Sophie Came Home

Sophies coming home outfit. I have waited a long time to have you guys!!!

My wonderful little babies....yes it is a Michigan blanket. We decided to start him out young-Go maize and blue!!!

Well we got the greatest present ever-Sophie got to come home today. I am so happy about that. Our family is together for christmas and that means a lot to me. I didn't want her to be at the hospital if at all possible. I do have a home care nurse coming out to the house to check on her monitor on Wednesday. She seems to be doing fine. We did have an apnea alarm tonight-scared me but I just rubbed her and she started breathing again. I am so happy that we have that thing. I don't know when I will ever feel safe giving that thing up. It alarms after no chest wall movement is detected for 20 seconds. She was in her car seat and the leads could have moved or just not picked it up and she really was breathing but I am not about to take any chances!!! She is doing well and the babies love being together so I will keep them at the bedside with me so I can micromanage everything! LOL I am totally exhausted and ready for sleep. I know that sleep is a long way off. How about a nap? I will take that right now. I love them so much. I wish I could put them down long enough to get some rest. That is just not the case because in my opinion they are so darn cute that I must just look at them in Awe! Merry Christmas!!!!

Sophie will be home Christmas Eve!!!

Well we went to the apnea monitor class today and learned infant CPR. The monitor is much smaller than I thought it would be. Sophie will be wearing that for several weeks until we are fairly sure that she is not having any episodes. I worry about her and I am so glad that she will have the monitor so that I can sleep a little. Otherwise I would have to sit at her side all night and make sure she is breathing...I went to see her tonight and I put her in one of her cute preemie outfits...all the nurses were cooing over it!

Riley is doing well. He is eating well and just looking about at his new home and his big brothers keep him pretty busy showing him all kinds of toys and games! I can't keep my mitts off of him and keep kissing him all over like I do my older boys. He is so wonderful and I am so thrilled to be bringing his sister home soon.

On a lighter note I am able to get my wedding ring back on and I love it! Bye bye swelling! Also for anyone else having milk issues due to pumping or whatever reason...I talked to the lactation RN at the hospital and she recommended that I take Reglan to increase breast milk production. I did not know anything about this or if I did I forgot!!! Anyhow I just want you to know that I am on day three of the 12 day regimen and it has more than doubled my volume! I am so thrilled! I want to be breast feeding right now but I have to wait until I am done with that crazy Cipro! I am thrilled that the UTI is gone however I want to get on with it! LOL Just thought that I would throw this little tid bit on here. Dont give up with the breast feeding!

Riley Came Home Yesterday!!!!

This is what my little angel looks like without the feeding tube in. She is so cute. :)

Here is my sweet little flower! She is so wonderful and spunky! A little spitfire. DH says she is a chip off the old block!!!

Two little peas in the pod!!!

This little outfit was used to bring home my other two boys so it is only right that Riley come home in it. It is really sentimental to me....

Getting Riley dressed to come home.

I just love this photo of my baby boy! He is absolutely sweeter than honey! (just like my other fabulous boys!!)

Riley came home yesterday and what a sweet homecoming day it was. The boys are so in love with him it is crazy. DH and I have been sucking him up as well. It is so great to be at home with him and not have to be on display at the hospital. I was able to sit and check him out completely!!! He is so wonderful and perfect! I love love love him. I got everything set up and put a bassinet right by my bed so that I could keep an eye on him all night. He is on Neosure formula-35-40 cc's every 3 hours. I set my alarm clock to get up and he woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm every time. His own alarm system seems to be working just fine these days. I still have to pump and dump due to an antibiotic that I am taking for the darn UTI situation. So after I feed him I have to pump and by the I get everything done I have about an hour to an hour and a half and he will be up again. Didnt sleep well or long at all last night...partially because he was awake and partially because I was awake looking at him in awe! I am so thrilled with him and I am taking every minute to enjoy it and not take it for granted.

I got the call from the home care team and we are taking the monitor class and infant CPR tomorrow at the hospital for Sophie! She has not had any more apnea! Yeah! Lets hope that Cafcit keeps working and she continues on this path. I worry about her coming home with no monitor but thank goodness they do use one. That can really be a scary thing for a mother....no breathing=FREAK OUT ATTACK! Anyhow I make trips to the hospital at night when I get the boys in bed and snuggle her up with kangaroo kare. She is wonderful and I cannot wait to get her home. We need her energy around here.....Then we will be complete! She is so adorable and her little hospital photo turned out so cute. I can't wait to post it. Lots of pink...my kind of photo!!! She got her tube pulled and she is taking regular bottles now and progressing nicely. If things keep up this way she will be home on Christmas Eve day! So exciting!

