Nursery Progress

When the babies were born back in December, the nursery was...an empty room.  And it stayed that way pretty much until a week or so before Madeleine was discharged, when it finally hit us that the babies would be home soon and we had nowhere to put them.  We bought their cribs the night before she came home (!!), and threw together as much as we could.  We weren't totally unprepared - we did manage to procure bassinets for our bedroom far in advance, and we already had bottles and clothes and all the fundamental necessities - but having some semblance of a nursery prior to the babies' homecoming (even though we knew they wouldn't be sleeping there right away) was so incredibly important to me.  Having missed out on roughly four more months of pregnancy, time I was expecting to spend nesting and preparing for the babies' arrival, I really, really wanted to have something done the way it might have been if I had carried to term.

Of course, we did only have a week in the end to throw it all together, and so while we set up the cribs and a change table, the little details were pushed by the wayside.  But since we had a long weekend coming up this week, and I knew that Matt's mom would be coming up to help us for a day, I figured it was the perfect time to finally attempt to finish things up.

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Trying to build a room for two babies in a teeny, tiny house is a challenge to say the least (in fact, when we bought the house a year ago, we figured there was "just enough room for one baby", which I'm pretty certain was the moment we tempted fate into giving us twins), and having a boy/girl combination also made things a bit tricky, but I'm really happy with the outcome.  It may have been thrown together in record timing, but I think Reid and Maddie finally have a nice little space in which to spend the next few years.

(Before we move.  Because, seriously.)

Follow-Up

When you give birth at twenty-five weeks, you receive a lot of frightening warnings about what might lie ahead.  Developmental delays, complications, surgeries, infections - it all gets thrown out there at one point or another, because the likelihood of something bad happening is uncomfortably high.  But then, probably in an attempt to temper those scary possibilities, they always mention the follow-up clinic.  When babies are born early and small, they are followed long after discharge - until age six - by a great team of people who help those babies meet the developmental milestones that are so important to their growth.  For us as parents, it felt like a bit of a silver lining - yes, all these bad things might be happening, but there are people who will try and help you minimize their effects.  We wouldn't just be waiting to see what the outcome would be, we would be taught how to be proactive about helping our babies.  But at the same time, in many ways, it would be a six-year-long reminder that, while we may be out of the NICU, we are certainly not out of the woods.

Madeleine and Reid had their first follow-up appointment today, with the physiotherapist and neonatologist who followed them (particularly Madeleine) so closely during their hospital stay.  We had heard many times already to expect that there will always be lots to work on - that even if they were doing phenomenally, you would never leave follow-up without homework.  And yet, even though I knew they would find stuff, even though I knew myself what some of those things would be, I couldn't help but feel a little sad when our appointment had finished.

Just before the babies were discharged, I worried about what it would be like to have preemies at home instead of the hospital, where it had started to feel almost like they belonged.  I didn't know how to be a "normal" mother, and in any case, I didn't exactly have "normal" babies to take home.  And then, the twins were discharged.  After a day or two passed, it started to seem so strange to think of them as the same hospitalized prems we had spent months visiting every day.  Everyday they appeared in our eyes to be more and more like every other full-term newborn out there.  I started to forget their actual chronological age (if you ask, I will reflexively tell you that my babies are seven weeks old), started not to notice their misshapen preemie heads, or their general sprawled out floppiness.  They seemed just enough like normal babies - normal, perfect little babies - to forget, just a little, what we had been through for a couple of months before.

Today, I remembered.  Nothing bad was said at follow-up, there were no major issues (in fact, I do think we were told that the babies were doing great), but it was a reminder that there is still a lot to work on.  The past few weeks, we have been such typical new parents - dealing with crying jags and projectile pukes and explosive poops and diaper rashes non-stop eating - that we forgot we also had to deal with atypical parent stuff, like physiotherapy exercises and rounding out heads and shunts and eye contact and lots and lots (and lots!) of tummy time to build up those weak preemie muscles.  We were too busy trying to get Madeleine to smile to notice that she only likes to sleep on the side opposite to her shunt, too preoccupied admiring Reid's head control to realize that it was stemming from his overcompensating back muscles.  Again, not entirely a big deal - they are still completely amazing, thriving babies - but a reminder that they are still a little bit different, that some of the things we will have to think about aren't things that most parents do.

We will go back in two months and hopefully will have incorporated enough of the suggestions we got today to see a bit of a difference.  And then, we will inevitably have a new set of things to work on.  It is difficult to consider that we might never get to a point where being a premature isn't at least a small part of who they are (at least, not while they are still children).  But I also hope that we will be able to maintain our unique parent perspective that, even with their special preemie differences, they are still whole and perfect, with no missing pieces, just as they are.

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="576"] Don't be silly Mom, you know we're awesome.[/caption]

Quiet Time

Now that we have settled a bit more into daily parenting life, the hours between 11pm and 1am have become invaluable to me.  More often than not during this time, the babies have fallen properly asleep, Matt has gone to bed (as he wakes up early for morning baby duty), and I get my first proper chance all day to have some time alone to myself.  Even the dogs are usually asleep at this point, which means the house is almost completely quiet.

With twins, there are very few free moments - everything must happen in between cries and diaper changes and feeds and cuddles.  Overall, this is fine with me - it is what we signed up for when we got pregnant, and what we couldn't wait for when we were in the NICU - but it does get a little bit stressful to feel like you are never quite on top of all of the things that need to be done on a daily basis.  One thing many seasoned parents like to tell you when you have newborns is that you need to let go of the housework and all the other things extraneous to infant care.  This is most definitely a helpful suggestion when you are first home, but eventually you will run out of clean underwear and THAT is a situation that nobody wants to be in.  Even though I now spend the majority of my days completely behind the eight ball in regards to chores and general adult daily life responsibilities (especially given the fact that Matt so generously allows me to sleep in late every morning), this little nighttime window gives me a chance to finally feel in control of something now that my life is mostly ruled by the two tiny humans who will one day call me Mom .

I can tidy up, wash laundry (and actually see it through to the 'putting it away' stage), pre-make bottles to warm up later, draw out meds for the babies in preparation for their next feed, sterilize bottle parts, wipe down the kitchen counters.  I get a chance to restock the supplies in the nursery like diapers and Q-tips and syringes and linens (you can take the girl out of the NICU, but alas, you cannot take the NICU out of the girl).  Sometimes I get to watch a TV show.  Yesterday I read a magazine.  I can catch up on the text messages and Facebook posts that go largely unanswered during the day.  I can make something to eat, and actually eat it while it's still hot.

When my lovely evening window kicks off every night, it is always met with a mixture of relief and excitement.  Finally, things are calm again.  And then I think all of the things that while you are pregnant you hope that you won't think - I hope they don't wake up with poopy diapers, I wish they didn't need to eat so much, oh how I miss the days when I could sleep straight through the night without anyone crying.  In other words, I almost start to miss my old, baby-free life.

But then 1am rolls around, and I know that the babies will each need clean diaper and a bottle if they are to sleep until Matt wakes up at 5 or 6.  I scoop up Madeleine (it is usually always Madeleine), and she is warm and sweet and snuggly, and we have our usual 1am hug in the dark before I grab her bottle.  Sometimes in the buzz of daily chaos, the babies constant cries and demands can seem so overwhelming.  But having that time in the middle of the night gives me a chance to remember that these babies are trusting Matt and I to be there for them, to keep them fed and warm and safe and loved, and that it is a privilege that not everybody who hopes for children is guaranteed.  It is the part that gets you through the crying spells and the exhaustion.  It is my favourite time.