Tired

The babies will be 7 weeks old in a couple of days. I can’t believe we’re surviving this! I'm tired.The past 7 weeks have been the most trying and exhausting days of my life. On facebook, I read people’s statuses and look at their pictures and get jealous that they are living a “normal” life. I know things will never be the same, but at least we will have our new normal when the babies come home.  It’s hard not to feel alone in this journey even though we have people all around us. It’s a very unique situation that not many people can relate to. I never thought I’d be experiencing it. I know it’s made me a stronger and more patient person, but I still don’t understand why it had to happen to us… to our babies.

The babies are doing well. The morning I last blogged, I hadn’t gotten my morning update from Dennis, yet. A little while after I posted, he called me and told me that both of the babies had had a rough night. Violet was back on the cannula and Cameron was having heart rate drops. Hearing these things was difficult and made me anxious to be with them for the day. When I got to the hospital I felt more alone than I had in weeks. Luckily, I have an awesome mom who came up to spend the rough day with me. The babies dsatted a lot and Cameron had a heart rate drop or two. Their monitors were going off all day! It was awful. Those monitors are enough to make you crazy, that's for sure! That seemed to be the worst of it, though. The babies are doing well today.

Yesterday marked the day that I would’ve been exactly 33 weeks pregnant. I don’t think I’ll ever get over how early these babies came. However, considering everything, we really are very lucky. We hit a HUGE milestone today when Violet had her first BOTTLE!!! Bottle feeding starts when the babies are doing well with their breathing and are showing signs that they can handle the bottle.  She took 10 mls out of her 36 ml feeding. She did so well and we were so proud of her. I couldn’t stop crying through the whole thing. Bottle feeding is a huge step closer to coming home. For now, she’s only going to be trying one bottle a day and we’ll slowly work our way up depending on how she tolerates them. At this rate, there’s a very good chance she’ll be coming home before Cameron. Our sweet boy is still on anywhere between 32 and 38 percent oxygen with 2 liter flow of oxygen. They’ve tried to wean him down a couple of times, but he doesn’t seem to like it very much. Hopefully, within the next few days he’s able to tolerate the weaning. We’d really like to see that oxygen lowered. He is not ready to bottle feed with his breathing issues. He is, however, getting a lot bigger. Cameron is now about 4 lbs 7oz and Violet is 3 lbs 14 oz. They’re really doing a nice job with their weight gains.

I’m not sure how we’ll handle Violet coming home before Cameron… especially if it’s before the holidays. The whole thing breaks my heart. While I want her home more than anything in the world, I feel sick thinking about taking her home and leaving him there. First, I’m not sure how I would take care of her and go spend time with him and second I HATE the idea of him being in the hospital by himself and not here with us. Our family won’t be complete until we are all here. I just can’t wait much longer!!!