January Never Seemed So Far Away

My heart hurts tonight. I’ve never felt pain like the kind I’ve been experiencing. I know the babies are getting the care they need, but it just doesn’t make it any easier to not have them with me. Leaving them makes me so sick every single time. I just don’t know how I’m going to do this until January. That month seems like it’s an eternity away from now. Everyone keeps telling me to look at it day by day and I know that’s what I need to do, but I can’t help but think about the 3 months that I won’t have my babies here with me. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how I can figure out how to do this. I have so many “moments” throughout the day where I just cry and cry. My guilt has not subsided. I know it doesn’t make sense to blame myself, but I have to blame someone for all of this. Who else would I blame?

My milk isn’t coming in. I’m only getting a few drops (if I’m lucky) when I pump. The lactation nurse thinks that it’s because I had PCOS. Yet another thing that I can’t do to help my babies… I was counting on this being the one thing I could do to help them get big and strong and now I can’t do this, either. I started taking Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle because the nurse recommended both of the herbal supplements. Everything says that you should be able to tell if it’s working within the first 24 hours. I’m not very optimistic right now considering I’m still getting the same amount of milk. My next move would be to talk to my doctor and see if there is something he can prescribe to help out. The stupid infection is still here... and making things very difficult for me. One might think that going to the hospital and hanging out with the babies isn't that big of a deal and could be relaxing. I've yet to have a relaxing day with them. Between dividing my time between them, pumping, visitors, bathroom visits, gauze changes, etc. it's busy, busy, busy.

The results of Cam’s test still haven’t been read, but the nurse and neonatologist said that they both believe he will need the surgery. If this is the case (which I’m sure it is), it should happen early next week. At this point, now that we know it’s probably happening, I just want it to happen already so he can start to progress. He’s such a little sweetie and he breaks my heart every day. I have a feeling he’s a mama’s boy and he’s going to need me a lot more than our little flower. Our little flower, who is doing extremely well! She’s doing everything she’s supposed to and she’s even sucking on a little pacifier! It’s so cute. Her breathing is good, but I hope she can get off that machine soon so I can always see her little face. The mask and the headband that holds it in place, makes it so hard to see her face. She’s also feeding now—up to 2.5 mls every 2 hours. What a good girl! I’ve gotten to hold her a couple of times and we’ve done kangaroo care with her a couple of time, as well. I’ve also gotten to do kangaroo care with Cameron! Our wonderful nurse for Cameron thought Cam and I both needed it. She couldn’t have been more right. It was perfect. I love my sweet babies so much.

Thank you to all of you for all of your love and support. We don’t know what we’d do without you. Please continue to pray for our family.

Ups and Downs

Yesterday when I went to the hospital the nurse asked me if I wanted to hold Violet. I was able to do kangaroo care with her. Feeling my baby against my skin was incredible. She’s so soft and little and perfect. We both were comfy and cuddled for about 40 minutes. I’ll never forget that feeling and how happy I was to hold her so close to me. I’d go through it all again for those 40 minutes. It’s so hard to be a mother and not be able to hold your babies whenever you want to. I have so many urges just to lift the tops of their incubators, take them out and put them close to my heart. If it wasn’t for all the damn tubes and ivs, I probably would do it! Needless to say, I was on a high and feeling great when I headed over to see Cameron.

When I approached Cameron’s nurse, I immediately asked how he was doing and her response was something like, “ehhh ok… he’s very touchy today”. She also went on to tell me that the pda is STILL not closed even with the second round of meds. They are calling it a “large” opening again. They are going to try one more round of meds and if that doesn’t work he will most likely be getting the surgery. My high came down to a low. My poor, sweet boy is working so hard. I feel so bad for him. I just wish I could take it all on myself and fix it all for him. Surgery makes me sick, but I know that if all goes well he will get much better… hopefully sooner rather than later. Whatever needs to be done to help him thrive will be done despite the fact that it makes me sick. I sat with Cam the rest of the afternoon, just staring at his sweet face. To me, he is starting to look a lot like Dennis. Dennis doesn’t see it, but I’ve really noticed it the past few days. I think Cam will look like Dennis and have his personality. Maybe that’s why I think he needs his Mama so much… just like Daddy did when they first met :-)

After I came home last night, my incision was beyond swollen, hard, and red. The antibiotics I was taking for the infection clearly weren’t kicking in yet. I wish someone would’ve told me NOT to put heat on it. I didn’t know any better, though, and I did put heat on it. The incision drained for a good 6 hours last night and still is a little bit right now. Maybe it was a good thing, though, because the pain has lessened significantly and the swelling has gone down. Dennis kept trying to get me to call the doctor last night, but there was no way IN HELL I was going to call only to be told to go to the ER. NO WAY was I going to go to the hospital last night. I would have seriously lost my mind. I’m going to call my doctor today just to make sure everything is okay. Looks like it’ll be hard for me to get to the babies on my own today, but my mom said she’d leave work to take me. We’ll see how that goes.

Pray for my babies, please. They’ve come a long way, but they’ve got a long way to go. Today I’m going to put pictures of Jaxon in their “bedrooms” so they’ll want to get big and strong to be able to play with him.