Happy wife, happy life

"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."

Helen Keller

Yesterday seemed to get better and better: Erica and I got pedicures and lunch, it was great to have some girl time out of the house. My feet have gone from swollen and red to pampered and pretty!

When we walked in the NICU last night the sweet nurse at the desk said, "your little boy had a great day today!" and I wondered which one she was talking about....

It was Alex!

The surgeon and doctors agree that the surgery was a success and he doesn't need any additional surgery or treatment right now. He is off the respirator and on a breathing cannula. This is great news.

FYI: a respirator does all the breathing for the baby, the C-pap or continuous positive airway pressure is the next step down and then the cannula that provides a smaller amount of oxygen and room air into the baby's nose.

They also took out the main IV from Alex's hand so I was able to hold him for a few hours last night. From now on Jim can hold one baby and I can hold one at visits. I would love for them to be close enough together that we could hold them both. Hopefully that will happen at some point, but right now I will settle for healthy babies! Alex will start getting milk in a few days, usually 10 days after surgery to give his stomach and intestines a break, and we will see how that goes. The Medical Center of Plano has an open floor plan in the NICU so there are probably 15 babies all together in different incubators. Poor Alex had a hard time sleeping because there were so many alarms going off around him. He finally got comfortable with me holding him with his feet in one hand and holding his little hand in the other. I developed some new arm muscles from this but it was worth every second. Alex was very alert and told me that he was really happy to have his mommy hold him.

Nate has his cannula out now! He has been doing really well breathing on his own and has been eating more and more. He will be off the IV soon and will be getting all his nutrition from his milk. Jim got Nate yesterday and introduced him to music on his iphone. He really wants to try a bottle and loves sucking on his feeding tube. Alex was doing the same thing last night. Sucking and swallowing is a lot of work for a baby so this is a great sign!

Today I got a pick me up in the form of a Nordstrom box on the front porch. It was an adorable set of matching PJs, hats and some cute baby books for the boys from John Rattan and Terri Keith, hand selected by Jessica :)


As I'm writing this another package was just delivered! I'm going to save it for Jim to open tonight.

Can't wait to see our babies and their great progress tonight!