Checkout, scale, and a thought about luck...

Hey all,

First off... THANK YOU!

Thanks to everyone for all that they've done for us so far!

From the replies to the email, the notes of congratulations, the flowers, food, and thoughtful gifts... it's overwhelming the amount of wonderful loving support you've all offered and continued to offer us.

What a fabulous family and group of friends we share!


Checkout

Melissa has checked out of the hospital.  The doctors have been by and gave Mom the big "Thumbs up!"

She's back to hogging the bed at home after 2 weeks of hospital sheets.

She'll still be spending a lot of time here over the next few months as she'll be hanging out in the NICU with the babies, monitoring their progress, feeding, and cuddling them.

They've got a great setup in our NICU room, with a nice couch, recliner, and free WiFi!  Also, they provide the parents of NICU babies cafeteria cards which allow us breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Scale

Well we were on a rollercoaster while we were on bedrest.

Little did we know that we were on a tiny little one - the size of the old Boyles Joyland rollercoaster in Topeka.

Seems daunting when you're 4!

Little did we know that we'd be graduating up to Kansas City's World's of Fun once we moved to the NICU

A bit wilder ride!

I'd like to share some advice we received from a very helpful NICU nurse...  "We hope for normal here. Steady is good.  If it's good or bad, there are overcorrections.  We hope for normal.  Normal is the best."

As our little ones begin to grow and develop outside of Mom, there will be some hurdles and some scares and lots of varying degrees of support that they'll need from medicines and machines.  The ultimate goal is to have them free from support altogether.  Getting there is the rough road.

The process of weaning them from support will take some time and often will follow the pattern of "one step forward, two steps back."

It's not going to be uncommon for us to have great days and setbacks and days of worry and days of joy.

All along though, Melissa and I are very comfortable that Caroline and Logan are receiving the very best care that they could get from a fantastic group of doctors, nurses, and technicians.


Lucky


As I rode up to the NICU the other day, I chatted with another father taking the same trip.  Both our wives were recovering on the "Mother-Baby" unit as our children were up in the NICU unit.

He shared with me that his wife didn't like a particular route to the NICU from their room because it took them by the nursery and she was reminded about all the other "lucky" mothers who didn't have their children in the NICU.

I didn't say much to him at the time, other than a "I hear ya." dismissal... but his words stuck with me a little bit and gave me cause to think.

As I stood looking over the Isolette which held my daughter, on a ventilator, with a feeding tube and hooked into a set of wires that monitor everything from her heart rate, her blood pressure, and her oxygen level, it struck me.  We're the lucky ones.

We're the ones who are blessed to have a place where our kids are given the best chance to survive.

We're the ones who get to meet the incredible people who care for our children, guiding them through this early development and on to healthy full lives.

We are the ones whose family and friends have already given us such an incredible amount of support and who have included us and our children in their thoughts and prayers.

Then again, maybe he's right... they are lucky.

We're blessed.

All of our very best to you and your families!

Michael, Melissa, Caroline & Logan