Memories of the NICU (Part Two)

71 days of...

                                              CPAP,

 nasal prongs,

 heart monitors,

oxygen sats,

IVs, 

 kangaroo care,

 

snuggling babies,

 worrying endlessly,

being a germophobe,

infections, 

central lines,

morning rounds,

eating cafetria food,

 spending 8-12 hour days with the babies,

pumping milk,

 breastfeeding,

,

getting to know the nurses,

 getting to know the other parents,

 worrying about the other parents' babies too,

calling in the night to check on the boys,

 having a heart attack every time my phone rang,

 dreading seeing the NICU # on my call display,

hoping Rhys would get better,

 wishing Rhys would stop getting sick

being thankful for Garrett and his health,

being amazed at the strength and resilience that babies have,

barely seeing Mark,

 wishing I could spend more time with Rylen,

being grateful for the amazing nurses and all the great care provided,

being amazed at the generosity of others,

  

checking temperatures,

changing diapers

being obsessed with my kids' poop

 

celebrating the good moments,

       

 laughing,

 crying,

 wishing,

 hoping,

 

 

       WE DID IT! :-)

Big Brother

I thought I should do a post about Rylen, since I am partly doing this blog as a way to journal for myself. I doubt very much that I will remember many details about this crazy time in our lives.

Rylen has been kind of getting neglected by Mommy lately (although he is getting tonnes of Daddy time which is great!) But the moments I do spend with him, I am always amazed by his cuteness, intelligence and his vocabulary! Wow that kid can talk up a storm!

Here`s what is awesome about Rylen at age 2 years and 10 months:

• he loves to fall asleep at night while holding hands with Mommy or Daddy
• he can repeat pretty much ANYTHING you say with almost perfect pronunciation (as anyone with a toddler knows, this is Mommy and Daddy's worst nightmare!) 
• his favourite song is Life is a Highway, preferably by Rascal Flatts, but he will take the Tom Cochrane version in a pinch
• he LOVES reading books, particularly Cat in the Hat, anything by Robert Munsch and the Llama Llama series
• he loves to cuddle, particularly at night
• after a bath, his hair gets super curly
• he is in love with airplanes and garbage trucks, one of his favourite games is to pretend any box or bin or laundry basket is a garbage bin, and then proceed to throw all of his toys in it, and then dump them out. Messy, but kills a good half hour.
• he loves going to museums, the aviation museum being his fave.
• he is starting to become a better eater...will even occasionally eat a vegetable! Shocking I know!
• he LOVES babies and is so far very besotted with Rhys and Garrett.  He has been nothing but gentle and loving towards them
• he loves to bake with Mommy and is really great at cracking eggs!
• he is at his best when he is helping someone do something...in particular anything that involves tools
• he comes up with excuses to get out of doing things. His favourite is " I can't, I have babies in my tummy" (hmmm...wonder where that came from??)
• he loves to sing and can pick up the lyrics to songs very quickly. In the car, he loves to have the music blaring and dance. He'll kick his legs really fast and tell you "look at my flip flops go!" 
• He calls railway crossing signs "Ding Dings" 

 I could go on and on...there are so many cute and funny things that he does lately. I think the age he is at is my favourite so far. Although, I do say that about every age.

Memories of the NICU (Part One)

 After 71 days in the NICU, Rhys finally got discharged! I was so nervous to take him home. We are so used to him being sick, that it was really hard to wrap our heads around the idea that he could be healthy enough to leave.

We were very happy of course, finally our family is all together! But, at the same time, it was a bit sad. The NICU was our life for 10 weeks, espeically for me. Every single day I was there. Most nights, I called to check on the boys once or twice. I got to know the staff, and the nurses became like family in a lot of ways. I was lucky that everyone was so friendly and willing to chat and share details of their personal lives with me. That was my only source of social interaction for a long time!!!

Anyways, in a bizarre way, we will miss the NICU and the daily routine of visiting our babies.

Here are some of the memories we have....

Meeting Rhys for the first time.

 Meeting Garrett. 12 hours after delivery.

Some of the first kangaroo cuddes

Wee Garrett :-)

Pumping milk (slight oversupply in the early days) 

Rhys in his early healthy days when he still had hair

Big brother meets babies :-)

Sick Rhys :-(

Not all our memories are good, obviously. There were alot of very scary moments and I'm sure I cried enough tears to mop the NICU floor with. But, there were alot of good moments too. All the staff are amazing people and the babies are so well loved by everyone who works there.We will truly miss everyone so much!

Happy

I'd like to do a nice detailed post of recent events, but I'm scared of jinxing anything. So I'll just keep it brief and allow you to draw your own conclusions :)

This is what we did the evening of February 9th. It was awesome:

And as soon as we got to my parent's place we did this, which was even more awesome:

Update February 6

Wow, February already and we are still doing the NICU thing. I thought for sure by now we'd be back at home in Brandon. Thankfully, I am a person who usually feels as though time is flying by. Really, this whole ordeal has gone by quite quickly. And hopefully soon it will be just a memory.

Rhys is at the moment doing okay. He seems to have the worst luck ever, but manages to overcome all the obstacles in his way.

This last infection he fought was a bit tricky. He was supposed to be on antibiotics for 14 days, but his central line (the third one, the one in his neck) stopped working properly and had to be removed 6 days in. They couldn't get another IV on him, so the decision was made to switch to oral antibiotics. 3 days in to those, he got sick again. Apparently the little man has an addiction to IV antibiotics. Some angel of a nurse managed to get an IV in his arm and they restarted the IV antibiotics. He managed to keep this IV for a few days, and then kept another one in his foot for another two days. This allowed him to finish up his full course of the IV antibiotics. He is now being observed to see if he can manage to stay infection free for awhile. We're all keeping our fingers crossed. He has had a million tests to see why he keeps getting this particular infection , and so far all the test have come back normal. They are chalking it up to bad luck and the hope is once he is out of the hospital setting (and all the nasty bugs that live there) that he will remain healthy. He is feeding well and gaining weight which are all things he struggled with before, so that's a good sign.

