Kangarooing

Ever heard of kangarooing? Let me tell you, it is the best thing you as a mother will ever feel!
As you can tell by the picture....you have skin to skin contact with your child. There is nothing on Earth that can make you feel so calm and peaceful. If was having emotional issues, I would come to the NICU and kangaroo with whomever. Here, it is with Cooper...my little 3lb. 13 ozer.There were no phones to answer, no bills to worry about, no one coming in to bother you, just intimate time with your child. God, I can't even begin to tell you so you can understand.

I Melted

November 16th- The first day I got to lay my eyes on my sweet, fragile little babies. In the morning I woke up all ready to go see my kiddos, but was bound and determined not to have to go in my hospital bed. 16 hours after my surgery I was willing and ready for the trip from my bed to the wheel chair...no more than 4 feet from me. I think that was the worst pain I had felt in my life. But....it was going to be worth it once I got to the NICU.
I remember sliding my security card for the first time thinking.....what am I going to see?.....how am I going to feel?.....what are they going to look like? How small is 3 lbs 13 oz / 4lbs anyways??
We pass by the nurses station and into the balloon pod......tears running down my face....there were only 3 babies in our pod at that time, 2 of which were mine so it wasn't to hard to find them. Carson was naked in her little heated isolet. She was the most beautiful little thing I had ever seen.
She no longer had her breathing tube and was only on regular nose cannule (sp?) for oxygen and her feeding tube. She had wires attached to every limb and an IV in her belly button....... tears were streaming down my face. How could I have done this to my poor innocent babies? Was it all worth it? Should I have tried harder to keep them in longer? Were the nurses right??? "The safest place for your babies is inside of you". All the what if's.... did I make the right decision? It was all slapping me in the face.
Alarms were going off all over the pod......how in the heck do you read these darn monitors? So many lines, colors, numbers......
Matt pushed me over to see my little Cooper. He also had his breathing tubes removed and was only on oxygen and his feeding tube. He also had all the wires and an IV in his arm.
They went from being so cozy inside to all of a sudden fighting for their lives.....How could I have done this??????? They may be smaller..they will always be at higher risk for infections, colds , RSV (a respitory infection that can be deadly to preemies), asthma.......because of me. I am stuggling with the decision I made on November 15th 2005. I remember wanting to touch them, but I was soo afraid. How can you be gentle enough to such a tiny person?

Mom dad Riley and Keegan came to visit. How do you explain all of this stuff to 2 yr olds?????? I didn't know even where to begin.

That evening....alive for 24 hours....I once again headed to the NICU...this time a bit braver. The nurses welcomed me and gave me a progress report on both my children. They both recieved A+'s for the day. That's always a nice thing to hear. I also learned that quite a few nurses had already become attached to our kids. It's nice knowing that when I can't be there, there are others who are caring for them.

November 17th...Both babies doing well. Carson has been giving everyone a bit of a scare with her apnea. Bo, that girl can hold her breath! Mom, dad , Riley, and Keegan came to visit.

Novemeber 18th - Had quite a bit of company that day. Mom, dad, Riley and Keegan came again too. We were finding it super hard to keep 2 yr olds entertained in the hospital. Thanks goodness for the flight for life helicopter which was down the hall and out the window. It was the highlight of their day! I had a special friend vist that night. She has been my life line during this whole process. My girlfriend Erin. I am not sure where I would be with out her. You have your special friends who you talk with daily.....yes, that's you Molly......but Erin has been there and done that. Erins boys were born at 29 weeks and were in the NICU for 40 days. Now, they are healthy 3 yr olds who are good friends with Riley and Keegan. Anyways....Erin and I went to visit the kids that night. We scrubed in and headed over to Carsons isolet. After visiting for a few minutes, the nurse asked me if I wanted to change her diaper. I just about freaked! How do I change such a small diaper???? I nervously accepted. Not only are you changing such a tiny diaper...you're dodging different lines in her arm and in her belly button. After changing her, they asked if I wanted to hold her. YIKES!!!!! Erin looked at me and shaked her head yes. I once again nervously accepted. I sat in a rocker and waited for the nurse to hand me my sweet girl. The nurse placed her in my arms and I melted.