Now for me. Things are going well. I am able to move around so much better. Thank goodness. It has been nutty from that surgery. It was tough. Anyhow I am happy that I can do things for myself now. It is hard to ask for h-e h-e-l h-e-l-p! I dont know why I think that I have to do everything. I am really trying to let people help that want to. I dont want to be overloaded and alone!!! Thank you to all who have offered your help. It is greatly appreciated.

Sophie Ate!!!

Well little miss Sophie hasnt been eating but today she decided to nipple about 35 cc's which is her whole bottle! I was so proud of her. That is wonderful...one step closer. She has been without any apnea alarms for a little over 24 hours. She needs to be alarm free for 5 days. The doctor did up her Cafcit to 19mg per dose which should keep her a little more alert to be able to breathe. If she continues to stay alarm free she can come home on Christmas eve! She will come home on medication and an apnea monitor. That will make me feel better!!! How wonderful! That would be so great!!! I am praying that she does well. We just have to take it one day at a time. Other than that she is gaining weight consistently and very snuggly!!!

Mr. Riley is doing great. He is without a feeding tube for a couple of days now and eating well from the bottle. This is a great sign. The doctor said that he might come home either tomorrow or Friday! Yippie! I hope that this is the case. He is so calm and easy going with everything.

I am preparing the house for their arrival-setting up diaper changing stations upstairs and down and getting everything out that I will be needing for them! I am looking forward to them coming home-so are my boys!!!

Update...

Well last night I had to make a trip to ER-Severe bladder and kidney infection. I also may have cellulitis on my lower belly where all that swelling was. Oh great just what I need. I had a friend take me to ER and I got right in and they took the staples out and put steristrips on. It feels better with regard to that. I was cramping so bad and had SEVERE back pain on the left. I was bawling and carrying on and they gave me Morphine to help with the pain and it only worked for minutes. My white blood cell count was through the roof indicating infection and they did a UA. Apparently it was a really bad UTI. How horrible. I didn't get to see the babies because of this and it was making me mad. I did go up earlier in the day and love on them and take photos of them and all. They are so wonderful!!!

BABIES INFO:

Riley made his first weight gain instead of loss today. He weighed 5 grams more than yesterday. Every gram counts when you want them to come home. They changed his formula from 20 calories per cc to 22 calories to help him gain some weight. That is a good sign! He is nippling mostly all of his feedings. He only had to have 10 cc gavaged through the feeding tube for the whole day so that is not bad at all. Good Boy Riley!!!

Sophie is gaining weight well. She is always putting on a few grams at each weigh in. Her deal is the apnea-which they are giving her Cafcit-caffeine to help her stay stimulated enough to breath. It is really helping. Unreal. A little baby mountain dew and she is breathing better. That is awesome!!! She is not nippling her feedings as well as Riley, so they are having to use her feeding tube more often than not but at least she is putting on weight. She usually eats about half or a little more. Good Girl Sophie!!!

NEW Photos!!!


My sweet Riley boy looking around after his meal. He was happy.

Time to drift off to sleep after Grandma held you. She ate you right up! You had tons of snuggles!

These photos of Sophie were taken after some Kangaroo Kare. She loved it. I held her because when we got to the nursery she was wailing! It is just instinct to go to your crying baby. So I was able to comfort her and she started crying when she was hungry and it was about 20 minutes until her feeding time. That is a good thing! She was telling us that she was ready. I can't wait to bring these guys home to join our family!

Just after Kangaroo Kare.

I am Home!!!!

Well guys here are the awaited photos! DH still has a lot on his camera that I will add of the actual birth but for now I hope that these will do! MY PRECIOUS RILEY AND SOPHIE!!!!!



The Proud Big Brothers!!!! They were so excited. Isaac wanted Riley and Spencer wanted Sophie!

My little Glow worm!!!!Riley boy on his Biliblanket

My sweet babies! I ate them up with love!

My dear daughter-Sophie Marie-she is so sassy already!!!!

The hospital gave them red and green hats in light of the holiday. I have other plans...although they are cute....

