So for those wondering what Victor has had to endure over the last few months I documented his final bag change. He has to go through this every three days or anytime the bag leaks. We've been lucky that most of the bags have survived the three days, but we've also had some very inopportune moments where we had to drop everything and change the bag. This little man is so very patient!
Waiting for all the supplies to be lined up...
Ready to go
Remove old bag with adhesive remover
Clean off skin OUCH!
The bath...
I like this part!
Burrito baby, all dried off!
A protective powder
is applied to the really raw spots.
A plastic skin barrier is applied.
More powder
Hold the new bag on with a heat pack for a minute
Tape around the edges
All Done! (Finally)
The next 24 hours will be very long, but Victor will feel so much better when he can move around without the bag and hopefully he'll grow more quickly, too since he'll be able to completely utilize his intestines to absorb nutrients. Wish us luck and send us healing thoughts! We'll be at the hospital by 7:30 and he'll be in surgery around 9am. Recovery can range from 3-10 days inpatient so I'll keep everyone updated as we continue our journey...
As most of you know, our sweet Victor wasn't quite done with his hospital stays when he came home in February. The surgery that he had when he was 9 days old would need to be reversed at some point. Well, some point is here and in the end it will be very, very good to have this behind us as it is the end of the road for our boys remaining preemie-isms and when we are done we shouldn't have any reason to see the inside of a hospital (until they start climbing trees and jumping off monkey bars). Today he completed the 2nd of his pre-op appointments so that we can relax for the weekend and gear up for what will most likely be a very long week. He is already such a strong little man and even through what seemed like an eternal blood draw he just held on tight and looked at me after the initial prick and barely shed a tear (can't say the same for mama, but you know how that goes). The picture above just breaks my heart. After the blood draws he held his hand like that with that "how could you let them do that mama" expression on his face for a good 5 or 10 minutes. I wish I could have told him that there weren't any more owwies like that in his future, but something tells me next week will bring more than we wish for, but when it is all said and done, Victor will be ostomy bag free and we will hopefully get to walk away from Children's for a very, very long time! I'll try to keep the blog up to date next week with his progress and as always we are so very grateful for all the good thoughts, prayers, intentions or whatever your beliefs might offer to bring our Victor a safe and quick recovery.
Last mother's day, I thought I had the best gift ever. I had this:
We had waited a long time for those lines and I thought just the thought that I would get to be a mother was the best gift ever. Last year on mother's day I hadn't even seen this:
I had no idea there were going to be three beating hearts in there, I was just so thankful there was one. Last mother's day I didn't have this:
and thankfully, I've been able to lose most of it...Most importantly, last mother's day I hadn't held this
or this
or this
and I hadn't heard this
or this
or this
Our journey to this mother's day hasn't been easy, but because of that each day I know that the greatest gift is to be a mother at all. I grow more in love with my little men each day and have a new center for my universe, but even as I celebrate the gift of being mom, a piece of my heart will always go out to the moms in waiting that don't know if they will ever get that chance. To all of the moms in waiting, your little loves will come to you in their own way and in their own time and you will know that they chose the perfect moment and the perfect path to being yours. The waiting felt like an eternity, but two little pink lines melted it all away and made it all worth it and whether your journey starts with two lines or a referral phone call, the day the waiting turns to preparing is an amazing day so yes, that silly test is the best gift I've ever received, because it meant I got to prepare for this:
and this
and this
and this
and this
and this
and this
and for all the snuggles, kisses, hugs, and adventures ahead!
Happy mother's day to all the moms, moms to be and moms in waiting!
Many people have said the first year with multiples is about survival, and, yes there have been a couple of days like that, but I'm pretty determined that this first year is going to be about enjoying my boys and our adventures, too. So far, I think we are doing pretty well. Of course, we've been blessed with good sleepers which I'm guessing makes all the difference. All three of the boys have been sleeping through the night for the last 3ish weeks and before that they've only really had one wake up for a couple of months. We have a rough night here and there, but the vast majority of time the boys go down at around 8:30 and we don't hear a peep until 6 and often then I have to wake them up to feed them before work. So I would say, with it half way behind us, we are more than surviving our first year and can't believe how fast it's going! Happy 6 months boys, we LOVE you sooo much.
This week, we had our 6 month visit and the boys are all doing really well. Victor is still our little bug weighing in at 10 lbs 14 oz, still growing just not quite as fast as his brothers who both weighed 12 lbs 2 oz today. They got their 6 months vaccines and are such little troopers, I think they handle the trauma better than mom. The doctor gave us the ok to stop fortifying my breast milk to make it higher calorie for both Oscar and Mylo and all three boys get to start eating solids! This is great news since I've been able to keep up with them breastfeeding so far and have been really happy that I've made it this far, but the freezer stash that we had built up when they were really little is starting to dwindle and I was hoping to keep going for a year since that will help them stave off illness and given what I get exposed to everyday through school I feel so much better if I'm giving them that little barrier. With solid food, their volumes should level off a bit so I can continue to keep up!