Let the fun begin...Picture - Miss Carson/ Cooper

Let the fun begin.....

...not sure if that's the best title for this session, but it's pretty much the truth.
November 12, 2005......Matt and the kids and I were out side cleaning the garage. I was at this point exactly 31 weeks pregnant with Carson and Cooper. I had been feeling great all day.... a lot like the "nesting" feeling you get when you are just about done with your pregnancy. I hadn't been doing a whole ton of work, just minor things and playing with the twins. We called it a day at about 4pm and cleaned up to get supper started. We ate, I got the kids bathed and got them ready for bed.
I had recieved a phone call from Molly at around 8pm and we were chatting about how much fun shopping she had that day. All of a sudden, my contractions started. I remember trying to listen and answer Molly to the best of my ability when I couldn't take it any more. I mentioned to her that my contractions had started and they were coming every 2- 3 minutes and lasting about 15-30 seconds. She calmly mentioned to me that I should get off the phone with her and that I should call my Doctor. I remember saying, nope, I'm fine............about 5 minutes later, I wasn't fine. I called the Doc and was told to come to the birthing center asap. We got my good friend Erin, who also has 3 yr old twin boys to come and stay with the kids until my parents could get there. Our hospital is 20 minutes away. I continued to keep track of my contractions as my husband drove ever so calmly. We arrived at the hospital, wheeled me up to the Birthing unit and was examed within 5 minute of arriving. Would you know it....I was contracting and was already dialated to 3 cm. The Doctor ordered me to be put on drugs to stop my contractions. But what about being dialated to 3cm? We knew I would be having a c-section and with that, they don't like you to be dialated to far or the procedure can not be done. I WAS A WRECK! On top of that.....My incision from my previous section was starting to hurt, a lot.
My Doctors fear was that I may rupture my lining and we would have an extreme medical emergency, for all 3 of us. At that point, it was discussed that I would be making the hospital my new home. For how long? We didn't know.
Day 2- Contractions had stopped and things were not progressing any more. A C- section was still in the plans. Still needed to stay in the hospital to be monitored in case the incision would worsen.
Day 3 - Everything was still going as planned. Things were going well and even talk of me going home was discussed. EXCEPT....that I would have to be on total bed rest. Right....with 2 - almost 3 yr olds at home? Like that would ever happend. I expressed my fears to the doc and he felt it would be in my best interested that if there was no way to be on bed rest, that I should stay in the hospital. Good Plan Doc. Once again...for how long? My Doctor was still concernd about my interior incision, so to be on the safe side, incase we would have to deliver at 31 weeks......the neonatologist came to see us. He explained the worst of the worst of delivering 31 week old twins. Nothing good, all about the bad. I wished to god that I wouldn't have to go through that. They even suggested that we take a tour of the NICU to see where our kids would be living. Not bad....You think intensive care unit and you instantly think.....sterile and white? Right?? Not here. It was full of color...each big room was called a pod and it had room for 6 babies - they had 4 pods. Each had a theme..our was the balloon room. It was decorated with hot air balloons. Except this part of the hospital was now - Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin. The whole thing just freaked me out.
Day 4 - Incision hurting like a MOFO........I could bearly stand it. It didn't help either that Cooper had been lying right on it. I swore that everytime he kicked me a foot was coming through. Doctor came in....we discussed our options.....talked to a few nurses and said...." I just don't feel right, something is wrong". With that said.....the doctor ordered my section to be scheduled at 4pm that day. We were not going to take the chance of losing all 3 of us if I were to rupture. But now.....I need to face my other demonds.....the NICU!!! I didn't want my babies to be sick, and even though it was very lovely....I didn't want the NICU to be my childrens home..and for how long? 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months?????? The unknown was killing me.
4pm came and went...before I knew it I was lying on the operating table, except....something went wrong with my spinal. It had gone up way to far. I was numb all the way up to my throat. Couldn't breath, the room was spinning a mile a minute......and my husband was kicked out after the babies were safe........Respitory distress to doc told me. All I could hear was the NICU doc say, "There safe"and that was it. I didn't come out of it until 9pm that night. Never saw my kids....they were rushed right to the NICU - recesitated (sp?) and intibated. Scared, HELL YA!

