NICU Days

This kind of hard to write when it has been over two years. To put you guys all up to date on the kids and stuff would take me forever. So this post is going to sum up the NICU for the most part. We were in the NICU along time. I wish I would of started this blogging back in the day. Their are so many imporant times in their stay in the NICU that would be great to share but it would take me forever. All three babies at the end of March had to have surgery to close their PDA. PDA is a vessel between the lung and heart it is suppose to close after the babies are born but since the babies were born so early it didn't close. Which is common in preemies. It also didn't close with meds. So at the end of march they all had surgery. After that they did pretty good and was just basically growing. You know even knows I hated to watch my trio suffer and struggle to live and struggle now with issues. It was kind of cool to watch them develop on the outside like they would of inside my stomach. I would of done everything to keep them in longer to make the kids lifes eaiser. Maddie was on the vent for 7 weeks and the boys were on the vent for 8 weeks. Then they all went to c-pap can't remember how long they were on them. I know Maddie was the last one off and I believe Hayden was the first one off. They were so cute they looked like little space dudes or something. I waited so long to hear my babies cry and it was amazing to hear them cry the first time. It took us awhile to get use to them crying. I remember the first time Maddie cryed we could hear her outside the isolate but I thought it was a baby in another room. I was so used to my babies not being able to cry I didn't know it was her. I was sitting by Hayden and the nurse is like your daughter is crying. I just started crying with her. When you watch your children for weeks on vents and you are not able to do anything but maybe change diapers, that dpended on what nurse you have. It was great when all the kids went on nasula cannual. They were off all their iv's and stuff. All they had on were the monitors and the oxygen. It was the best feeling in the world to be able to go in the NICU and get my babies out of their isolates when I wanted to. I didn't have to ask for permisson to hold my kids. i didn't have to wait for the nurses to get them out for me. I could do finally after weeks in the NICU I got to feel like a real mommy. We were in the NICU 14 and 15 weeks. Madison came home first even knows they told me she would be last since she was tiny. The boys came home about ten days after her or so. The day after she came home both boys had to have ROP surgery done on their eyes. Which is laser surgery on the Retinas. Alot of preemies their eyes don't develop like they should the vessels in their eyes don't and that can cause major problems including blindness. So that kept the boys in longer. Hayden was also having some major eating issues it was hard for him to eat from the bottle. His suck was real weak and it would take him a long time to eat. I got him to eat as many bottles as he needed to to be able to come home. On June 21, 2006. Two days before my due date which is great. We expected them to be in the hospital alot longer. They all came home on apena monitors and oxygen. That was hard we were always trying to untangle all the tubes and wires. When we went somewhere it would take awhile to get them all loaded up we had to switch their oxygen tanks from one to another and everything else. We had alot of appts at first. It was worth it in so many ways. We were finally home with all three babies. We got to know them with out the nurses watching us and we got to feel like parents for the first time. We had a lot of help at first from family. With getting to appts. and stuff my husband worked during the day so my mom and one of her friends would go with us to all of our appts. It was pretty much one adult per child most of the time. All the kids ended up coming off of the oxygen and monitors at some time. I can't remember when. Maddie got her bowel reconnected in july of 2006 and thank goodness that is the last time she has been in the hospital. I was going to post a slideshow of the kids in the NICU but couldn't do it. I am not sure how to post a slideshow I can do a video but not slideshow. As soon as I figure this all out I can maybe do it.