Luv Bug a.k.a Big Sister......My Heart is Overflowing.....

I am more in love with my oldest daughter every day. She has worked through this trying journey of Mono-Mono twins with such grace, maturity and optimism. She is truly an old soul. Each and everyday she surprises me with her amazing perspective and intuition. She "gets it", she sees the bigger picture and has made us the proudest parents. Words cannot truly express how very PROUD we are of Jordan, our Luv Bug, Munchkin....our not so little girl.


Each day, Jordan is thinking of her sisters and loving them in her own special way. She is genuinely excited to have them in our lives. She asks to see them daily and wants to hold them each time we visit. She is so gentle and mindful when she holds them. She talks to them, kisses them and stares at them adoringly. It is heartwarming.

Just a couple of days ago, Jordan received a big sister gift from my husband's boss and wife. The gift was twin baby dolls. She loved them! As I took them out of the box this is the conversation that occurred:

Mommy: "Jordan, which one is going to be Madison and which one will be Charlotte?"

Jordan: "Well...who came out of the box first?"

Mommy: "I think the blue eyed twin" (one twin was blue eyed, the other green eyed)

Jordan: "Then that's Charlotte because she came out of your tummy first, and the second one out of the box is Madison because she came out of your tummy second."

WHAT?! How SUPER DUPER cute is that? I have the cutest kid....I'm just sayin'

She then proceeded to care for her "sisters" the rest of the evening. In fact, at bedtime, I came into her room after she had fallen asleep and noticed that she had a blanket over the top of her dolls and their bed (She created a bed for them out of the box they had come in). When I mentioned this to my husband, he informed me that they were in their "house" (aka Isolettes/Incubators) and the blanket was keeping it dark just like the girl's isolettes in NICU. Jordan put all of this together prior to going to sleep.

Again.....she is SUPER adorable and SO unbelievably surprising and each and every single day, I love her even more than the last. I am SO proud of my girl and just outright amazed at the depth and maturity of her little soul. Her Dad and I are blessed as are her little sisters to have her in our lives.

You Know You're a NICU/Preemie Mom if.......

1.) You're known as "Bessy" and the Land o' Lakes truck covets your supply of frozen milk.

2.) Acronyms are a part of your everyday lingo.....NICU, CPAP, ROP,DSats,ABD's.

3.) You have multiple strategies for getting ROCKSTAR hospital parking.

4.) You should own stock in the Medela company for all the products that you use.

5.) You have the doctor "Scrubbing In" process down pat.

6.) Your regular accessorizing consists of pink (or blue!) hospital band(s) around your wrist and for the 37th day in a row, you're tickled to say "yes, I 'just' had twins" as you ride to the Neonatal ICU floor.

7.) You're borrowing a neighbors freezer for your stash....

8.) You're ecstatic to see your girls (or boys!) in their first little outfit because it was not a given when they were born.

9.) The idea of your child(ren) being in an open crib brings tears to your eyes.

10.) The NICU nurses see you more often than anyone else.

11.) You've found yourself longing over the babies that are doing the car seat test.

12.) You're considering a second career as a nurse simply because it'll be a no brainer at this point.

Writer's Workshop: Elevator Pitch

My first Writer's Workshop with.....


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The assignment - write a pitch that describes your blog so if I'm ever in an elevator and meet a contact I can share my blog premise in the short time it takes to ride an elevator together.....here it goes...

Life is a series of moments that define our ultimate course in life. My blog is an attempt to share the big as well as everyday moments with other people because we all need to feel more connected to others and sometimes we draw strength from their experiences. So here I am.....blogging about the big and little moments in life that define me and make me who I am.


What do you think? Need work still?

The NICU Journey.....The First Two & Half Weeks

Charlotte & Madison were born on Christmas Eve at 28 weeks, 3 days. Today they are 31 weeks. It's all been a little surreal considering I had my mind wrapped around making it to 32 weeks before delivery. The girls had a different path in mind and decided they wanted to arrive sooner. So, here I sit, belly gone and two little ones in the Neonatal ICU. It all happened so fast, one minute I was carrying these two little girls and the next, I was wheeled into surgery and they were no longer with me. I miss them terribly because they are away from me. But, I am optimistic and so hopeful at this point in the journey because our little girls have been doing so well.

Charlotte Renee on the day she was born December 24th 2009....



Charlotte Renee a little over a week later.....January 3, 2010


Madison lee the day she was born December 24th 2009......


Madison Lee a little over a week later January 3rd 2010.....



On the day of their birth, the girls were placed on CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) to assist with their breathing. This is a description I found online regarding the CPAP:

A nasal CPAP device consists of a large tube with tiny prongs that fit into the baby's nose, which is hooked to a machine that provides oxygenated air into the air passages and lungs. The pressure from the CPAP machine helps keep a preemie's lungs open so he or she can breathe. However, the machine does not provide breaths for the baby, so the baby breathes on his or her own.

