Thank You!!!!!!!!

During this entire journey, Mark and I have been really amazed at the kindness and generosity of our friends, family and even perfect strangers! We have never been in a position to need help from others before, so it is a bit awkward for us to accept help or to ask for it. I always knew we had a great support network of friends and family, but I honestly never expected all this!

There have been so many generous gestures extended to our family, I can't even begin to list all the help we have received. Every day it continues to amaze me.

Here are just some examples of the awesome and kind things people have done for us:

Our  co-workers and friends planned a Bud, Spud n Steak fundraiser for us ( and so many people came out to support us, some we didn't even know!!!!)  Thank you Michelle, Rachel and Caleb for all the planning!!

Mark's work charged a "diaper admission" to their Christmas party, and as a result we have a HUGE stack of diaper boxes waiting for us in Brandon ( so helpful, we go through what seems like a box a day with these guys!) 

We have had many, many generous donations of clothes, baby items, car seat, from some super awesome friends! Those same friends went above and beyond with some very elaborate baby gifts and gift cards. We are so lucky.

Anonymous donations of diapers and wipes (several times I was greeted at my prenatal appointments with boxes of diapers waiting for me)

Offers of help from pretty much everyone we know: babysitting, house cleaning, laundry services, meals, diapers etc...

Two close friends have been doing house-sitting duties for us despite their busy lives, thus ensuring we are worry-free about what's happening at home in Brandon. Thank you Lisa and Caleb!!!!!

My parents have been very generous and accommodating with having us invade their space for 14 weeks. Meals are made, laundry is done and lots of help with the kids. Thank you!

Mark's family has been overly generous with financial support, which has been so very helpful.

Some of the baby gifts we have received have been extremely generous...it really amazes me. For example, this is a gift we received from someone I have never even met before (a coworker of my mom's) It included a large Walmart gift card and a special gift for Mark and I to use towards a night out together. 

On top of all the help for the babies, alot of people have stunned us with treats for Mark and I! Just today, I received some gift cards for Starbucks, Boston Pizza and a clothing store, from a great friend of mine. Neighbours of my parents gave us Jets tickets on Valentines Day (and also helped with babysitting) so that Mark and I could have a fun date night together. An aunt of mine spoiled me with a spa gift certificate to help me feel as pampered and comfy as possible during the pregnancy. The 'ladies at my chiropractor"s office were so supportive, and Darlene gave me the Best Gift Ever for a pregnant lady: the Snoogle pillow!

There have also been quite a few donations to St. Boniface Hospital,  made in memory of Benjamin. This is something that surprised us and warmed our hearts. It means so much that people are acknowledging him as our son. Thank you so much for everyone who did this. 

There are so many more examples, too many to list!

We honestly never expected this much support and generosity. It is very heartwarming and comforting to know we have so many people that are thinking of us and supporting us. 

So thank you all so much! It means alot to us and we will never forget it! We will definitely be paying it forward and have specific plans to do so in the near future, and hopefully for the rest of our lives. One thing on our to-do list in donating blood, something which Rhys' experience has taught us the importance of. We are also donating Ben's car seat to another NICU family that could use a helping hand. I can't take credit for this though, since the car seat was donated to us by my great friend Michelle T, who has given us her blessing to re-donate. Everyone who has helped us, has inspired us to be more generous, more charitable and more kind to others. This is something we really hope to instill in our children, and they will definitely grow up knowing about all the support our family has received.

THANK YOU!

Wow

Wow.
That's all I can really say about the last week.
I am typing this one handed at 12:17am, while holding a fussing baby and rocking a bouncy chair with my foot.
No joke.
Both babies have been fed, not once, not twice, but three times in the last 5 hours. No amount of gripe water seems to be able to fix them.
We sleep in shifts. Mark and I each get 3-4 hours a night if we are lucky.
Having more than one baby is truly crazy. Especially if they are night owls like mine are.
It's difficult to juggle everyone, especially with a crazy toddler in the mix.

Yes, that is a barf bowl in the picture. Rylen had a short bout of stomach flu. Just to add to the craziness.

Juggling two hungry babies and a 2 year old

I do believe this picture was taken at around 3am

But, then there are the sweetest moments. Such as this:

And this:

And this:

We waited a long time for this, so I won't complain. Okay, maybe I will. We are tired. Very, very tired.  But happy. Very, very happy :-)

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!