Catching Up Part 1 - Delivery and Friday

So a lot of you are probably wondering what in the world happened to put all of this into motion. Our little tornado Delia is what happened! She was dead set on coming out first, so she kept inching lower and lower in my belly until she finally broke her water at 1AM on Friday. Things happened very quickly from there. By 1:15 they told me to get everybody to the hospital so I called mom (who was fortunately already in Jackson due to Wednesday's scare) and Ethan who got there very, very quickly! I was being wheeled back by 2 and they were out forty minutes later!

The surgery itself was very fast and simple, from my end at least. I had been worried about having my arms strapped down, but what actually bothered me worse was not being able to move my legs since they were totally numb. Very strange feeling. But anyway, I felt nothing, not even the pressure they always talk about on TV and stuff, and before I knew it they were here! All three cried when they came out, a huge relief since I wasn't sure if their lungs would be strong enough to make a cry. But of course they were immediately taken away to be checked by the NICU team so the visit was quite short.

I was back in my room by 4 AM but was too tired and numb to be able to see the babies until later in the morning. I took a much needed nap while Ethan took my mom and his parents and sister back to see them. He took some video for me so that I would be able to see, which I might try to put up later.

From there we started our NICU roller coaster. The initial assessment was that all babies were doing excellent. Everyone got an IV of some sort, Ben and Delia through their belly button and Michael in his foot, so they can get medicine and food. Everyone was given surfactant, which helps the lungs to expand and work properly, very common in preemies. And everyone needed breathing help to some extent, the boys getting ventilators and Delia getting a CPAP just like the kind snoring adults get. The boys needed some extra oxygen in their incubators, regular room air is 21% and they got something around 30%, but Delia was happy with room air.

She is very much the leader, starting with less ventilation and continuing on from there. She was the first to get her jaundice light, and also the first to be off the CPAP. She downgraded to a nose cannula only on Saturday, and went most of the day without anything on Sunday because she pulled the nose tube out so many times that the doc got tired of putting it back in! We are gonna have our hands full with her.

Ben is the second most serious, I guess you could say. He was the last to get off his ventilator, but he has stayed on a CPAP with extra oxygen the entire time. He needed some blood pressure medicine too, but the doc wasn't concerned about it. Ben is very much like his namesake (Ethan's dad) and already dislikes modern medicine. When anyone comes near him, he immediately starts to whimper because he knows they are going to bother him. We're still working on teaching him that WE aren't the bad guys, just those terrible nurses and doctors!

Michael was doing fine, came off his ventilator and went to a CPAP on Saturday and did fairly well, but he had a small hiccup this morning. He had a "collapsed lung" which really means that his lung got a tiny hole in it and some air got into the chest cavity outside of his lung. They had to re-ventilate him and put in a chest tube to get the air out. This procedure went very well, about two ounces of air was pulled out and the ventilator helped him focus on healing the lung by putting less exertion on his lungs. As of about 7 tonight the ventilator was removed because he was doing so well, and no more air had been sucked out of the chest tube. If he continues for 24 hours with no more air, they will clamp the chest tube and see if he does OK. They don't pull the tube entirely at first, just in case they would have to put it back in.

Michael also had a procedure today to put in a PICC. (I can't for the life of me remember what the acronyms stand for but I'll do my best to share my third grade level understanding of them.) Essentially his foot IV isn't hearty enough to give him the food and hefty meds he could need, and would need to be replaced periodically just as a human's IV is replaced every three days. Believe me, I know, after 20 days in the hospital with an IV port the entire time I understand this rotation thing. You'd think I was a lifelong dope shooter from the way my arms look right now! But I digress. He needed a more permanent kind of IV, which threads from his leg through to a major vessel in his chest, so that they can start to feed him and can avoid sticking him all the darn time. That procedure went very well and the tube, which looks about the size of a single hair I swear, is in place.

Overall, the babies are doing exactly what they should be. Two steps forward and one step back. Nothing that has happened thus far is "bad", it's all very typical for 31 week babies. It seems so strange to say that all this technology and crazy treatment is "normal", but we tried our best to prepare ourselves for most of this to happen. No one has had any infections yet, which is awesome, and all the docs and nurses say they are doing incredible. They share one large room so they are all together, and we can visit as often as we like.

I ought to start a whole other blog about breastfeeding, because I fear a large part of my audience wouldn't appreciate some of the comments I could make due to their graphic nature. But, I'll just say that everything is going well so far. I've needed lots of help from the nurses but am exactly where I should be. Everything I've pumped they are giving to the babies in teeny tiny doses - like drops at a time. Due to my output volume, this is good, but I'm hoping to get ahead of the curve soon so I can start stockpiling. Every day is a new adventure.

Thank you to everyone who has sent us thoughts and prayers, it is so awesome to know there is a little mini cyber world out there who follows everything we do. I think about all of you, even the ones I may not know very well, all the time, and draw from your strength when I have tough moments. Please continue to keep up all your positive energy and prayer for the long road we have ahead of it. There will be curves and bumps, but hopefully no unanticipated road construction that shuts down one lane for twenty miles when there isn't even any equipment parked on it.....