a day in the NICU

Tonight my family came up to visit me and the girls...it was AMAZING!! I don't think you realize how much you'll miss your kids until you're away from them. I think that by far the worst part of the NICU stay with the twins has been feeling so torn between being with Hailey and Jackson or being with Maysen and Maelle. (not to mention that I just miss Korey) I know that I need to be up in the NICU with my little m and m's to help them get better at breastfeeding and get closer to being able to come home, but it is hard to be away from the rest of my family.

So, it was a welcome sight to see them coming off of the elevator this evening!

they enjoyed hanging out up here, too- it has a fun toy room and Hailey loved the excuse to sit and watch videos on our laptop! Jackson on the other hand just enjoyed climbing around and exploring the room and making mommy and daddy chase him around to keep him from getting tangled in all the wires! :)

Maysen sucked on her thumb this evening...I guess she wanted to show off since her Daddy was here visiting! :)

we had to start supplementing today...it was a little bit of a sad decision for me, but I do want to do what is best for my girls and I want to do whatever it takes to get them to come home as soon as possible! Plus, on a "fun" note- it gives Korey a chance to feed his baby girls- something he had never gotten a chance to do with either of the other two kids! (here he is burping and feeding Maelle- Maysen's in the background getting burped by the nurse)

doesn't he look like a pro who's done it a million times?? :)

It even gave Hailey a chance to be a part of the action! She absolutely LOVED being able to hold the bottle and bragged on the way down the elevator about how she fed the babies! (she kinda looks like a pro, too, doesn't she??) She's helping Daddy feed Maelle and then the nurse feed Maysen.

In case you're wondering...the nurse willingly filled in for me by feeding Maysen her bottle so that I could get a few snuggles in with my baby Jack! :) I think he missed his mommy and I know that his mommy missed him!!

we're hoping that the girls IV's will be able to come out tomorrow and that their billirubin counts stay the same or get lower so that the blankets can come off soon, too. Other than that they're monitoring them for apnea and or shallow breathing (Maysen had one episode last night where she stopped breathing and needed some stimulation to get her going again), but unless they get significantly worse in that area we shouldn't have to worry about it. I'm tandem nursing the girls, which is super fun and a lot less time consuming, but then we're also giving them a bottle after each feeding and then I'm pumping to try and build up my milk supply and get them some milk to mix in with the formula that they're getting in the bottles- so, we spend a significant amount of our day feeding them, but I'm assuming that's just going to be life with two little eaters around, so I'd better get used to it! :)