We also met with the Birth to 3 teachers from our district so that we can begin services for the boys to make sure they are able to keep up with their friends who weren't preemies. They all qualify for these services because of their low birth weights, but based on their testing, only Victor would qualify for this based on testing alone! More great news as this means our boys are not delayed when you take into account their adjusted age. We are well aware that they are higher risk for developmental and motor delays so we are excited to continue working with our friends from the birth to three program to be certain that if anything comes up we identify it early so we can continue to give the boys all the advantages they deserve. As a teacher in the community I live in, it's been fun seeing our district from a parent perspective and I'm enjoying looking at education from a whole new point of view!
Here at home the boys are more and more fun by the minute, which makes going to work each morning harder and harder. We're very lucky that Grandma Pat (my mom) is able to stay with us so that we have her amazing child care experience and loving arms caring for the boys while we're at work, but it's still very hard for me to walk out the door each day. The boys are all laughing and smiling and are having a lot of fun playing with toys and checking out the world around them. They are paying more attention to each other which is fun when they are studying each other during play time and a challenge when they are trying to get rid of the other one when I'm tandem feeding them. We also had our first big family outing to Grandma Monica and Grandpa Norm's for Easter at Aunt Margaret's so the adventures are just beginning!
Mylo's laugh is a full on giggle and today he just couldn't hold back when watching Jovian play fetch, of course every time I got the camera out he got serious and studied the camera instead so I finally got his giggle on camera a little later, but the video doesn't do justice to the rolls of laughter that we had earlier!
All the boys like their baths (well Oscar and Victor like it, Mylo tolerates which is a step in the right direction) and Oscar breaks out his frog legs and kicks like crazy.
Our first food was squash from Grandpa and Grandma's garden and it was pretty yummy. Oscar still isn't sure about it, Mylo wanted nothing to do with it the first day, but then went to town the second and Victor took to it right from the start! None of them are eating much yet, but it sure is fun to watch their silly faces and I can't wait to see them getting new tastes as time goes on!
So you can see we are growing up fast and mommy and daddy can barely keep up, but we are enjoying (almost) every minute of it!
Time has surely flown and I can't believe I have 5 month old babies. We're having a blast as they grow and interact more and more each day! It's fun to hear them jabber away even if their most common word is "Ahgoo". I love the sound of all of their voices and we are lucky enough to have very happy babies all around. Don't get me wrong, they let us know when they are ready to eat or tired and ready for bed, but for the most part they enjoy smiling and talking and playing when they aren't sleeping. Here are my sweet 5 month old boys:
Oscar is our man on the move (if you remember back to our isolette days, this is nothing new). He will squirm and wiggle from morning until night and when you're ready to put him down for a nap he likes to squirm while rocking and after a bit of squirming and rocking he has this very resigned sigh that says "I suppose I have to sleep now, fine" and then the eyes finally get glassy and out he goes. He's full of smiles especially when he's wailed bloody murder to get you to come in and check on him during nap or night time and then the minute you head to pick him up out of his crib--GIANT smile (you know, the "I got you" smile). Oscar's blue eyes will capture your heart a thousand times over.
Mylo is our chunky monkey and rarely will he be the last to eat and when he's done he loves to play! Mylo is a HUGE fan of the playmat and loves batting at the hanging toys, his arms just go and go and go! When he's not hungry, Mylo is pretty mellow and just likes to lay and play. Mylo has a great smile complete with a perfect dimple on his right cheek, it used to be a rare treat to catch that smile, but he shares it freely now and it's so fun to watch. He also loves to tell stories. Mylo's super cheeks continue to win my heart and reassure me when I'm worried whether they are getting enough to eat!
Victor is our most patient little man and still loves to just sit back and observe the world around. He is getting more and more vocal by the minute though and I believe that every noise that comes out of his mouth is a carefully chosen word full of meaning. Even his cries sound like words, complaining words, but words nonetheless. That said, those cries aren't very common and his smiles are whole body smiles. Today, I was reading a story that I read to him every day we were in the hospital. It had been a while and I didn't look down at him until a couple of pages in and he was just beaming, I guess he missed hearing that familiar story because he certainly enjoyed it today! There's no way you can miss a Victor smile because it beams with every muscle in his body.