The Begining

.....it's morning again. After a long hard night with 2 babies, 1 wanting to eat every 1/2 hour and the other trying to cope with her acid reflux, the sun is finally up. I did alot of soul searching last and took myself all the way back from after when my dear husband Matt and I got married. I tried to remember how I got myself into this situation of having 2 set of twins. It's actually a pretty funny story. So sit back and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writting it.

Matt and I were married Aug 19, 2000. It was a GREAT DAY!! I couldn't have asked for anything better! We knew soon after we got married that we wanted to try for kids. I knew that it would be a struggle for me to get pregnant. I grew up a very competitive and dedicated swimmer. I started swimming at the young age of 4. The picture you see above is a picture of my very first relay team. Still to this day, we are all good friends. But, when you are an athlete, your body seems to go hay wire and your menstral cycle seems to go hay wire with it, or in my case become non existant. It has been that way ever since I stop competing in college. I never had a cycle, knew nothing about it. Never knew how many days it was, when or if I ovulated...nothing. So I knew there would be some issues. After 1 full year of trying, we went to see a specialist. The OB/GYN told me that I had something called" Poly Cystic ovarian syndrom" which can make you not ovulate. So even when I had my couple cycles a year, I never produced eggs. PCOS causes your body to make more insulin than it really needs. Your body can't get rid of the extra insulin. Your ovaries become full of cysts and can never produce eggs normally on it own. So, the doc suggested that if we really wanted to have kids that we need to go on a medication that helps produce eggs. Matt and I agreed to go on this injectable medication. The doc also told us that there was a pretty go chance that we would have multiples. Ok, nothing wrong with that....we'll get two babies for the price of one and be done with it.
We started on the meds. Matt would have to give me a shot in my butt every night for two weeks, then after the 2 weeks, we would go in for a follie (egg) check and see how many we had. We had a total of 4 follie at the time of our check up. We knew there could be a possibility that we could have up to 4 babies. No problem. So, the next step was to get an HCG injection to drop my eggs so the could be fertilized. After you are given the shot, you have 24-48 hours to fertilize these eggs. The Doctor wanted me in the office on a aturday so he could manually fertilize them from Matt's sperm. Well, We had an issue with this. The Saturday he wanted to do this my girlfriend Glynis...on the far right of the picture above, was getting married in Minnesota and we were to be there for that. So The doc said, ok, we'll take a chance of you guys doing this on your own. So.....Needless to say, we got pregnant with Riley and Keegan on Glynis's wedding night!
Now, something very similar happend with Carson and Cooper. We started the whole shot business and ended up with 5 follies. Good God, could you imagine having 5 babies? No, but we were once again playing russian roulette with my body. My girlfriend Kerri...the one in the picture in the white wedding dress was getting married the same day we needed to fertilize these eggs....so, you guessed it.....we got pregnant with Cars and Coop on Kerri's wedding night!

Matt and I drew the line there..........Thank God all of my friends are now married. I would hate to see what another wedding might bring.

Sanity

...I've lost it!
Luckily,I do feel there is hope for me. One of my bestest friends introduced me to the world of blogs last night and I can't seem to tear myself away from it. I was up reading and exploring all night! I think this is the way back to finding my sanity. I am a stay at home mom with 2 sets of twins. My first set; Riley(F) and Keegan(M), just turned 3 on the 21st of January. My second set; Carson(F) and Cooper(M) were born on Nov 15, 2005....born 2 months early - the begining of my troubled moments.
I am hoping that I will be able to journal my deep down fears and my secret emotional issues that I have been hiding since my children entered/left the NICU.
Thank you for giving me this chance to find myself again Molly!