I am full of emotion right now. I am also so scared. While we know some twins that have been delivered in the 35th week and went home in three days with Mom and Dad we also know twins delivered at 36 weeks who stayed in the NICU almost three weeks. Our goal from the day we found out we were having twins was to have the babies come home with us. If they have to stay in the NICU we will deal with that and of course we want them to be in the best place for their health. But that doesn't make it any easier.

I truly appreciate people who are letting us know they are praying for our babies and for us. I appreciate people sharing their thoughts and prayers that things will go alright and their HOPE that everything will be fine. I hope it will too and I spend every spare moment asking God to keep our babies safe and healthy.

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:22-24

34 Weeks

I'm 34 weeks pregnant with Ainsley and Benson!

Wow has this last week has been rough. My feet are ridiculous. They are pretty constantly swollen but it is MUCH worse after I work. I mean they are really sort of disgusting. What's worse is they itch! Like crazy! The sort of itching that makes you want to grab a sharp metal object and scratch until it hurts so bad you don't notice the itching. I am have cholestasis labs repeated tomorrow to check for bile acid in my blood. I don't think that's what it is because what I've read suggests that causes more itching on the bottoms of the feet so I'm thinking this is more just because of the swelling and hormones. The only real relief I find is to run them under cold water to numb the itching some and then have Jeremy slather lotion on them...since I can't reach them. The itching is disrupting my already sleepless nights. Last night I got less than two and a half hours of sleep. The OB gave me a script for Ambien to try. I was really surprised they were alright with Ambien while pregnant but I suppose it's also not healthy to get less than three hours of sleep per night.

I had a Non-Stress Test this morning that went really well. I had an excellent nurse who found the babies heartbeats right away and they stayed on the monitors. They were reactive and we would have been done in about 20 minutes but the nurse had to wait for the doctor to approve everything so we were hooked up about 45 minutes. Totally fine with me though since I fell asleep! Then I headed over to my OB appointment. Had my hemoglobin checked and it was good so the iron supplement is working. Ainsley is still head down and Ben is transverse. I really don't see how they could move since they have to be running out of room but as long as she stays head down we can try a vaginal delivery.

Next week we have an appointment with Dr. Drake and a growth check then an NST at the hospital then an OB appointment so I'll get to spend about 4 hours at the hospital. I need a good book - any suggestions?

Other than that, we got the nursery done which is a huge task off the to-do list. We have car seats in the cars but still need to get them inspected for proper installation. We started packing a hospital bag. I also had my final baby shower this past Sunday. It was so fabulous and my girlfriends put in so much work to make it amazing. I can't thank them enough and I feel so lucky to have such great friends.

The hostesses and I - LOVE these girls!

After the shower Jeremy and I drove up to Ledges State Park to check out the leaves. We were a little early and most trees were still green but it was still a nice drive.

(Don't look at those cankles!)

I also wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads this for all your sweet comments every week and on the nursery. They really mean so much.

I hope you all are having a good week!

The Nursery

Ainsley and Benson's nursery is finished!

Take a look!

As you walk in the door.

The inspiration (bought before we were even expecting).

Their "Coming Home" outfits - washed and ready to go.

As you step into the room.

Cribs.

Bedding.

Monograms.

Rocking Chair.

Shelves.

Strange babies and some pink for my Grandma Betty!

Diapers and Wipes.

A Full Closet.

Now we just have to wait patiently for them to get here...