The Adventures of the Tader Tot's

Friday, February 16, 2007

Welcome, 2 beautiful baby boys

Well after a brief move back up to High Risk and then back to Labor and Delivery, the boys arrived at 5:34 AM on February 15th, 2007. M had a pretty serious bleed and placental abruption early Thursday morning. She was losing what appeared to me a lot of blood. When they hooked up baby monitors, one had dropped to 80 and they began rushing her to the OR for an emergency C section. They made me wait in the hall and I called her mom and my parents and I waited.

At 5:34 Sumner Riley and Jackson Finley arrived to us at the 32 week 4 day mark. If you want the full details, see M’s blog. From my perspective, it was very scary. I heard the Sumner cry first so all I could do was wait until I heard Jack crying. It was the best sound in the world to be able to hear you child cry out. They brought Sumner out to me and he was doing ok, breathing on his own. Jack on the other hand needed CPAP and was getting a little help. They took us all down to the NICU, while M was being fixed up in the OR.

It was frustrating because I would ask the surgeons coming out about my kids or wife and they would say, “Your wife is doing great, don’t know anything about kids. We work on adults.” Then the NICU staff would come out and say, “Your kids are doing great, don’t know anything about your wife. We work on kids.”

Looking back and knowing everyone is doing great, I know I was not the doing the best. I was alone in a hall outside of the OR and felt the most helpless I have ever felt in my life. I couldn’t do anything to help my wife and comfort her. I couldn’t do anything to help my sons. It was cold and I was feeling alone. No one waits with you. No one acknowledges you when they rush past and they blocked the window so you can’t see anything.

But the boys are here and I did not think that it was possible to love my wife more than I already did. You can start to understand the amount of love your own parents have for you. I always saw dads at a baseball game catch a homerun ball or a foul ball and hand it to their kid. I now get it; I will never catch another home run ball. There is nothing I have that I wouldn’t hand over to my sons if they needed it.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Hospitals and M’s down for the duration

So M went back into the hospital on Sunday the 11th at the 32 week mark. She was having more bleeding and they wanted her there to observe her. So she gets admitted and they check her out and we move up to the High risk floor. All is well, small contractions and the babies are doing great. Around 3:30 in the morning, Meghan passes a giant blood clot and then everyone scrambles but again everything turns out fine. They check her out again and she is all closed and the babies are again fine. I make a plan to take Monday off as she is in the hospital and going to be seeing a bunch of doctors.

Around 9:30, they check her again and this time she has dilated and the contractions are increasing. Oh crap I am thinking we are going to be having these kids. More medicine and a room change to labor and delivery, and things start to calm down a little.

The news is that M is going to be in the hospital until the babies are born. Ugg, that is going to be a grind. They advised me that after 2 weeks they will give me a free parking pass…well gee thanks. It was a very busy and stressful couple of days in labor and delivery while M tried to get rest. Too many visitors, we will definitely have to review a lot of things when the tots come. We certainly cannot continue to entertain that many people in that short amount of time with two babies and M needing to rest. Everyone wants to help, but the best help is letting M get her rest and focus on keeping the babies in for a few more weeks. No stress for M is the motto I am working on.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Funny of the day…

Man I completely forgot about the funniest thing that happened Saturday, until I read M’s blog….see the link. (I think it’s the only one I have a link to at this time.) We were leaving the pharmacy and going to babies’ r us to pick up some card thing for M’s shower. She was putting on her coat and commenting on how it wasn’t fitting very well. So she sits down in the car and this sound rang out like she had just ripped her pants…it was the coat. The zipper let loose from the bottom up. It was so bad that I couldn’t even fix it, she had to get out of the car and stand up to get the zipper undone. Man I don’t think I have laughed so hard in my life. M was laughing as well so don’t leave me any nasty comments about laughing at my pregnant wife. I am sure I am safe because no one leaves me notes anyways….

Also, we met with a pediatrician yesterday. We were both just kind of blah about it, not turned off but not really excited about the pick. We are going to look for another Pediatrician to interview so we can see if we get a better feel from anyone else.

Caitlin and Mike brought over a glider that a woman she works with gave to her. It’s a nice glider and M was wishing it was a different color. So we went and got some fabric to cover the chair. It’s looking really sweet; M did an awesome job on the back….all we need to do is the seat and it will look brand new. We had looked at gliders but they were so expensive and this was a great find by Caitlin and Mike.

M also had her school cancelled for Monday because it was supposed to be like -20 below 0 with the wind chill. Either way it saves her from using a day of sick time.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Running Behind

I am running about week behind on updating this blog but I am making more of an effort to do a little each day while I am eating lunch. (I usually don’t go anywhere for lunch and end up working through it. So I have made it a point to get caught up when I can. So here is a week in review to catch us up and then I will try and post a little something each day. Maybe set my calendar to remind me time for the previous days update.

So what has happened, the fridge/freezer decided to stop working efficiently as it should this week. Turns out it was freezing up and we caught it before we lost everything. We did lose some ice cream but M’s no longer allowed to have it so it worked out. Plus we pitched some stuff that we were never going to eat.

M went to the nurse and nutritionist because she’s got Gestational Diabetes. Don’t get me started on the lack of common sense being shed on this whole. Any one should understand that she had the steroid shot for the baby’s lungs, and then the test and on top of that she has two placentas’, she has gestational diabetes. When she questioned why they don’t have adjusted numbers for mother’s carrying twins, well that’s obvious, no one has ever done a study to show that twins get higher numbers. Someone get me an MD and grant, that should be a n easy one to prove. They already have research that shows the placenta blocks the uptake of insulin causing a baby to store it as fat. Well, you would think two placentas would have an increase effect.

So M’s been pricking her finger and testing all the times she is supposed to. I know when she goes back they are going to say that she was way more on top of it than anyone else. Ugg, just annoying sometimes. But at least she is still allowed out for a few hours a day. We saw Borat, which I hadn’t seen and it was funny. Saturday we went to the pharmacy to get her test strips and some lady asked me if they were natural twins. Instead of getting into again or getting a lot of unsolicited advice, I just told, “As far as we know they are natural…” Who cares? Why do people continue to give their opinions why I could care less what they think. I don’t care if it took 12 months for your kid to get on sleeping schedule, I don’t care what diapers you like, I don’t care if you kid shit in a coffee can until he was 18/….I just don’t care.

M and I will make the decisions that are best for our kids, we will probably make a few mistakes upon the way but isn’t that what it’s all about. Now we both know we are not leaving our kids in a locked sealed car on a 100 degree day…but the daily stuff I am sure we will figure without everyone giving us their $.50 worth. I know the saying 10 cents but with inflation and twins the price has gone up. I know everyone means well and wants us to be successful and I appreciate that they love us enough and feel comfortable enough to tell us. On the other hand, I think we need a little freedom to make this work the way we want it to. Ok, so that should get us caught up through Saturday morning…