The girls were only briefly intubated (sp?) to administer Surfactant to their lungs which we were relieved about. They have not spent a day on the ventilator because they have been breathing on their own. The CPAP merely provides support in that endeavor because preemies often forget to take breaths. By their 5th day in the NICU (the 29th) the girls were off the CPAP and only require a nasal cannula which provides extra flow and pressure to their lungs to help them remember to breath. The girls are both breathing on their own, they fluctuate between breathing room air and on occasion a combination of room air and 5-10% extra oxygen.

The girls tend to have events on a daily basis, which is normal for preemies of their age. The different types of events include Apnea spells, Brady's & DSats. The Apnea spells happen while the girls sleep and due to the prematurity, forget to breath. When this happens,it usually doesn't last too long and either they recover on their own or we just rub their backs, give them some stimulation and they wake enough to remember to start breathing again. The Brady's (Bradycardia) are when the heart rate drops. The same procedure applies if they do not recover on their own for Brady's. The Dsats are desaturations in their oxygen level. This can be resolved on its own and sometimes, they simply bring up the O2 slightly from the room air level. The reason for all these events is due to their neurological systems being immature and they are very common. As they get older, they will get fewer and farther between. We are already seeing days where they only have a couple. In addition to the monitoring, the girls have been given their daily Starbucks dose of caffeine which helps with these events.

Overall, outside of the events, our girls have done pretty well. They've had some "tanning" sessions on and off the first couple of weeks to remedy jaundice. We had an ultrasound done on their heads to check for brain bleeds, which can be common in preemies born this early. The bleeds can vary from a Grade 1 bleed to a Grade 4 bleed. Grade 1 usually resolves itself and doesn't cause long term damage from what I'm told. Grade 3 & 4 is when quality of life can be affected. Fortunately, 72 hours after their birth, the girls were checked and there were no bleeds in either of them! We were SO relieved and SO thankful for that news. We do have another look at 30 days of life, but according to the doctor, if we did not find a bleed in those first few days of life, the incidence of bleeds after that is lowered significantly - so we are optimistic.

Additionally, the girls hearts were checked to see that the holes that remain open in utero had closed. Madison's had closed up by the time they checked. Charlotte's had not. She still had remnants of the opening.

The opening in Charlotte's heart was minimal, so the doctors lowered her fluid intake and have waited to see if it will close. As of a few days ago, the nurse could no longer hear signs of the PDA. So we are optimistic that it has closed and no further intervention will be needed. The more serious of PDA's require medication and potential surgery. We are hopeful that Charlotte will not need either of those treatments.

The only other blip on the radar is the girls had a night where they both doubled their events (they seem to sync up with one another pretty regularly) and so the doctors suspected infection. After a large battery of tests; blood, urine and spinal cultures - it turned out there was no infection. Madison's culture showed infection initially but they determined over time that the needle must have been tainted when the sample was being taken! That upset me a bit, but regardless, they would have run these tests, I just wish we hadn't had the scare of possible infection.

The girls are doing really well with their feeds and their weight. They are both up to 1 ounce of milk and both have exceeded their birth weight. We officially have 3 lb babies!!

We get to hold the girls daily now. We do Kangaroo holds (skin to skin) and we also hold them wrapped up like little burritos. I personally love the Kangaroo holding. I miss having my girls so close to me! Today, our oldest daughter Jordan will get to hold one of her sisters if they are doing well. She is tickled to have the opportunity since she has had to watch everyone else have the opportunity and we've made her wait.

SO, that's our journey to date in the NICU. Our girls have exceeded our expectations in their short life. We feel blessed beyond belief that they are doing so well and we really hope to avoid any major setbacks. We are counting our blessings and hoping to bring home healthy, happy, chunky babies within a couple of months.


Our First Family Photo!! January 10, 2009
Daddy holding Charlotte, Mommy holding Madison, Big sister Jordan in the front

Wordful Wednesday with........

Charlotte & Madison ~ Together for the first time 12 days after their birth.....there are no words to express my joy in having this moment with my youngest girls....I am one blessed Momma!

Double the Blessings at Christmas....Our Early Delivery

I was settled in for Christmas at the hospital. Family had arrived and come by. We were coordinating with Santa to bring presents to the hospital for Christmas Day, it was all set. Then, our little girls, our Momo rascals had a gift all their own to give, their presence, a little earlier than expected.....

