Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: a concept I associate with victims of crimes or veterans of wars, not parents of preemies. But after reading an article in the New York Times, “For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last,” it’s clear that PTSD, and the awareness of its prevalence in parents with experiences with the Neonatal Intensive [...]
A friend of ours was struck with preeclampsia earlier this week. The doctors were able to get her blood pressure down with magnesium sulfate (which I had after delivery for preeclampsia, as well) which bought them enough time to get her two steroid shots to boost the surfactant in her baby girl’s lungs. Her little [...]
Wednesday night’s homecoming for our first preemie twin went off without a hitch. With planning reminiscent of the invasion of Normandy, a major consideration was how best to introduce our Aussie Heeler dog to her new housemate.
The introduction started the day our twins boys were born. Returning home from the hospital, I brought the two [...]
We made it. Feed number three for the evening. Some snap shots from earlier…
“If we come in and find you guys sleeping with the baby in the bed with you, yeah, we pretty much take the kid back” – our nurse giving us an idea of the bottom of the preemie graduation test bell curve.
“Only [...]
Two down, one to go.
One bright side of the NICU has started to emerge. Our preemie twin is like a swiss clock. Sleeping in his crib beside us, we awoke to Luca’s squirms about ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off. We turned on the lights, changed a diaper and got him [...]
“Guess what?” Lisa asked from the other end of the phone call. “When you get home from work tonight, pack your bag, we’re rooming in!”
Like the runner who turns the last corner and spots the finish line, in disbelief from fatigue but with a side helping of euphoria, it was the call I’d waited weeks [...]
One of our doctors in the NICU is someone we particularly enjoy. Brilliant (as they all are in our group of neonatologists,) slightly mercurial, and always ready with a folksy story to impart some nugget of wisdom about parenting.
Over the past four weeks in the NICU, it’s been fascinating watching our relationship with this hospital unit change. Soon after the birth of our twin boys (9 weeks early, planned c-section), I was walking briskly down the hall following a parade of respiratory therapists, a neonatal doctor, nurses and isolettes (with boys inside) to the inner sanctum of our local hopital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU.) The education of this place’s strange customs began immediately- stopped from instinctively following my boys, I was kindly given a lesson in “scrubbing up”- cracking open an iodine brush pack, rolling up my sleeves at the sink, and then scrubbing vigorously for 2 minutes to sanitize myself as much as possible.
Soon after our identical twin boys were born, the enormity of their plight in the NICU as preemies hit me with full force. After one particular evening vigil with the boys, I was up late processing the fact that: 1) my wife and I had two little adorable babies that we loved intensely, and 2) they were in the hospital NICU with tubes and wires attached to them- leaving us feeling completely helpless.
While Lisa sits next to met sending an email to our parents with the daily update on our two little ones, I’m pounding out this, the first post of our new project: Growing Twins, a blog by two new parents of twin boys. The dichotomy of our two writings couldn’t be sweeter.
You Know You Are a Mom of Twins When…
Posted on April 30th, 2010
Snow Day
Posted on December 7th, 2009
A Weekend of Face Plants
Posted on September 6th, 2009
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the NICU
Posted on August 26th, 2009
Get Your Twins Outdoors!
Posted on August 3rd, 2009
Happy 6M Birthday!
Posted on May 29th, 2009
4 Months, Give or Take a Week
Posted on April 13th, 2009
Feeling Like a Mama
Posted on February 8th, 2009
Twin Dreams
Posted on January 20th, 2009
The Cycle Continues: a Letter from Grandpa
Posted on January 18th, 2009
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