2 Peas in a pod!!!!

RILEY

Nice belly-stretch marks and all. So glad we got this one! LOL

This was taken the night before because I caught sight of it in the mirror after putting the boys in bed and I was like-Whoa that is huge!!!

Comments

Thank you guys so much for the wonderful comments. I took my laptop to the employee pharmacy in the lobby today to get my discharge RX's and I started to read your comments and then started to tear up right there and I had to look like like I wasn't because it is lunch time and there are a ton of people down there right now!!!

I am still quite sore. I will be glad to come home to take my pain meds when I want to! It is slow moving for me these days which really isn't my style so it is taking some adjusting.

I spend all of my available waking moments in with the babies. They are wonderful! I think that they look a lot a like. I will be posting photos tomorrow when I get home. So stay tuned for that fun. They are eating from a bottle although not well. They take in a few cc's and then they are done so they are talking about putting feeding tubes in them just so they don't have to work as hard. They will suck what they want and then lavage the rest down the tube. Sounds like a plan to me. They are both on biliblankets as their bilirubin levels are high. (Normal for preemies)They really do look like glow worms!!!! They were able to pull their IV's out yesterday so that is a step in the right direction as well. Sophie does have episodes of apnea but overall she is doing well. Riley is breathing just fine. He looks just like my boys!!! I can't wait to get the photos up and running!!!

Time to feed the babies!

Talk to you later!!!!

The final Appointment!!!!!

Well here's the deal...I had been having contractions about every ten minutes or so all weekend and basically just felt bad. I went to my OB appt. on Monday and told him of the weekends events and he suggested that I go to L and D and get monitored. So I do. I went very reluctantly as I am hormonal and huge. It turns out that I was starting to dilate...to a 1cm. Then they decided to draw blood and run the PIH panel as well. Well things came back worse than they were last week. My liver enzymes doubled what they were just a week ago. My uric acid level went way up compared to what it has been and they decided that it was a good idea to deliver me STAT. DH was still on his way to the hospital from work...I am sweating waiting for him!!!! So anyhow it was a flurry of nurses and doctors all coming together to make this whole thing work out. I was signing papers, getting IV's and a catheter, shaved, etc. Anyhow, I get into the OR and had to sit for the spinal...Can I just say OUCH! It was a toughy!!! Anyhow after I got that done and ten minutes of bawling I was all strapped down for the long haul! It was a rough surgery...but within a few minutes really I heard the loud sounds of Riley bellowing throughout the suite! Then a minute later I heard Sophie crying out!!! It was so amazing! I started crying when I heard them and I knew that they could breathe well. Then they briefly showed me the babies and then DH went with them to the nursery and I stayed there and got stitched up. Fun fun. I went to recovery for about an hour and after lots of tears and pain medication it was finally at a tolerable level. Then they took me on the bed to the nursery to see the little nuggets. They are sooo cute. I will be posting photos when I get home and have equipment that works. I have a defective card reader with me....uuugghh!!! Anyhow, the babies are so adorable! Sophie weighed in at 5lbs 8 oz and Riley weighed in at 5 lbs 5 oz. I do not have the length yet. They both have hair!!! Sophie seems to be a little spitfire just like her mother and Riley is a calm baby just soaking things up! Both are way cute! But that is a biased mothers opinion. I will for sure get some photos up as soon as I get home. They will have to stay longer than me but that is OK it is for their good and I can heal up. It will kill me to leave them though. I plan on visiting for the better part of all the days they are here. Well that is my story and I am sticking with it!

NST today

Today I had my NSt-took 3 freaking hours!!! Like I have that kind of time to be strapped to a monitor on my back! Anyhow the babies are looking good and my labs were still a little shaky. The resident came in and I asked how everything was looking and he was like well I dont think that we will have to deliver you today but I am going to call the peri to see what she thinks. Anyhow he came back in and said that if I continue to go up (liver enzymes, protein, creatinine, etc.) they are going to keep me and deliver the babies. It was a close call today. They like the protein under 300 and mine was 298. Blood pressure was awesome again-124/71. I was pleased about that. Other than that I have nothing new to report! I wanted to be able to go home though and I am glad that I just cleared the protein deal! Almost there. I am in much better spirits than yesterday. I took an ambien last night and it really helped. I needed sleep so bad. So now I just wait until Monday for a BPP and OB appt.

