We Made it Home

We made it home last night! Yesterday was a very eventful day but we made it home triumphantly!

Here's a semi-quick recap of our stay:

Our hospital stay went very well! Monica got her epidural out Sunday morning and had been up walking to the bathroom and what not since Saturday afternoon. She's so stinking strong! She didn't complain once about being in pain. Several times a day they would come ask what her pain level was on a scale of 1-10 and she'd say 2 or 3. One morning I could tell she was hurting and asked after she said "2-3" if she was sure and she said "Maybe it's a 4." Haha! It stayed a 4 the rest of the stay even when I could tell it was much higher. She's one tough cookie! On top of having a c-section Friday morning she has been breast-feeding two boys ever since. My poor wifey does not get much sleep. Of course I got up and helped every time, but I didn't have to do much besides change diapers and dress babies. Mommy had the hard job.

Saturday little Jeriah, our tiny, little man, had a dusky episode in the nursery overnight. He lost some of his color for a second or two. The pediatrician said his twin boys did the same thing and it was nothing to worry about as long as it's quick and they come back up. Of course it scared the daylights out of us though. Then on Monday night Jace had the same episode but lost a lot of his color and his oxygen saturation was very low. He came back up fast with a couple seconds of blow-by oxygen and was fine the rest of the night and all day yesterday. The pediatrician ordered an upper GI test on him to test for reflux and it came back positive. Jace had several episodes where his stomach contents came almost to his glottis (the "valve" in your throat that keeps stomach stuff going to the stomach and opens when you breathe to let air in your lungs). Our pediatrician (who has twin boys and specializes in multiples) said that is why he stops breathing. His little body knows to keep the glottis closed so his stomach contents don't go into his lungs. However he's not mature enough to know to swallow and override that instinct to take breaths. So he quits breathing until the reflux goes down.

Yesterday we got these results and our pediatrician wrote to start Jace on some reflux medicine 3 times a day and wanted us to put him on an apnea monitor at night. This way if he stops breathing for so many seconds it will alarm and we can prevent anymore bad episodes. He also asked if Monica and I wanted one for Jeriah too for peace of mind. We said yes. :)

There was a problem getting the monitors to the hospital and we had to wait for 4 -5 hours when we finally said we had to leave and they would have to figure something out and bring them to our house. We stopped to get Jace and Monica's medicines on the way home and had a problem getting his medicine due to insurance issues since he was just born and not "officially" on the policy even though we had already called and added both boys. Then as we were leaving our car wouldn't start. Haha! Strike 3 we're out! The boys were due to eat at 6 and it was after 7. They were getting fussy. In the end it all worked out though!

The company had the monitors at our house and ready to go. The pharmacy gave us a small amount of medicine for free to hold us over for a while. A guy in the tire shop at Costco, my father-in-law, my neighbor who's a mechanic, my mom and my sister-in-law helped get Monica and the boys home and our car fixed and running. AND we made it home to signs in the yard and a huge pot of stew on the stove! Life is full of ups and downs. The good always out-weigh the bad. At the end of the day my life was far more full of blessings than bad.

Here's a few more pics of the boys and what we came home to!