On Christmas Eve, my husband, along with his father and brother-in-law came up to the hospital on Santa's behalf to drop off gifts while our oldest daughter was distracted by Grandma and Aunt Cindy at home. I had just finished my morning routine - the shower time I absolutely lived for while inpatient because it was my escape from monitors, IV drip and persistent vital taking from my fabulous nurses (Let me reiterate...they were the BEST! But they had to do their jobs caring for me and escaping monitor A, monitor B, the Toco, blood pressure, temperature and reflex testing was much needed for me in the morning).

As I returned to my bed, we started the search for baby heart rates. Madison was our usual easy find, lower left side down by my hip, where she always nestled her little body. Charlotte, my little stinker, had to be searched for per usual. After finding them both, we started to see a pattern of decelerations happening with Charlotte. They weren't severe decelerations (big drops in heart rate) most of the time but they were persistent. Shifting didn't help, time didn't help. Both heart rates had a base of somewhere between 120-140 on a regular day. At this time, we were seeing Charlotte's down in the 100-110 range. My nurse and I, both knew this to be abnormal after all these weeks of continuous monitoring. Additionally, I should mention that a healthy heart rate for a baby in utero is 110-160. This all started happening while my husband was there, so he took our family members home and headed back to the hospital while we continued to monitor. After an hour of this base line change for Charlotte on monitor as well as verifying the change on ultrasound, we called my doctor (Dr. G) who happened to be the Staff doc on for Christmas Eve. He then sat with me for about thirty minutes, watching, counting by listening versus watching the numbers on the monitor because we were going through the thought process of well...maybe the machine is wrong...maybe we wore it out with all this monitoring....um...not so much. Dr G. along with Dr. C the L&D OB doc watched together for a while and with the persistence of the decelerations as well as some severe decels, they decided it was time to deliver. Thankfully my husband had returned and we could do this together. I was also so grateful that Dr. G could be with us. He is the one who had seen us through this entire experience. He's the doc who would come see me everyday inpatient, we'd always talk "shop" and then we'd usually talk about something mindless, like the Tiger Woods scandal. It became part of my daily routine to chat with my doc, my friend and the person who we came to rely on so heavily for advice and reassurance on our course of treatment. The fact that he was there, made this unexpected turn of events more bearable. He was as invested as we were and we knew that he would do everything possible to ensure a positive outcome. With that being said, I knew he was worried and therefore very focused on the task at hand. My otherwise engaging doctor had a serious face and was all business as he and the nurses wheeled me into the operating room.

This all happened so fast once the decision was made to deliver, the operating room was literally around the corner from the room that had been my home these last five weeks. So, off I went. I was scared, my head was racing. But the staff that was with me were all familiar faces which made all the difference. And those that weren't familiar to me, like the outstanding Anesthesiologist who looked me in the eyes as I laid on the table being prepped and said "What is my job? To take care of you, you're going to be ok" - this helped me cope with my worries. He saw the fear, he heard me tell my husband how I hadn't seen my daughter the day before, I didn't get to kiss her and tell her I loved her before the surgery.....he knew I was worried that I wouldn't make it through all this. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but my biggest fear is not being here for my girls. To be taken from them and not be able to kiss their fears and worries away, to fight with them over silly nonsense, to nurture their hearts with a little cuddle. And so, terrible thoughts like, what if I have complications? came to mind. But, this kind eyed anesthesiologist kept repeating, "What's my job? To take care of you." This was a saving grace while they were prepping me for surgery. Craig was only allowed in for a few minutes just before. Since we had to get the girls out so quickly, there was no spinal block, there was no husband at my head to talk me through it. I was being put under general anesthesia because this all had to happen quickly. And before I knew it, I was asleep and then I was waking up in recovery.

Charlotte Renee was delivered first at 2:23 pm at 2 lbs, 11oz and 15.5 inches. Madison Lee was born in the same minute, I'm told her feet were coming out as her sister was being delivered, at 2 lbs, 13.4 oz and 15.5 inches. They made it to 28 weeks 4 day, we were shooting for 32 weeks (see previous posts). I am told they both came out crying which was such a relief. The cords were wrapped around each other, and had a loose knot, so we're not certain what our little girls were doing in there because the cords looked better than we expected. There was some kind of restriction happening, but no definitive answer as to why based on what the cords looked like. They must have been sitting, squeezing or playing jump rope in there with their cords to cause the decels. But, nonetheless...Charlotte wasn't recovering from the drops, so delivery was the only safe option to ensure an accident didn't happen.

Here are our girls on their first day of life.....

Madison Lee

Charlotte Renee



Today our girls are 9 days old, and they are doing really well all things considered. I will write a separate posting on their NICU journey so far. Here's a picture of Jordan on Christmas day opening gifts in my hospital bed. My brave, beautiful and resilient oldest daughter has been remarkable through this entire journey. I am so proud of her, my heart is overflowing with love and admiration for her strength at the young age of four.