Dream Big

I had a hard time trying to decided if I wanted to take this blog public or not. Many of you who have not followed my blog may not know that my 2nd set of twins were born prematurely. They were born 9 weeks early. My daughter Carson spent 26 days in the NICU and my son Cooper spent 40. We have been very lucky. Our only issues thus far have been; Hernia surgery for Cooper, and both kids had reconstruction of their skull for craniosynostosis (metopic and sagittal) - early fusion of their skulls, no soft spots. Compared to a lot of of babies born prematurely, we have been blessed.

We are very lucky to have a Children's Hospital and all the great equipment and technology right here in our area. I'm not sure where we would be if we didn't have it.


Cooper ~ 3 lbs 13 oz 19 in long

Carson ~ 4 lbs .4 oz 19 in. long

Our family is trying to do everything we can to give back to those who helped our children survive. Please take a moment and read the statistics.


More than 500,000 babies are born prematurely every year in the United States.

Prematurity:

~Has increased by 29 percent since 1981

~Accounts for 12 percent of all live births

~Can happen to any pregnant woman

Premature Birth Is Serious:

~Premature babies aren't just small babies; they're babies who aren't finished developing. Their lives and health may be in jeopardy.

Prematurity is:

~The leading killer of babies in their first month of life.

~A major cause of long-term health problems, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, blindness, chronic lung problems.

~The number one obstetrical problem in the country.


Our family would like to ask all of you to help in the fight to save preemie babies.

There are 2 ways for you to help.

1) Our family is joining in on the March of dimes - Walk America May 5th.
Our Children's Hospital - NICU is forming a team with it's staff, NICU graduates, and their families.
Here is our donation sight: www.walkamerica.org/ladybug_wi

Also we have set up "bands" in honor of our graduates. Here are their websites:

Carson: www.marchofdimes.com/prematurity/b.asp?band_id=35603

Cooper: www.marchofdimes.com/prematurity/b.asp?band_id=35602

An early thank you to all those who have help. It means so much to our family and all the families with preemies.

Easter candy kids

Hope you had a Happy Easter!

..and the shit NEVER Stops - Happy Easter!

I sure hope everyone had a great Easter! We sure did. It was a nice, uneventful, quiet day.

It was well worth it after the week from HELL that we just had!

First - I will start with my TTT picture. Here I am (and Cooper) 77 lbs lighter. I am very surprised that I managed to lose one pound after the past week.

If you remember my last blog, I had just gotten done taking Cooper to the ER for drinking NYQUIL. Well, If that wasn't bad enough, I BELIEVE that he picked up rotavirus while we were there. Only because he got it and no one else did. So last weekend started like this;

Friday the 30Th - at about 10pm Cooper started to vomit like there was no tomorrow. It came up every 15 - 20 minutes until 2am. At that point, he dry heaved until 9am. At 3 am the diarrhea was sooooo bad I had to carry his diapers out in buckets because they were filled with pure water. He and I slept maybe 1 hour total btwn the vomiting, changing sheets, diarrhea, and changing more sheets.

At 10 am on Saturday I finally called our pediatrician to see if we could get an appointment in. We were able to get in at 10:50am.

Meanwhile, we sent the other 3 kiddos with my parents in fear that someone else would catch what he had. The Twins club had an Easter egg hunt that my parents took them to and then they were off to the lake.

At our appointment, our Doctor had a pretty good feeling that Cooper had rotavirus. He called Children's hospital and we were admitted at 1pm. Cooper was admitted for dehydration. Our doctor seemed to think that we would be in for a few hours - enough to get a few IV bags in, and then we would be home.

Well, let me tell you, my luck never runs that way. We were in Saturday - with a fever of 105, Sunday - with a fever of 105.7, Monday - finally able to get Cooper to drink some, and Tuesday - we were discharged at 7pm. When we got home Tuesday night, Coop was acting like himself again. We thought we were finally done with the worst. Wednesday - He was grey, tired, no energy, and had vomited 4 times. We couldn't get him to drink if our life depended on it. I had to decided if we should take him back to the ER to see what was wrong. I called his doctor and they felt we should give it one more night and they would make an appointment with our doc at 8:45 am. Ok - we decided to give it one more night. Meanwhile - That night I was sitting on the couch and it was getting time to put Cooper to bed. Matt started to carry him up, I got up off the couch and I felt a gush. Mind you I was just about 4 weeks post op from my hysterectomy. I went to the bathroom and found that we was bleeding terribly. I immediately called our on- call nurse and she suggested I go to the ER. Something wasn't right. So here I am on my way to ER with a very sick baby at home. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. I get to the ER, the oncall OB examines me and finds that I have an infections and that I have torn 2 stitches. She gave me the option of going home, or staying the night on the OB floor so she could monitor my bleeding. How could I stay??? I have a sick baby at home that has a doctors appointment at 8:45am. So, I opted to go home. But before they let me go home, she had to fix the problem. They packed me with a roll of gauze, and because there was so much pressure from the gauze they had to put in a catheter. Yup, the kind that attaches to your leg. I couldn't sit up there was so much crap inside of me. It was a challenge to drive myself home, I end up trying to sleep on the couch, but still I was soooo uncomfortable I didn't sleep at all. In the morning I called to reschedule Coopers appointment morning because there was no way in hell I could stand another second with the pack and catheter. I got in with my ob at 8:30am she took all the stuff out - the bleeding stopped. I was instructed to not lift anything or anyone.

After my appointment we got to Cooper's. Our ped seemed to think he was becoming dehydrated again. She gave us 2 options;

1) we could take him right to the hospital to have him admitted, or

2) we could go home, but first have some labs done to see if he is dehydrated. We went with number 2.

Have you ever had labs drawn on a child who is dehydrated? NOT FUN! It took 3 hand/foot pokes and there was nothing. they finally had to draw out of his poor head. This kid was screaming, but no tears came out.

We went home to wait for the lab results. Around 2:30 they called to tell us that he was dehydrated and that they thought we would need to go back into the hospital. We talked it over and decided he needed to go. So, I packed my bags again and we were off to the hospital for a 2ND time.

This time getting an IV started on him was HELL. It took 4 hours, 7 nurses, and 10 tries before they finally got on in. This poor boy has been traumatized! It sucked. His poor hands and feet or so bruised it's not even funny!

This stay lasted 2 days. No fevers, no more diarrhea, no vomiting.....he was finally hydrated.

7 total days in the hospital and we were supposed be in for only a few hours the first time.

Hopefully this next week will be uneventful!