Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Our new life at home

It is so awesome to have these girls at home and start our new life together. We are having a hard time adjusting to life outside the NICU. We never really fully adjusted to the girls not being on a schedule. We only experimented with that for the last 24 hours that we were there. So now we're home and we feel like we have to feed them every 3 hours, regardless of the cues our girls are giving us.

Our pediatrician reminded us yesterday that the NICU has its own beat. You live by the beat when in you're in the NICU. Everything is on a schedule and you don't mess with the schedule.

Life outside of the NICU isn't as black and white. You live by the rules that the girls lay down. When they're hungry, you feed them. You feed them until they're full, not some predetermined amount. You don't need to take their temperature every 12 hours...only when they're showing signs that they may be too cold or have a fever.

Simple rules to parents who have never experienced the NICU but it's very foreign to us. .....but we're adjusting.

So, how have these first couple of days been? Best days of my life. These girls are so much fun. It is SO INCREDIBLE to be able to sit in my chair, in my living room, and listen to my music while I bond with my girls. And we are bonding.

This is my favorite time. I put whoever I'm feeding on the pillow on my lap and we talk and do some exercises. There's lots of eye contact and taking me in. It's incredible.

Then there's tummy time. Tummy time is always supervised but is critical in the girls' developing muscles. They have worked very hard at it. Yesterday, Alyssa had her head to one side and Lisa was able to get her to follow a stuffed animal all the way over the other side. Amazing that little girls that are still 2 and a half weeks away from their due date are taking from bottles and lifting their heads up already.

A quick video of the first tummy time.

I don't know what time I started posting. It should say on the blog but it is now 2:15am and time for bed. I'm sure the girls will be up in another couple of hours so I better hit the hay. I already have some more pictures for tomorrow so I'll be back with more then. G'night moon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Soooooooooooooo cute!!!!! I can't WAIT to get there...makes me want to hop on a plane RIGHT now!

Love to you all!
Amy

Kara said...

I love the tummy time picture and video...how precious. Thank you for keeping us updated!!