I had to take some pics for our babies' first half-birthday. As you can see, little brother (by two minutes) is quite a bit bigger than his sister. Here they are with their second-oldest brother who is 18 months old. We have three kids under 2 plus a 12 year old. Nice and busy at our house lately!
That's it. Just took the test.
I've been on the mini pill. Took it religiously, never missed a dose, I have an alarm for it and have never missed it. Sometimes the mini pill makes your period go away so I thought maybe that's what was happening but just had a bit of nausea so on a whim decided to test this afternoon. And it said pregnant.
I just had twins, born at 29 weeks, we went through 64 days in the NICU. They are developmentally at about 2 months old, they just started smiling and cooing finally. Like my daughter is 10 lbs right now, they are literally newborns basically. And my son has a surgery and they both have doctors appointments and so on.
So yeah, I haven't done the math yet. My middle son is was 12 months old when the twins were born. Does this mean we will have 4 under 2? I havent done the math but he is 16 months now and I may be 6 weeks along about. We also have a preteen. I feel it's so unfair to him. I was going to have a break, recover from my emergency C-section, lose more weight and get healthier before considering another pregnancy. Ugh well, has this happened to anyone else?
I'm not looking for medical advice, just looking to see what other parents have experienced if they were in a similar situation.
My little guy was born at 29 weeks along with his sister. They are 4 months actual now and it seems he needs surgery to repair an inguinal hernia. I just wanted to know if anyone had any experience with their baby having this surgery. Mostly wondering if general anesthesia was used vs epidural and what that looked like for your little one. Did they have to go on any respiratory therapy? Did they stay overnight for observation?
We have already had to wait 2 weeks from diagnosis to being able to call the surgeon to schedule due to our insurance at first denying the referral for the surgeon. I am so nervous every time he cries because it swells up a bit when he gets upset. I am always looking for signs of incarceration. So mostly I am eager to get it done already. In a few hours I will be able to call to schedule it. But I'm also really nervous for the surgery itself. I don't want to spend time in a NICU type situation again with him, even for one night, but I feel like that is probably what is going to happen.
Anyway, thanks for any experiences you can share. Kind of looking for reassurance mostly.
Married for 13 years, together for a few years longer than that. Still crazy about each other! ❤️
My MIL has been staying with us to watch our older kids while we go to the NICU for our twins born at 29+2 (now they are 36+2). Anyway we are really grateful and she mentioned feeling stir crazy so I thought she could go to the NICU today to visit our twin who is still there with my husband instead of me just this one day, and I would stay with our one twin who was released a week ago (yay) and our two older kids at home. This would also give our son (twin B) a break from being in the car for over an hour every day since he was released because we keep taking him with us when we visit his sister (twin A) as we don't trust anyone else to take care of him and the NICU provides a bassinet for him still.
Our girl is close to finally getting out after 50 days there, but she keeps bradying during feeds mostly so they had to put her NG tube back in and so we are waiting a bit more for her. She bradies a few times a day, sometimes needing stim every other day or so, so we don't know when she will be home but not yet. Just needs to mature more, really.
So anyway, my MIL goes there with my husband and the nurses let her hold our girl. But she held her kind of weirdly I guess and our girl kept bradying. First the nurse came in and tried to correct the way she was holding, then the respiratory therapist, then the neonatologist came in and they are all saying to her, "hold her in a more neutral position, okay? Neutral!" And my MIL was apparently a little overwhelmed. This was all right before a feed, my husband had done her cares and they were waiting for the milk to warm up while this was happening. Meanwhile though she is kind of a clueless person, super distracted in her own head and doesn't really know how to read people or understand situations. So she apparently didn't understand how extremely serious it was getting, blood oxygen levels were going below 50 apparently(!!) And my husband was trying to help but also deferring to the nurses who were still trying to let my MIL hold her. Ugh apparently she bradied off and on for 19 minutes and by the time it was over the nurse took her back and tried to brush her lips with a bottle and she immediately bradied again so they decided no feeding that time. Like ugh she had been at 50-80 percent of feeds through bottle and now we called the NICU and the night nurse said she is only going to offer the bottle every other feed tonight because of how exhausted our girl is from that terrible afternoon. So no getting off the NG tube anytime soon it seems.
I'm trying not to be mad at my MIL or my husband or myself for suggesting this visit but I can't get over that when I asked her how the hospital was, she said it was a "nice visit". I really want to know if she is actually that clueless or if she just doesn't know what to say. But I don't know what to say to her... Anyway I learned my lesson and apparently it's that no one is allowed to hold my babies. My husband is totally just really upset about the day and he's scared of doing her bath with me tomorrow. I feel so bad I didn't just go and leave MIL here as usual, this day probably wouldn't have been as bad for my girl.
