Post 28

Hey there Fans of The Deuce!

Well everyone here is doing great!

The girls are two weeks old as of today....time has flown by! It's only seemed like a month since they were born...wait, I've got that backwards...what day is this? Who am I?

Kelli is healing and really getting around...and pumping some serious baby-juice. It's not bad really, she only has to pump 8 times a day (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)...so it's a lot of work, even without the Deuce loose at the Dirt Farm. And (I know you're not supposed to start a sentence with a subordinating conjunction, but I promise I won't do it again) well now I've forgotten what I was going to say...nevermind I guess.

Anywho....things are getting back to normal for everyone, which means that we're all adjusting to our surreal schedule where Kelli goes up to see the girls once or twice during the day, then we go together for the 8 pm feeding of the Deuce.

Today we had family day which was nice...we stayed for about 4 hours and hung out with the girls, which really means that we do a bunch of stuff like pump, clean baby butts, change diapers, hold bottles, and wash our hands 750 times, and Maddie and Issie just lay there and moan and groan and eat and burp and fart and pee and poop and fart some more....so basically it's the ideal male lifestyle they're experiencing. All they lack are dorm-mates and it'd be like my college experience...which explains why it took me so long to get out now that I think about it.

But I digress...

The girls are now at 36 weeks old, so technically, they aren't even "born" yet according to the doctors and nurses...so what this means is that the normal things you'd expect a newborn to do, well, the girls aren't able to do, and aren't really expected to do...but they are really progressing.

Physically, they are both gaining weight, and have surpassed their birth weight (babies are born and then lose weight, a lot, and then must gain it back obviously). They are both breathing room air, are in a crib together, are regulating their body temperatures on their own, and are both feeding off both a bottle and off mom's nipple. They actually both can take an entire bottle and finish it in around 15 minutes.

The only negative in their outlook is that they are both apneatic, which means that they both have a tendency to stop breathing...but they recover within seconds of stopping breathing. As you can imagine, this is extremely problematic, and is common in premature babies. All the babies in the NICU do this, so we're normal. They do this because their nervous systems are very very premature, and their little Duece brains get wrapped up in eating, pooping, sleeping, etc., and sometimes they get a bit overloaded and forget to breath....and not they they have to remember to breath, as you recall from 8th grade science class breathing is controlled by the involuntary or sympathetic part of the central nervous system...but let's remember....they're technically not "born" yet...and they've got some growing to do.

Like we say in the NICU...it's tough being little.

So....the girls are really doing well for not having been born yet, and Kelli is doing well too! She's back to "skinny-Minnie" mode and weighs about 3 pounds more than what she did before she got pregnant. As soon as her incision heals fully in a few weeks, she'll be back to her fighting form. What a champ!

We've uploaded soooo many pics to the Flickr website. The link is here

The website isn't the best...in that operationally it could be a little easier to use...but I've paid my $20 for unlimited storage...so we're sticking with it (yes, because I'm cheap, and because for $20, I can change my babies' diapers for a day).

Say hello to Isabelle Grace (this was taken Friday when we had our nasal canula in...it is gone now)





...and say hello to Madeline Hope



...aren't they the prettiest little things!

Stay tuned for more information....maybe in a couple of days, after I recover, I will tell you how fun it was to be poo'd on by Madeline, aka, The Poo Fountain!

...all I can say is...thank goodness I had an undershirt on.

AND.....please accept our sincere thanks and gratitude for everything you all have done for us. Please know we have Thank You notes on the way, but the reality is that there aren't enough Thank You cards in the world that can express how wonderful we think you all are, and how much we appreciate everything you've done for us.

THANK YOU for joining us on our little poo-covered journey towards parenthood....what the he** have we gotten ourselves into?!

Thanks for stopping by to hear about our wonderful girls.

Aren't ALL my girls wonderful....