Brooke and Claire got transferred this morning from the excellent hospital where they’ve been since being born a week ago, to another excellent hospital closer to home. It happened a day later than originally planned, but we were happy to wait as long as it took for the doctors to feel confident that the girls’ reflux and apnea issues were under control. Both have responded well to reglen for the digestion issues, and caffeine for the apnea. During our morning visit, both girls seemed more feisty than usual, which probably has a little something to do with the caffeine. They even had a bit of synchronized crying, and it’s starting to sound a little less like their first squeaky cries, and more like regular newborn cries. It’s still so new and uncommon that it still sounds cute to us, though I’m sure it will eventually feel like nails in the brain like most baby cries after a while. Read the rest of this entry »
I consider myself a fairly sensitive, in-touch-with-his-emotions kind of guy, but for whatever reason, I rarely cry. I don’t chalk it up to my upbringing, because I wasn’t raised by a macho dad or parents who taught that expressing any sad or tender emotions was a sign of weakness in a man. I got the normal dose of that kind of thinking from my cultural surroundings, but consciously at least, I don’t withhold tears out of a sense of shame. When I do cry, it’s much more likely to be the slightly leaky watery-eyed kind than the hyperventilating snotty kind. And while I feel deeply emotional about the big joys and sorrows of my life, it doesn’t usually come out in tears. My tears are more likely to be triggered by the stereotypical “safe” things for men to cry about, like watching Rudy or Brian’s Song, than by sad or joyous things that happen to me directly.
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Yesterday was not a bad day, but it was a little rougher. Brooke and Claire are still doing okay, but they’ve been having some digestion issues and spitting up more than the doc and nurses would like. They’re on meds (“reglen”, I think) for it and are being closely watched for signs of infection like any green coloration to the spit up. There haven’t been any such signs (unless anything changed overnight), but that would be cause for concern. If they don’t resolve the spitting up issue soon, it could delay the transfer to the closer hospital. That would be a minor disappointment, but we want them wherever they need to be to get the best care possible. Read the rest of this entry »
It has been a very exciting and eventful week and I have a lot I want to write and share about it, but as usual, life seems to happen faster than I can write about it. Our precious twin daughters were born on last Tuesday, April 7. We expected them to be born early because twins usually are, but at 31 weeks, 4 days, they came even earlier than we expected. The babies are in the NICU but doing very well, and Mommy Kate is still in the hospital recovering from her c-section but also doing well and expecting to get discharged tomorrow (Saturday). There’s much I’d like to share and make sure I get down before memory fades, but in the interest of a writing goal I hope to manage in the next hour or two, I’m not going to even try to catch up and will just tell our birth story Read the rest of this entry »
