My Mommy Is STILL Long Winded

Pictures first, boring long winded text below..........but cute video to wrap it all up.

I think the girls are so big, but looking at Ellery in her highchair for the first time she looks so tiny!

Ellery in her highchair....looks like a smile, but I think it was crying.

Hi Sister!

Emily

Pssst....Emily are you awake?

On Friday I was an absolute genius and scheduled an eye appointment and a Dr. appointment to have blood drawn on the same day. Not a good idea. The girls have to be held down to have their eyes examined and they do not like, not that I can really blame them. Their eye condition still hasn't improved but it's not any worse. Their Dr. says that she's never seen it progress at this stage in the game, so we most likely won't have to come back for another year. That appointment will be more of a traditional eye exam where they will be able to tell if the girls will need glasses.

Then we went on to the pediatrician's office to have some blood drawn. So two weeks ago the Dr called and left me a message saying something about some high/low levels in the blood tests and that we'd be switching the girls' formula from the preemie kind to regular infant formula. I thought that the original blood test must have shown something that indicated that it was time to change formula. When I mentioned it to the Developmental Ped. on Monday she wasn't sure what I was talking about and said that a blood test wouldn't show anything but went on to talk about poor bone development in preemies. It kind of freaked me out. Luckily I'd be seeing our normal Ped on Friday so I came prepared with lots of questions. It turned out that the follow up blood tests were because of a low level of something in the girls' livers. I guess the original blood test showed that their livers were inflamed, but our Dr who had just completed an exam didn't notice that and knew that the girls were completely healthy. She called the Dr in the NICU who went through our entire chart and she couldn't find anything that would raise any red flags, and then she called a gastro Dr. That person gave our Dr a list of things to test for because while the results were somewhat concerning the fact that there was no other indicators had everyone really confused. I was kind of shocked to know this is what we'd waited two weeks to come in for. After the girls great checkup (Ellery 14 lbs 8 oz with cloths on/Emily 12 lbs 12 oz with clothes and a SUPER wet diaper) we waited to have blood drawn. Because so many tests were to be run they needed a considerable amount of blood. They poked Ellery 5 times and couldn't get a single DROP of blood out, and Emily was poked 4 times and only gave a little. The girls were so MAD I had a hard time watching. Normally this kind of thing doesn't bother me after the things I saw being done to tiny babies in the NICU, but in another genius move had told Andy I could handle this appointment on my own, it sure would have been nice to have both of us. I could also tell that the plebot...?? (blood sucker...that's how she referred to herself) was getting stressed. When the professionals are stressed, that's when I really start to worry. They started talking about drawing blood from the girls veins in their heads and I finally told them to stop until I could talk to the Dr. When our Dr found out how many times they had poked the girls she luckily said that for now she only wanted to retest for the liver levels and we'd figure the rest out later if the results were still odd. So two more pokes for the girls in their heals, but luckily they were able to get a tiny amount of blood. They basically provided the bare minimum for the tests to be run. Our Dr called that night to say that the retest showed normal levels so we were all relived. The normal test should have been around 35 and both girls were 135 the first time around, which is strange that they were both elevated and the same. The retest was back to 35 and 36, so I'm hoping that means we are good for now. I can't believe I thought the follow up blood test was to see how well the formula agreed with the girls. If I had known I'm sure I would have been super stressed and driving myself crazy trying to research. Sometimes I wish there wasn't so much information available out there.

This week we took the girls to their first restaurant and their first chaotic shopping experience at Ikea! I feel like a mom of a newborn getting adjusted to taking the baby(s) out. We've kept the girls trips to a minimum and spent a lot of time at home these last 7 months, I've not really had much experience taking the girls around with me. It's getting a little easier, but I won't be taking on unnecessary trips - that's for sure! I'm already tired of strangers saying "oh you have your hands full". It's not the comment itself, it's the amount of times in one day that I hear it. Or that fact that in my head I'm like "Oh I know"!

Funny Video (Sound Required)

Today Emily sneezed and I said Gesundheit (I would have spelled it Gazoontight!) She laughed so hard, so I kept saying it and she kept laughing. Andy caught it on video. That noise you hear is her sweet but somewhat nerdy laugh. I threw in a "diet coke" and "pizza" to see what reaction I got and she didn't laugh. Gazoontight does it for her.

Side note: A year ago today I found out I was pregnant just as I was about to board a plane to Santa Barbara for 5 glorious days of wine tasting and a wedding. Change of plans!! Little did I know that it was twins or the adventure we were about to begin.