Ahh.... Home Sweet Home

It feels so good to be home! I missed my doggies. I missed my mom. The quiet of my home. The comfort of knowing everything in our house is germ free. There are no strangers wandering around sick. No nurses to take vitals every four hours or cleaning staff changing trash bags at 2am. No doctors that like to come in, turn on all the lights, talk loudly, poke babies and run. And there is internet that is available any time I want. Oh! And my poor DVR is bursting at the seams with all the shows I need to catch up on. And I can't even express how excited I am that I will be taking a shower in my own bathroom and sleeping in my own real bed, instead of a cold water-pick like shower and a narrow plastic covered bench or fold out chair.

I am happy to be home, but I don't know if I can say the boys felt the same way. Three weeks in the hospital is a long enough time for their little goldfish-like memories to have forgotten home. It's all new territory all over again. And their stranger anxiety was in high gear even though they normally love and gravitate to their Granny Cathy. Nothing would console them for hours but being held by Mom and Dad. They are finally sleeping thank god, laying down flat in their own cribs for the very first time. It took almost two hours to get them to finally sleep but they wake up on spastic furious angry screaming fits until we pop a paci in their mouths.

I'm trying to wrap my head around their medicine and sleep schedules. The GI wants us to try to feed them one ounce of Good Start a day to keep them remembering how to take a bottle. And she wants us to try giving them a tablespoon of watered down puree foods, though staying away from anything or quantities that might give them diarrhea like fruits. She is hoping that we will transition from 24/7 continuous pump feeds to feeding on the pump over night and eating by mouth either by bottle or purees three meals a day. But having them on 24/7 continuous pump is surreal because now I don't now what I'm supposed to do with all this extra time that I'm not trying to coerce two babies into eating with sever reflux. I guess we'll have time to make a few more laps around the playroom toys.

Also, because of our hospital being such the proactive and well coordinated bunch, they have not given the boys their RSV shot for the month of February. This worked out in our favor because our pediatrician spoke with the representatives at Synagis about the reactions they had to the last three shots and the company officially said not to give them the shots any more because it is likely their allergic reactions will get progressively worse each time they're given the shot. This is fine with me, but now we will need to be even more anal about germs and going out in public.

Here are some pics of the boys during our stay along with a great video of Daddy making them laugh so hard they peed themselves.

Cameron & Evan with their NG tubes (these are the tubes that go to their stomach which did not work for them at all).














How do you entertain two babies attached to feeding tubes and IV's??












Evan's OT says he has a hyper-extendable thumb joint which if not corrected could do damage to the tendon. Basically he's super double jointed in one thumb, moderately double jointed in the other. This did not stop him from breaking in his new thumb brace with some good old fashioned slobbering.







Cameron is already living up to his fathers expectations of being a professional video gamer!







Cameron chillin' in the playroom at the hospital.






The boys are showing the doctors how it really should be done.






Evan post GJ tube surgery.







Dueling GJ tubes.






First attempt at escape:



Interactive babies are very grabby at EVERYTHING!


This is how we celebrate going home!



My husband and I would like to thank everyone of you for your support and encouragement, even though we may have decided to do things differently. We hemmed and hawed, we argued and debated, we cried and agonized over what would be best for the boys. We stretched and grew the foundation of our marriage and our love for each other and our boys. Every one has been so wonderful to us and it just blows our minds every day at how amazing it is that we have all of you, lots and lots of people many of whom we have never met, cheering us on and loving our boys from afar. We can't even begin to properly express our gratitude for all of your love and support through this difficult and very scary time.