Day 40

   One year ago today, 11/12/13, we brought Taylor home from the NICU. She was 6 weeks early, at the time I thought that was the scariest time of my life. Little did I know, less than a year later things would be so much worse. There is a huge difference between a late term preemie 6 weeks early and a micro preemie, or 2 in our case, 16 weeks early. Taylor spent 14 days in NICU, she was what they call a feeder/grower. Babies born at 34 weeks like her, are just learning how to eat. Mabry & Alex are now on day 40. They have to learn virtually everything, including how to breathe. They won't even attempt to bottle feed them until about 32-33 weeks. Today I would be 30 weeks pregnant. So for now they are fed my pumped breastmilk through a feeding tube that goes in their mouth down to their stomach. Breastmilk is the only thing, that I can do to help them right now. I have been diligent on pumping every 3 hours, day & night, and we have quite the supply frozen now. In fact, I'm going to need to borrow some freezer space from family soon.

    Taylor's early arrival, in someways, did prepare me for this. Because my water broke with Taylor, I was terrified that was going to happen again. I found a vitamin regimen that was supposed to help strengthen the amniotic sacks.  It turned out Mabry's sack was all that was keeping her in when I went to the hospital that evening. Also Taylor was slightly low birth weight for her gestation. I was also scared of this, especially since it was twins. I followed the advice to gain 24 pounds by 24 weeks, as well as eating a high protein diet. Alex & Mabry were of good size for twins of their gestation which helps give them a fighting chance of survival. The NICU, in general, isn't as scary the second time around. I have read so much about preemies of all gestations over the last year, I already knew what we were going to be faced with and how difficult it would be.