Another Surgery

Laying on the table in Pre-op in animal gown.

Mommy & Andrew before surgery

Andrew is VERY hungry but we managed to get him asleep.  

We were waiting in Pre-op for over an hour.

We are now in Recovery just after surgery. 

Andrew has been crying hard but calmed down after being placed in Mommy's arms.

Andrew's surgery today went very well.  For the first time since birth, he is "all natural"- no artificial equipment such as stints, tubes, or wires.  He is a brave little guy and quite a fighter. He is already home and recovering from a not-so-fun day.  The purpose of today's surgery was to remove the stint that was placed in his left uriter during his last surgery.  The stint was to help it heal and keep the uriter open & draining without putting extra pressure on it.  Because of an ultrasound picture done last month the doctor thought she may have to replace it with a larger stint.  

According to surgery instructions Andrew couldn't eat past 3 a.m. and no clear liquids past 7 a.m.  Surgery time was scheduled for 10:30 so by the time they took him for surgery he was very hungry.  But he was also tired so with a lot of love and cuddling from Mommy he was able to sleep through most of the waiting time.  One of the hardest parts is handing Andrew over to the nurse that will be attending to him in surgery and watching her walk away with him, leaving me empty handed.  I hate that part.

Fortunately the surgery didn't take long- about an hour.  The doctor came into the waiting room to take us back to Recovery.  Andrew was just coming out of anesthetia and was crying hard and very upset.  Who wouldn't be after being poked and prodded, not to mention hungry and tired? It was amazing how quickly he calmed down once he was placed in my arms.  The parents of the patient in the next bed over told us it was amazing the difference.  We were happy to learn that Andrew no longer has a stint-- the kidney and uriter are draining well and he won't need to follow up with her for two months!  That is good news. 

Since he returned home Andrew has been sleeping.  When he cries his throat sounds raspy and sore because of incubation, which probably irritated the incision spot where his TEF surgery was done in April.  Poor little guy has been through so much in his short life.

I haven't forgotten we have another baby too.  Aaron was well taken care of by someone in our ward.  A big thank you to Kim and her family for taking excellent care of him.  They have 6 children (one of them born a week after the twins) so another one probably wasn't even noticed! He had a lot of fun being there and watching all the activity going on.  Aaron will probably be bored now at home!

Have you ever had your eye sanitized?  Early this morning-3 am. to be specific- I must have felt the need to do that.  After changing their diapers I was using a hand sanitizer but instead of cleaning my hands it shot DIRECTLY into my open left eye!  OUCH!  It felt like my eyeball was on fire!  I rushed to the bathroom and immediately began flushing it with water for several minutes.  It has been red and puffy all day and feels like several pieces of sand are in my eye. There was no doubt I was wide awake early this morning!  

Smiles and coos

The twins are more fun each day!  As they become more social we learn more about their individual personalities.  For example, Andrew will lie in his crib after waking up and 'talk' to himself for as long as 30 minutes.  Aaron, however, demands immediate attention- most of the time anyway.  They both are very happy, content, and easy going babies.  Sometimes when we attempt to feed them they'd rather smile, coo, and talk to us than bother to eat.  We, of course, can't help but set the bottle aside and have a conversation with them for a few minutes.  What we talk about, I'm not exactly sure, but we love it all the same.  

A few days ago Andrew learned the art of gurgling and he now does it any chance he has.  As we have played with both babies we have discovered some of their ticklish spots-- Aaron is very ticklish on his rib cage and giggles and laughs when we tickle him there.  We are having so much fun with them and we've been told there is so much fun ahead.  We can't wait.

This Thursday (July 31) Andrew has another surgery/procedure on his kidneys that won't be overnight- we hope.  A stint was put in his left uriter when he had his last surgery to keep it open and draining.  The doctor plans to remove it and possibly insert a larger one since it's still not draining as well as we hoped.  Although still enlarged, his right kidney will continue to be watched but not be repaired since the doctor feels it will resolve itself over time.  

We are looking forward to a vacation next month to Lake Tahoe.  My family has a condo on the west side of the lake.  This will be a test to see how Andrew and Aaron (and us!) do on long road trips-- it's a 9 hour drive each way (without kids).  We shall see what our new travel time is.  Some of the things we hope to do is go for the walks, enjoy the much cooler weather, drive/walk to the lake, and just relax.  Of course, we will still be changing diapers, putting them down for naps, and feeding the twins. We're looking forward to a change of scenery and a break from the hot Las Vegas temperatures. 