Had my b/g twins at 29+2 back in the very beginning of April. They have been there 41 days.
My husband and I go together, usually a bit before rounds (after our oldest goes off to school). We do cares and each hold a baby for the morning and then leave by 12:30 or so. It's a little schedule and our parents are taking turns staying at our house to provide babysitting for our other kids when we are gone at the NICU. I couldn't possibly do longer, it's usually such a relief to leave the hospital. Sorry if that is a bad thing to admit but there are quite a few days that I'm looking at the clock and waiting for the next care time so I can do that and then go. I love my babies, but I really hate the hospital...
We don't have a babysitter today, so it has to be a short visit because I have a doctor's appointment in the same town the hospital is in and we have to bring our kids with us in the car because we have no babysitter and I am not able to drive yet. And one hour in the car is more than enough for our 1-year-old who hates car rides and scream cries the whole time. So anyway, today my husband is going to deliver the milk and check on the babies while me and the kids stay in the car. My husband is made of hardier stuff than me and can handle short visits better than me. I always think the nurses are going to judge me for not staying longer and I just can't go through that interaction with them. For those who say they don't judge, I don't know... They really seem like they do.. they say stuff like, "aren't you coming back today??" with raised eyebrows and you find anything you say just sounds like an excuse. I also have heard them gossip about other families so...
Anyway, sometimes I definitely feel I am not winning NICU parent of the year. I mean, we are going to take the kids to Costco after my Dr appointment and my husband seeing the babies. It feels so weird to do such a normal family thing while my littlest ones are still in the NICU. I don't feel I can be there all day though, and my other kids deserve some interactions with me also.
I don't have a point to this, I'm not trying to say anything, just dealing with my own insecurities about not seeing them enough this week (missing two days total, though my husband will still go there) and also trying to justify it because I have other kids and responsibilities. Anyway, just putting that out there in the void in case anyone else maybe is dealing with this situation similarly, where you are wondering if maybe you aren't doing enough because you shower every day still, go for walks even, maybe even cook a quick meal and clean up the house, play with the other kids, and still see the babies for a few hours a day. And of course still cry a few times a day and obsess over pictures of them and also pump. Those are my days and I feel like it's enough but sometimes I get insecure reading about all that some parents do, like spending 12+ hours there (though I have yet to see a parent do anything even close to this in real life in our NICU).
My babies are nowhere near leaving the NICU. We have at least over a month to go. They've been there almost 5 weeks already. Today a nurse said to my husband, "did you pick up your prescription formula yet?" He's like... No... (People had explained we will get a prescription for them when they leave but why would we get it now.) She acted like he was dumb basically and was like, "well, we normally like parents to have it by now..." Mind you, this nurse was trying to feed my boy milk by bottle at 32 weeks last week. I had to bring that up to the doctor during rounds and he flipped out. He said to write in big red letters on both of their charts, no bottles until at least 33 weeks, do we want the babies to aspirate? So I don't trust this nurse's judgment. She is older, has come out of retirement, and I just feel she honestly isn't used to babies as small as ours were when they were born and doesn't actually know how to act towards us as parents who are in it for the long haul, she is pretty abrasive and honestly super disrespectful to my husband, almost mocking him for being scared to pick up our 2.5 lb daughter himself, acting like it's because he's a man and not because she is smaller than any human has a right to be. Anyway so that happened earlier today about the prescription and her acting like we are dumb for not going and picking it up when we aren't even taking the babies home for forever.
Then I get a phone call from Delta drugs, never heard of them, they are talking about this freaking formula prescription again. Lady on the phone seems way too aggressive about us having Tricare and not having medicaid. Meanwhile I don't even really know why she is calling me even. And I finally am like, "is this for them while they are in the NICU or later?" And the lady says, "well, aren't they out of the NICU now?" I'm just floored by this, like who is this woman, and "noooooo, not even close????" Like, what.
Some points:
-Is this not something we can take care of closer to when they are leaving?
-Am I dumb to feel down about this for some odd reason?
-Also, the doctor said to me yesterday she wanted to have the babies try to use less of the supplemental nutrition by the time they leave. Plus I am not going to be breastfeeding or pumping when they come home, we will exclusively be formula feeding (ETA I am pumping now so maybe they just assumed I would continue), and the prescription seems to only be for breastfed babies so it doesn't even apply correctly to their situation.
-We've never even spoken with a nutritionist yet.
I somewhat remember a scene where Granny goes up in the mountains and has to cross a precipice of some kind, and sometimes it's like a tiny stream but this time it's very scary because of her mental state. Am I remembering this right? It is Granny, isn't it? What book is this from, please? Google is not being helpful and I thought I would ask those of you who would know for sure.