And, as always, he continues to be super adorable:

Garrett is also super cute. And thank goodness for that, otherwise I may have returned him to the NICU for a refund! He's a doll all day long, and then 9pm hits and he turns into Mr. "No Sleep-Not Even For 30 Seconds- Unless You Hold Me (Preferably Skin to Skin)" Giroux.  Some of you will recall, that in Rylen's infancy, we nicknamed him Rylen "No Nap" Giroux. So, apparently having babies that don't sleep is a genetic thing. Not sure how, as Mark and I are probably the world's most intense lovers of sleep.  How we manage to produce children that are so opposite is beyond me.

Anyways, having Garrett with us has been both awesome and chaotic. I'm sure it will get better once we are done with the NICU runs to visit Rhys. And hopefully the kid learns to sleep a bit better before Rhys gets home because I'm not sure how we will manage otherwise. But, in the meantime, he dazzles us with his cuteness:

Did you notice their matching sock monkey hats? They were made by the mother of one of the NICU nurses, specially for Garrett and Rhys. Did I mention before how awesome the staff are in the NICU? I can't get over it. They really become like family once you have been there for awhile like we have.

And, I have to add a note about big brother Rylen. He has been nothing but gentle and loving towards Garrett. It is really very sweet. And it has reinforced how actions are bigger than words and that kids learn from example. He is constantly comforting Garrett with the EXACT actions and words that we use to comfort Rylen. You will often hear him say to Garrett "It's okay sweetie. I know it's hard. Don't worry, I got you".  He showers him with kisses and loves to hold hands with him. It's so adorable!

I love my boys!

Home

On January 26, Garrett was discharged from the NICU after 57 days. It was one day after his due date.

It was very surreal. On one hand it feels like ages that we've been doing the whole NICU routine. On the other hand, it went by very quickly. I can't believe they are almost two months old!

We were, of course, very happy for Garrett. But also sad to be leaving Rhys all alone. It was also strange to think that after all this time, Mark and I are now fully responsible for all his care. You get very used to the routine and parenting an NICU baby is really just a series of limited interactions. You really only see your baby during the day (hence why I had no clue Garrett was such a night owl) and can really only do the very basics for them: feeds, diapers changes and cuddles. The nurses do their best to get you as involved as possible, but really, it's not a normal environment or situation. We couldn't believe that we were finally taking him home and could do whatever we wanted with him whenever we wanted to!

Rylen was so pumped. He was excitedly waiting at the window when we drove up. The first thing he did is run down to the basement to "get Garrett a present" and returned with a pile of toys that he kept putting in Garrett's car seat. Then, of course, he wanted to hold him. He was very gentle and loving. So cute. This is by far the best thing ever: to see Rylen's interactions with Garrett. So far, only love, kisses and "sharing" toys. No jealousy, although I'm sure it will come.

All dressed up and ready to go!

Garrett's first time outside the NICU doors!

Rylen gave Garrett a bunch of his train pieces to play with :-)

Proud big brother

Sharing with Garrett

Due Date

January 25 was our official due date for this pregnancy. It was also our five year anniversary!

Haha, I was thinking back to when we first found out we were pregnant, and were thrilled to find out the baby would be due on our anniversary. Rylen was born exactly on his due date, so we thought it would be a great anniversary present if this new baby was too. Little did we expect all the events that would turn out to transpire in the coming months. Never thought, that instead, I would give birth in November to three babies.

Anyways, we did end up getting a special anniversary present after all....... I got to "room in" with Garrett the night of the 25th, because the plan was to discharge him the next day!

Rooming in was fun, it was like a slumber party with my baby! Of course, I was nervous. When your baby spends alot of time in the NICU, you get addicted to the heart rate monitors and all the stuff that assures everyone that your baby is stable and breathing etc. Garrett was disconnected from all those things earlier that day so for the first time, he was 100% my responsibility to take care of! AAAA! I can't imagine what this would be like for a first time mom, because it was certainly hard for me.

But then, the need for sleep kicks in and the nervousness went out the window. The new focus was trying to get Garrett to settle so we could both get some sleep!

Around 3am I was very tempted to wheel him back out to the nurses and go home where I could sleep in peace. The kid Would. Not. Sleep. At all. Is this a genetic thing? It was all very reminiscent of Rylen's first few weeks at home (well, who are we kidding? Rylen never slept well).

Anyways, I mentioned the sleep issue to the nurses and they informed me that indeed, Garrett is a night owl requiring all kinds of cuddles during the night. And here I was thinking he was the world's most perfect sleeper, because during the daytime hours when I would be in the NICU with him, he would settle so easily between feeds. Reality check!

But despite the sleeplessness (and I'm not exaggerating...he finally fell asleep around 6:45am and my alarm went off at 8am) it was awesome. I was so excited to be a "real mom" to him.

 It was also bittersweet, as I felt so sad for Rhys who seems so far behind. His infection is slowly getting better, but he will be on IV antibiotics for 10 more days, and he is ever so slowly working on increasing his feeds. It will for sure be several weeks before he gets to go home (maybe by then he will be sleeping through the night? hahaha! Wishful thinking!)

Rooming in with Garrett. They set up a cot  for me in the isolation room right in the NICU.

Our five year annivesary picture!