Finally Home!

We are home!

On Sunday Addyson and Braden decided it was time to eat! The people taking care of the twins told us that they guessed they would be in family care by Tuesday and home by the end of the week. Even though we had been waiting a long time all of a sudden there were many last minute things to do at home!

We got everything ready for them on Monday and headed to the hospital on Monday evening. Braden got a blood transfusion on Monday because his body doesn't seem to be making new blood cells yet and he was having some symptoms including requiring some oxygen, being pale, and they heard a heart murmur. Ryan and I spent the night in special care. We fed the kids every time that they ate so it was a crazy night without much sleep. Tuesday seemed like a whirlwind! Braden had an echo cardiogram to check on the heart murmur and things looked just fine so no worries there. We talked to the neo-natologist, had monitor, oxygen, and other training and finally got the official ok to head to family care. We moved into our family care room on Tuesday afternoon. In family care we were totally responsible for taking care of the twins and the nurses just checked in on us every once in a while to chart some things but we were able to "practice" parenting using the monitors the kids would take home. Things went well. We were tired but felt so much more prepared to come home by Wednesday evening. We stayed another night and were discharged Thursday morning!

It still doesn't seem true - seems like we need to be making a trip to the hospital this evening. It was fun to walk out the hallway where we had watched so many other families heading home with new babies. And carrying two babies sure draws some attention! It all seemed like we were dreaming but they actually let us leave!

Addyson and Braden both have monitors that go off if their heartbeat gets too high or low or if they don't breathe for a period of time. So far there has only been one alarm and Braden breathed after only 1 beep. So that's good! They will have the monitors for a while - it sort of depends how many events they have but it will be several weeks for sure - possibly several months. Braden came home with oxygen that he uses when he is eating. He gets too busy eating sometimes and forgets to stop long enough to breathe. He can make it without but he gets dusky looking and has to work harder so for now he gets just a tiny bit of oxygen to make life easier for him - and less scary for us!

So we're all home! It will definitely be crazy feeding and taking care of two preemies but we wouldn't have it any other way. God has been faithful and we are so excited to finally have Addyson and Braden home with us. They spent 51 days at the hospital! This sounds crazy to say - but we will miss the hospital and all the people we met there. They have been like a new family for the past 7 1/2 weeks. We want to say a HUGE thank you to all the nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, and everyone else who had a part in taking care of our babies. We met some super special people there who have been blessed by God with special talents and love for babies and their parents. We will also miss the other parents that we met who we are still in NICU waiting for their day to go home. We pray that God will work a miracle in their lives as he has in ours and that they can soon be home too. Thank you to all of you who made the stress of the last 51 days bearable and even enjoyable at times - thanks for making us laugh when we needed to and being there to hear our concerns and help us out along the way! We really will miss all of you.

Posts to the blog will probably be fewer and farther between as we spend our time keeping us with our precious babies but we'll be sure to show off our cuties every now and then! We will not be allowing many visitors in order to keep Addyson and Braden well so we don't end up back in the hospital. The common cold will be more than they can handle at this point so we have to be careful with germs. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement. You can continue to pray for our family. Although Addyson and Braden can eat on their own they are still learning so all of us need patience, which is sometimes running low (especially when we're lacking on sleep).

Please check back from time to time to see what God is doing in our lives!