ONE Whole MONTH!

Mike and Will together. This day of sitting next to each other their monitors showed that these 2 literally were completely in sync with each other

I waited a few days for this week’s post for a few reasons. Mostly it’s because some days are a lot busier than others and this week consisted of a few of those busy days. But my “oh, that sounds good” excuse was because if I waited until today to write my post then it could be all about how my twins are 1 MONTH OLD!! This month has flown by soooooooo much faster than I imagined it would. On one hand I feel like we have been in this routine of visiting our children FOREVER!!! But on the other hand I’m sitting here thinking, “Has it really been a month already?!”

This is a terrible picture of me, but it me holding my sweet babes on their 1 month old day!!!

These 2 boys are amazing to me….and for me. I can be having such a stressful and poor day, but while I’m sitting there, holding my babies, everything else slips away and I have found a taste of Heaven. We have been at the new hospital for a week and a half now and I have learned to love it. We run through the same rotation of nurses, and it’s such a small NICU that all the nurses know what’s going on with all the babies. So when I call to check in it doesn’t matter who I talk to, they have either cared for Mike and Will or they simply know what is going on with them. I get so much time just holding and caring for these 2 that I occasionally am able to feel like I am their mom for reals! It’s my favorite.

Mike in his first onesie as a month old baby

Today Mike weighed in at 4lb 11oz, while Will is still ahead at 4lb 13oz. He is almost to the 5lb mark!!!! I can’t believe how fast it feels like they are gaining weight, but most of the time I also can’t hardly realize that it has been 4+ weeks. There was one day earlier this week that Will was only a half-pound more than Mike, but I think that came as a challenge to Will and he started gaining his weight quickly again. Since then they have been moving along at similar increments.

Will at 1 month in his first onesie

Because the boys are hooked up to so few monitors now, it is easy to pick them up and snuggle with them, so we do it as much as possible. A bonus, we can also now hold the 2 of them together…at the same time. It’s fantastic. This is when I get the biggest understanding of my Savior’s love for me. Being able to look at both of these babies that endured so very much even before birth, is a testament that Heavenly Father knows each of us. He knows what we are capable of handling, even when it is so hard, and we spend some days just crying that it could be over. HE knows that we can endure just a little bit more, and then suddenly HE lets us know that “it is enough”, and it’s time to move onto new experiences.

My boys hanging out together

These new experiences for us are hard too. Some days it absolutely breaks my heart to have my boys all in separate places. It just breaks my heart to have Mike and Will so far from me at this time. I can’t possibly spend as much time with them as I want to with them being in the hospital. But it helps me to absolutely cherish every minute I have with them in the hospital. I know that this is hard for me and Zed to endure while they are in the hospital. I know it is incredibly difficult for Ken and Easton to be without their parents so very much. But I also know that this is the absolute best scenario for Mike and Will to be in. They have constant supervision, I am able to get more rest, and I can ask questions so I feel confident in the progress these boys are making. 

Getting to hold my sweet sleeping boys

I feel like I’m not expressing myself well with this concept today, but to sum it up, this year has been full of experiences that are hard to endure, but I know that Heavenly Father will only have us go through as much as we can handle, then when he removes the hardship from us we are able to move forward a little stronger. I have been able to glimpse the feelings of Heaven by being with my sweet boys after all we’ve gone through so much more than I have felt before.

Zed's first time feeding the boys. He's got Mike here.

This past week the boys’ feedings have been increased so that they are now at about an ounce and half every feeding time. They are taking a bottle several times a day, for 15-30 minutes, then whatever they didn’t get to or couldn’t finish from the bottle (because it takes a lot of energy and effort of eat from a bottle) they receive in their feeding tubes. Before a feeding the nurses always check for “residuals”, which is just checking to see if there is any food left in the boys’ stomachs that they weren’t able to digest since the previous feeding. This is how they know if they are feeding the boys too much. The kink that gets thrown in once a day is when I come in to nurse the boys. For a week we only had doctors’ orders permitting me to try breastfeeding once a day for 15minutes with each baby. Well, with this we don’t know how much they’ve eaten, so it becomes a guessing game of how much to feed them in a bottle or for their tubes. Usually we try me nursing first for 15 minutes, then Zed will feed them a bottle for another 15 minutes, then the nurse will put the rest of the feeding (or half of what’s left if the boys did well breast feeding) through their tubes. We are waiting until the boys can eat every feeding at a full amount from a bottle (or nursing). Right now they often get tired, or even start out tired, and don’t suck very well. Or they quit too early. We’ve still got some time in the NICU for this, but they are coming along so great, just slowly.

Mike and Will are now sharing a crib! So much fun.

Mr J has started kindergarten and is absolutely loving it. We get to chat and skype with him some and he is doing great. Otis starts preschool back up this coming week and I think he is going to really thrive having some more stability in his life again. This whole year has probably hit him the hardest of us all. My mom has been absolutely amazing in playing with Otis and giving him so much extra and much needed love this whole summer. He has needed it so much more that I think anyone could have given him except my dear mother. Zed’s mom has also been a complete saint through all of this. She has set aside pretty much everything she does to take care of our kids. She has taken them with her on trips, to meeting, and everywhere else she has gone. It has been a huge relief to know that they are with someone who is giving them so much of herself who loves them as much as we do. So thank you.

I LOVE it when they are so wide awake. Alert little babies are fantastic.

Zed and our one month old babies!!