Ob appt and BPP today...and on and on.....

Today was a day like all other days! Filled with doctor appointments and waiting. Lots of waiting. I had the BPP and everything turned out well for that. Riley is weighing in at 5lbs 7 oz and Sophie is weighing in at about 5 lbs 4 oz. I am not sure how accurate these are considering I had the bad tech. Dang! I thought that I made my appt.'s around her schedule. Oh well. This is the idea they have. Not bad. You could see some of the vernix floating in the amniotic fluid. They are starting to shed that coating already. That is a good sign. Anyhow they are both head up today. Lots of fun for mom! Then I headed out for my OB appointment which was pretty uneventful. BP was 124/89 and no protein in the urine so that is a good deal. I was asking the doctor about healing after the c-section, with all the swelling that I have in my lower abdomen. He said it is like a 50/50 with that much swelling. I was like what? He said that it may heal up good, they may have to put a drain in it or it may not heal well at all and continue to be weepy. That is all I need with 2 newborns! So it is a wait and see game. I hope that it heals up just fine and I wont have to worry about it. He said that they will give me antibiotics prophylactically.

I measured 48 weeks-YIKES! That is huge!!!

He said he noticed a real difference in my coping ability! He asked me what was wrong and I lit into him! I am so tired first of all. I hate the clinic. By the way they are refunding my money from the 3D ultrasound because both times the video is horrific. That's beside the point. I cannot sleep. I mean I absolutely cannot sleep without taking something. It is horrible. Then it got too late last night to take something so I just paced the floors...It was bad. My ear is aching and I can barely talk still......So needless to say I was very very grumpy! He was like whoa! She opened a can on me! LOL He said to hang in there and for every day between now and the 26th that they stay inside that would be about 2 days less that they would be in the nursery. That is incentive right? So here I sit hanging in there.


Upcoming Appt's:
Tomorrow-Drop off 24 hour urine and get an NST
Monday-OB appt and BPP
Tuesday-Perinatologist and NST with blood work
Thursday-NST with blood work
Friday-Pre-op Appt. for C-section

Peri and NST today

This photo of Riley was taken to show how much hair he has. The tech was like "Wow! he has a lot of hair!" I asked her how she knew and she said that instead of a distinct line where his skull is, it is fuzzy and she put and arrow to show the hair. (All of the little lines coming from his head) How cute! My boy is going to have hair!!! We could not see Sophies head so I am not for sure how her hair is coming along.

This photo is both neat and creepy! It is a photo of Riley's face. His mouth was open and he looked directly at the "camera". I thought that it was really interesting to see this.

These last two ultrasounds were done on 11/27. She forgot to give me the pics so I got them today. I thought that the top one was so cute of Sophie's feet on Riley's head of course. I mean where else would she put them? I just thought it was such a neat photo of her little foot!!

And the bottom one is both of their heads together and again that is her little foot by his head. Cute little toes though.

I had an appointment with the perinatologist today for a cord doppler and a fluid level check via ultrasound. Every thing looks good there. Both babies were moving around and they were positioned like the yin yang symbol!!! Riley's head is down with his feet up across my ribs and Sophie has her head under his legs and her feet are down by his head! It was interesting. Needless to say we could not get a photo of her face-due to legs being in the way. This appointment was good and it was fun. Just a quick peek at them to see how they are doing. I go to the clinic that I love so much on Thursday for a BPP and I think that they will check growth at this appt. I am not for sure.

After I left the peri's office I had an appt. in L & D for my NST. They did the normal urine and blood work and things are not looking good again. My liver enzymes went up and my creatinine was off. Pre-pre-eclampsia signs if that makes any sense. They were talking of keeping me possibly. I about freaked out! my blood pressure was good at 121/74-that is VERY good for me. This new BP med is working out really well. For that I am thankful. Anyhow the RN was able to get both babies on the monitor well. I was having a few contractions here and there but nothing huge to report. I have to do another 24 hour urine and go back like everyday! Unreal. So many appointments so little time! LOL

32 Week Belly shot

Here is an updated Belly photo taken yesterday in front of our tree. I certainly feel like I am going to blow up! Even if it isnt a realistic thought that is how I feel. It is really hard to do anything. I feel like it is a challege to get some water from the kitchen! Only a few more weeks to meet the little nuggets!