Babies in the Hizouse

Also titled: "No Sleep! Til Brooklyn!" or "Why is my font so big?"

I have an announcement that y'all have been waiting for-

Les Babies are Home!!!! Weeee!!!!! They have been paroled from the NICU and I can't believe somebody actually thought I am capable enough to have left the hospital with them (I suspect the nurses were taking hits off Cassidy's oxygen tank). That's right- Cassidy's on oxygen (sucks a big one), but they still let her come home. Weeeee!!!

Let me give you a run-down of the past 24 hours:

DISCHARGE:
We had the slowest....talking....nurse...ever....zzzzzzzzzz

B and I are pretty sure it took her about an hour and a half to review 4 topics, none of which involved rocket science. To me, this is an unforgivable offense. My time is precious, people. I sat there alternating between thoughts of,

"Shut up and let me take my babies home!",
"I haven't pumped in 4 hours and my boobs are going to explode!"
"I could really use a sandwich", and
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oops. I think I just drooled myself."

B said it was pretty evident that my ADHD had kicked in. Oh well...



GETTING HOME:
So since Nurse Slow Talker, had taken so.....long.... to get through our discharge, we had some pump timing and eat-timing issues. (For those of you who know me well, I tend to wind up on the floor if I don't eat regularly). So our homecoming was characterized by me dumping the babies in my parents' arms and running upstairs, banana in hand, for some sweet mammory relief.

Finn started screaming bloody murder about 2 minutes later and Noah the Dog was slobbering all over the babies' heads. I came downstairs to a whole new world- Baby Paraphenalia EVERYWHERE. Where did my house go? Me thinks it went the way of my bar-hopping, sleep-filled life...Ah, sweet chaos....



Speaking of, this brings us to-

THE FIRST NIGHT:
9pm- feeding & putting the babies down- We had 4 grandparents help with feeding, burping, and changing. We settled our precious nuggets of genetic legacy into a co-sleeper and kept visiting them to "ooh" and "aw" over how cute they looked. Confidence in this parenting gig abounded.



12am- B, Grandpa, and I changed the babies. B & Grandpa fed them while I hooked myself up to the milking machine. We put them back into the co-sleeper and climbed into bed. Babies were a little fussy but it seemed manageable.

3am- and 0 hours of slumber later...B & I stumbled downstairs to get bottles. Mr. Finn had been groaning, grunting, and crying for all 3 hours. Repeat 12am tasks but without any finesse. B kept tripping over Cassidy's oxygen tube and cursing. Noah kept trying to slobber over the baby's heads, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to help while attached to my effing machine.

5:30am- and 5 minutes of slumber later...Finn's grunts turned into full-on Upset Baby FEED ME NOW OR I WILL DIE! screaming. I brought him downstairs and tried to console him while heating up a bottle. My confidence- Gone. Somewhere between crying fits (mine and his), I finally got him fed and started to change him downstairs. And "OH MY GOD! I NEED MY DIAPER CHANGED NOW OR I WILL DIE! But wait- there's time to pee on my head while screaming bloody effing murder!" B woke up and I told him, "I think Finn might be an asshole." That's right people- I called my baby an asshole... And then I started to cry inconsolably.

7am- (still no sleep- I had to pump milk after all this drama people). My mother walked into our room and offered to take over- YES PLEASE!!! B and I finally got some sleep and woke up at about 11am when OH MY GOD! MY BOOBS MIGHT EXPLODE!

And I basically felt like death warmed over the rest of the day.... People weren't joking about this whole parenthood business.

Jesus Loves Winners

This week's post is dedicated to the people of Haiti and even moreso, Mr. Pat Robertson, Satan's own notary public.

I spent a few days this week boo hooing into my pillow, cereal, you name it, over my babies. Let me tell you, having babies in the NICU is no picnic. And if it were a picnic, it would be the kind overrun by ants and then rained out while a squirrel pees on your head (BTW, this happened to a friend of mine. Trust). So, when the earthquake hit this week, it really put things into perspective for me.

My babies are growing.

My babies are healthy.

My babies are getting the care they need.

Hello? I have TWO BABIES!!! How stinking lucky could I be???

Time to stash the tissues away and focus on the up and up.

So, while I might miss my babies like CRAZY person and contemplate a Code Pink Maneuver (hospital speak for babynapping), I know I have been ridiculously blessed. And it's not like I even did anything to deserve it. I just got lucky. Plain old lucky. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. And it doesn't make any sense at all.... Me? I think I'm an okay person who has had a mixed bag with a heavy emphasis on the good and great.

And so, on a final note, here is a link to a letter written from "Satan" to Pat Robertson. Enjoy!

Worship at the Boob Altar

My apologies to all the men who read my blog, but this one is all about "the girls." Fast forward to the pictures to get a baby update.

My boobs have taken over my life.

If you think that not having babies at home leaves me time to get my nails done and write the great American novel, you are sorely mistaken. Chances are I am attached to my breast pump cheering those mammories on.

M-I-L-K!

Apparently, I'm supposed to massage (read- squeeze the crap out of) my ta-tas until they are dry every 2-3 hours. That looks a little like this:

10:45pm- Commence milkage
11:15pm- Terminate milkage and measure how much was produced. This number dictates my mood for the next hour and a half
11:20pm- Spill milk and commence hormonal break-down in kitchen. "Don't cry over spilled milk" may have initially been intended for a breast-pumping mother of a NICU baby.
1:15am- Wake up and start all over again.

Yes, the 2-3 hours does not dictate the time between feedings but rather the time between starts. This.is.miserable.

On the baby front (yay! I luuuurv babies!)

Finnegan is kicking ass in the temperature department and graduated into a crib today. Yes! Yes! Yes! That leaves one hoop left before he comes home. Ole boy needs to get it together and start feeding like there's no tomorrow. That means no gavage and lots of nipple time (mostly bottle- breastfeeding is a bitch for a preemie). Finn is suuuper laid back and mellow. He sleeps a ton and often has a hard time waking up long enough to feed.

Cassidy is still our little feisty girl. She is much more alert than her brother and the doctors have said she is "advanced." She eats like a champ but is still not nippling all her milk. And because she's the size of a little peanut, she still can't regulate her body temperature enough to move our of her isolette. Le sigh....2 hoops for our little girl before she can come home with us.

Oh yeah, and in a move of parental brilliance or incompetence (you choose), we decided to change the spelling of Finn's name to "Finnegan" over "Finnigan." This has really messed with the NICU nurses who made him a name sign with "eg" and then changed it to "ig" so it would be correct. I think they might be plotting against me now that we changed it....Oops.