Identity Crisis

It's me again.  Nine months later.  I'm having a bit of a blogger identity crisis.  This blog has gone from home ideas to infertility journal to expectant mother and NICU mom without much thought for long-term planning.  I know I have it in me to be a regular blogger, I just haven't figured out how to make it happen.  My MIL recently pointed out that some of the IF blogs she'd followed had dropped off of the face of the earth after they got pregnant and I realized that I am guilty of the same thing.  There are a few of you who were reading along, cheering for me and I left you out of the loop once the babies arrived.

L&LA are now ten months old and amazingly, perfectly happy.  They have been home from the NICU for over eight months.  They came home free of cords, monitors and specialists.  What a miracle!

Our Christmas Card Photo

I'm going to spend some time considering the future of my blog.  If I'm going to be serious about maintaining and expanding (i.e. finding some readers) or if I'm too busy  lazy to keep it going.

One Month Update

Logan and Leigh Allyn were one month old yesterday.  They continue to do very well for 28-weekers.  Logan has outgrown all of his breathing support and is breathing completely on his own.  He weighed 3 lbs, 10 ounces last night and is growing like a weed.  Leigh Allyn is on a very low setting on her nasal cannula and we're hoping to either go to a low flow cannula or try life without a cannula sometime soon.  She weighs 3 lbs, 6 ounces.  Both babies are eating just shy of an ounce every three hours.  They now reside in the intermediate NICU, a step toward the door from the intensive NICU where they started out.

Watching Grass Grow, aka Being a NICU Mom

Sometimes when you're waiting for the other shoe to drop, it does.

I didn't post much about being pregnant.  I meant to, but just never got around to it.  I stopped writing in my book (the massive Word document that has been my diary for the last couple years) too.  Any time someone asked me how I was going to manage two babies, I always replied, "I'm not afraid of taking care of them when they're here.  I'm more worried about being able to carry them long enough."  As it turns out, that was a prophetic statement.  I sailed through pregnancy all the way until 26 weeks, 4 days when a routine ultrasound revealed that my cervix was short and dilated.

After almost two weeks of hospital bedrest, Logan Andrew and Leigh Allyn Mroch were born at 28 weeks, 2 days weighing 2 lbs, 5 oz. and 2 lbs, 6 oz.  They are amazing little bitties and melt my heart every single time I see them.  So, my blog will once again take on a new purpose: sharing the details of being a preemie mom.

One of the nurses compared having babies in the NICU to watching the grass grow.  I have found this to be absolutely true over the last two weeks.  It's agonizing and brings out the impatience in me, but time is the only thing that's going to get my babies ready to come home to the nursery that's not really even ready for them.  Logan, left, is what is referred to as a "wimpy white boy" in the NICU world.  Thankfully, he seems to be outperforming the stereotype.  He has some apnea spells and had a random infection of some sort, but seems to be doing very well.

Leigh Allyn, above, is sweetness personified.  She started out with a heart murmur called a PDA that is caused by an artery that is open while in utero that is supposed to close at birth.  Hers did not, as is fairly common in preemie girls.  Thankfully, one round of indomethacin closed it and her murmur has disappeared.

 

I have settled into a routine, spending my days in the NICU and scheduling my time around pumping every two hours.  Baptist Hospital and the NICU are set up to support a new mom who is pumping and I am very grateful for the support.  As someone who is new to breastfeeding/pumping, I need someone to tell me what is normal, how often to pump and how much I should be getting.  I knew I wanted to breastfeed before I knew that I was having preemies and I cannot imagine how I would have figured it all out had I just been sent home with two babies to feed.