3 Years

Happy birthday to our sweet, sweet girls! Hailey and Brynn - we love you so much and thank God every day for you!

Birthday/Christmas seems to come so quickly every year and I can hardly believe another year has passed. So, I want to walk down memory lane to remember Christmas Eve 3 years ago.

The girls were born at 12:56 and 12:57 am Christmas Eve morning. The grandpas and grandmas drove up in the middle of the night to see our new little miracles. Jason took them up to see Hailey and Brynn and they all took pictures so I could see the girls. Since the girls were born 9 weeks early, we were very uncertain of our situation and what our life was going to look like - we were just told that we were going to take one day at a time. I finally was stable enough after my c-section that I was ready for transport in a wheel chair to go see my baby girls.

Christmas Eve 2008 was the first time I experienced a glimmer of the type of love that God has for us - his children. I was deeply in love with these two tiny babies of whom I had only heard their sweet cries before they were whisked away. I could not even hold them yet, but I felt overwhelmed with emotion that these were my children and I would put my life down for theirs. I wanted to trade places with them - put me on the table to be poked and prodded and hooked up to machines. I would just sit at their bedsides and pray (and cry) holding their little fingers tight around mine. What an amazing Father in Heaven we have. Little did I know what the next few months would bring but I knew I was on a journey that would change my faith forever.

Things started out well - Hailey and Brynn were pretty healthy, they just needed to grow and gain strength to make it on their own. Christmas day, we got permission to hold the girls. AMAZING. It was quite the production to move the baby, the wires, and arrange all of the blankets to keep their bodies warm against ours. The amazing thing was when they were in my arms listening to my heart beat , their heartbeats and breathing steadied as if to say - all is ok, we are strong mama and we will come home with you. I felt a huge relief as a new mom that I could comfort my babies even though our time together cuddling was very short before they had to go back to their beds.

I was discharged from the hospital on our 5th anniversary, December 27. We drove home in our car without our two babies in the back seat. I cried the whole way home. I ended up sleeping in the girls' room several nights after that. The following Tuesday, December 30, I had finally gone home to sleep in my own bed and try to get some rest. Around 11 PM that night I got a call from the Neonatologist that Hailey was very sick and we needed to come to the hospital. He had an accent and all I really got from the conversation was Hailey was sick, it can be fatal, and we needed to come right away. Not what you want to hear about your baby! So, of course, Jason and I grabbed a few clean clothes and headed back to the hospital. This turned out to be a very long night with test after test and x-ray after x-ray to monitor what was determined to be Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Several meetings with a pediatric surgeon followed and after much prayer, God began to heal Hailey enough to avoid surgery. During our two month stay in the NICU Brynn also had to endure treatment of NEC but hers came mid-January. We knew the drill the 2nd time around and although it didn't make it any easier, we knew what to expect and we had seen a succesful recovery with Hailey. When I went in to labor the day before Christmas Eve, my thoughts ran wild with potential things that could go wrong - were the girls' lungs developed and would their hearts be healthy. Never did I think to consider that their digestive system would be the one that would cause sickness and extend our stay in the hospital beyond my original due date.

After the first couple weeks I started to get in a routine, Jason would drop me off at the hospital at 7 AM and I would hang out with the girls until Jason would come to visit after work. We would spend the late afternoon and evening as a family. Hailey's normal eating routine was 6,9,12,and 3. Brynn would eat at 7, 10, 1, and 4. On my hours "off", I would pump milk for the girls, try to eat something, read/sign the multitude of paperwork, and talk to other parents in the NICU. We would stay for the girls' 9 and 10 PM feedings and then head back home around 11. I would hold each of them for an hour until it was the next girl's turn. During my hour with each girl, we would pray. I had a special recliner and all the nurses knew I was there every day that recliner was my favorite so they would tuck it behind the curtain for me so no one would steal it during the night! I had many hours of prayer in that chair and I literally felt like Jesus was holding me there as I was holding my babies. I did stay in the hospital when the girls were sick or going through treatment because I couldn't stand to let them go through all that without their mama by their side. But, I also knew that I needed rest to stay healthy and keep up with the long days in the hospital so I became at peace with leaving my babies in the loving care of the wonderful nurses we had.

Slowly but surely each girl began to make progress and a day came when we got to post a sheet that was a checklist to "graduate" and be able to come home. Eating was the hardest thing for both girls (understandably since they had several digestive issues) and one of the very important items on our checklist! We did eventually get to go home although many days I thought I was going to live in the hospital until the girls were walking. Thankfully that was not God's plan for us. Hailey was discharged because she passed all of the tests on her checklist. Brynn was discharged a day later - this situation was a little different... I wanted to take both girls home and the NICU was running out of room for all the the tiny patients that needed rooms. I remember the doctor sat us down and asked me - are you comfortable taking your baby home? Yes...I most certainly want to take my baby home - both of my babies - but in my mind I thought - you are the doctor, the expert. You should tell me when my baby is healthy enough to go home! You see, Brynn would eat for me but she would not eat well for the nurses. Since she wouldn't eat well for the nurses, she couldn't get her check mark on her list to pass the feeding test. I said Yes and we got to take Brynn home on March 1. The next few weeks were hard. She wasn't eating well consistently and you had to watch her like a Hawk because she would stop breathing quite regularly when she was eating and it would turn into a quick stimulation drill to get her breathing again and get pink back in her lips/nose/face. One of our nurses called to see how it was going at home and she said to just stick with it and if I was concerned, I could take her to our pediatrician anytime. I had to balance the new mama worries with the preemie baby worries. Not always an easy thing to do.

I feel like that was so long ago but yet the memories are as vivid as if they were yesterday. Funny how time works. Below are a few pictures and now I need to go to sleep because it is Christmas tomorrow!

Our room when the girls were born.

Hailey - this picture was taken when she was over a month old - still not much bigger than an 11 size shoe!

Hailey

Hailey - one of her first onesies.

Brynn in her first onesie.

Brynn - kind of dark but loved to see those eyes!

Brynn - not sure how she feels about the paci at the moment. Kind of in an awkward spot!

Hailey - about 1 year.

Hailey

Brynn

Brynn - about 1 year.

Hailey - almost 2

Hailey

Brynn - almost 2

Brynn

Hailey and Brynn - almost 3! Baking their birthday cakes!

Brynn and Hailey - dressed in their princess dresses after opening gifts at their party!
Hailey and Brynn - we love you and are so proud of who you are and who you are becoming. You are amazing little girls and our family would most definitely not be the same without you!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are rejoicing in the Savior Jesus as tomorrow marks the day that he became flesh to take away the sins of the world. What an amazing act of love!