Andrew's Hick-Up Fit

MORE UPGRADES

With two new babies we have had to upgrade on a lot of things.  For example, I drove a 2006 Altima and Steve had a 2000 Frontier.  Not bad cars for a couple without kids but when you add two newborns into the picture it's a little inconvient.  So we upgraded to a 2008 Toyota Sienna (see May 17 post) and, after some kicking and screaming from Steve, we sold the Nissan Frontier- to my sister.   The next big change was a new camera. We love taking pictures of the twins because they will only be this small once and we want to capture their cute faces and actions before it's too late. (Then again, they'll always be cute!) The camera we've used up to this point isn't bad but it's not a good point and shoot.  If there's a lot of movement (what infant is completely still?) then we'd mostly get blurry pictures.  Our new camera- a Canon EOS- is wonderful and takes much clearer shots.  It's nice to not have to hold the button down for at least 3 seconds before it takes the picture.  Here are some of our favorites using our new toy-

 

AARON trying to hold his head up.  Mostly he just lays there and looks cute.

A week ago ANDREW started putting his hands and fingers in his mouth any chance he had.  At first I thought he was hungry but then Aaron started doing it a couple of days later.  Sometimes they'll put their hands in each others' mouths.

AARON is a good sleeper, especially when he's swaddled tight.

ANDREW loves being kissed and I love giving them.

ANDREW and AARON 

AARON and ANDREW too

3 Months old and growing!

It is hard to believe that today Aaron and Andrew are 3 months!  I took them to the pediatrician for a follow- up and both are growing well.  Here are some of their measurements:

AARON 3 MONTHS BIRTH

Length           23 1/4 "       17 3/4'

Weight       10 lbs 14 oz   4 lbs 10 oz

ANDREW 3 MONTHS BIRTH

Length           23"            18"

Weight        11 lbs 7 oz 5 lbs 6 oz

They are quickly catching up on the growth chart.  Although still in about the 25 percentile they will probably be caught up by about 6 months.  You can see that Aaron is the longer, skinnier one and Andrew is shorter and chubbier (some of that due to his dilated kidneys.)  Speaking of kidneys, he visited the urologist this week for a kidney ultrasound and follow-up.  The left kidney is looking more dilated than the doctor would like it to be.  He's scheduled to have the stint removed on July 31 but depending on the result of a retrogram(?) done that day he may have a larger stint put it.  If that doesn't improve the blockage than he may have to have an implant at the ureter where it dumps into the bladder.  Please note that I use very layman terms when referring to medical terminology.  

Andrew gets to go see yet another doctor too.  Yippe!  He's is making all sorts of friends.  Andrew has plagiocephaly, a fancy name for an abnormal head shape and will have to wear the helmet for a few months.  This most likely has happened because of being in the NICU for 5 weeks and only laying down for so long.  They're supposed to rotate him but I don't think it was all that consistent. He always turns his head to the right side and whenever I try to turn it the other way, it's only seconds before he flips it back to his right side. This has caused the muscles on the right side of his neck to become short and tight.  I've been given exercises to do that can help loosen them but he will NOT like them! It will hurt because it will cause the tight muscles to be stretched.  When she demonstrated for me Andrew became fussy and unhappy.  

As you can see in the pictures, both Aaron and Andrew are smiling-a lot.  We love it and it's made our job a lot more fun.  We fall in love with them more and more each day. 

JUST TOO CUTE!

Above picture- Andrew (L) and Aaron (R)

Thanks to our friend, Sarah Gourdie, we have some great shots of the twins.

Eating can be so tiring!

(Andrew)

Brothers forever:

Aaron (L) and Andrew (R)

Aaron putting on the charm: 

Snug as a bug:

Andrew (L) and Aaron (R) having a party in their crib.  One morning I went to go get them and they were just laying there awake and happy and grinned at me.

Andrew has sort of a bashful smile:

Is that the cutest smile or what?  Ever since they began smiling and responding (about a week ago) Aaron smiles easily.  Sometimes we can't feed him because he just wants to smile!

Andrew loves baths.  Sometimes when he's fussy we've given him a quick one and he calms down.

Tiny feet you'd love to tickle:

Yes, I Can Still Cook!

You'd think after so long not cooking I might have forgotten how. Tonight was the first night I've cooked a REAL meal since Andrew came home from the hospital on May 24. I say REAL because I have warmed up leftovers and made sandwiches but that doesn't require much skill, time, or dirty dishes. Of course, today's meal wasn't all that extravagant- vegetable soup and rolls. No, the rolls were not homemade. But this vegetable soup isn't just any veggie soup. According to Weight Watchers it is 0 points, which translates to "eat as much as you want". I'll be sure to wash it down with some mint chocolate chip ice cream or a chocolate chip cookie. Better yet, why not both?

We certainly haven't starved since he was discharged- we have a very generous ward who care a lot. Three times a week for the month of June people in our ward brought meals for us. It helped A LOT!! Dinnertime is usually when Aaron and Andrew choose to be the most fussy and both are always awake at that time. It takes two (or one very busy person) of us to calm them down and meet their needs. Some night we can barely find the time to eat dinner, let alone fix it. So it has been very helpful for sure. Thank you Alta Vista Ward!! Now I'll see if I'm just being a little too ambitious by attempting to do it all myself.