7 months

On April 10th the girls will be 7 months old and 4.5 months adjusted. Where has the time gone? Lately I sit and look at Lilah. I can't honestly believe how different of a baby she is. I remember for some many months of NICU and 4+ months of that damn feeding tube and all the medications, heart surgery and now I look at my beautiful, spunky little girl and just can't believe how far we have made it. It almost seems like a dream. This coming Monday Lilah will start daycare with Olivia. I feel so blessed that we were financial able to keep her out of daycare for 7 months. My aunt from California is still here watching here. I know it is going to break her heart leaving Lilah. They have an amazing connection now.  I see many face time sessions in our future and maybe a few trips to California when the girls are a little older.

Poor Olivia has been battling a nasty stomach virus for well over a week now. Poor kid has a red rear. We have pumped her full of pedialyte, along with rice cereal and bananas. Finally this morning I think she is turning the corner and improving. Yesterday she puked all over her teacher at daycare. So both of them were in different clothes when I picked her up. 

This weekend we are packing the girls up and taking a quick trip to Arkansas to visit Al's grandfather. He is 95 and absolutely loves the babies. I had a photobook made up for him a few weeks ago from Shutterfly. Al's dad said he looks at it about 5 times a day. So sweet!

House Hunting/Selling.................... it is not going great. 

First of all we will start with listing our home. We signed a contract with the realtor two weeks ago. This was after we went through at least 5 realtors that never showed up to look at our house. It was a struggle to find anyone. We happened to find this woman because she was showing a house that we were interested in. After some conversation, she agreed to list out of her area. Well after looking at our house she had a LONG list of repairs we needed to do before it would even list.: 
New carpet in loft and back room
New paint throughout the house
Decluttering
Rip down guttering outside
Replace wood trim pieces outside 
Repaint the wood on outside of house.
 Our little house:

 
Stage where it looks like we don't own 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 babies

Right now we have everything done except the new carpet laid, and painting outside. New carpet should be installed within the week and she will have her professional photographer come take pics and list it. 
So at every showing of our home we have to take dogs, cats, babies and hide crates, litter boxes etc. Also stage. Because our house is so small and we need everything that is in there right now, before a showing we will have to pull up Al's truck and load all the crap we use on daily basis while house is being shown. I would say she is effing insane for requesting this, but I want to sell and move so badly. ( In case you think think this is as crazy as I do, let me put the cherry on top), our house is only going to be listed for $108,000. That is a hell of a lot of work for such a cheap listing. Agreed??

Now on to House Hunting..................................
It sucks.

We have one small certain area we want to live in and our budget is even smaller. There are certain things we must have.:

1 acre lot for animals
Shop
Storm cellar
fence

The bottom 3 we can add after buying the house, but it would be nice to have it all there. So the houses we are looking at ranges about a total of 10-15 to choose from. Like I said, this house selling/ hunting really sucks

So wish us luck!!

Adjusted Ages and Information

I would love to hear from any of you that had preemies 32 weeks or earlier and how they have developed over time with their adjusted ages.

I tell myself over and over that I can't compare my girls to other babies that are 6 1/2 months old and were full term because there is a huge difference.

Olivia is rolling over and this has been a huge accomplishment in the Rapp household. Our pediatrician said both girls are on track for 3+ months old (which is their adjusted age). They are still So little! Olivia is still under 12 pounds and Lilah is a little over 10 pounds. They are wearing 0-3 months in clothes and in fact, Lilah can still wear newborn. My girls are just little peanuts. I know with Lilah that she has a lot to overcome with her heart surgery and prematurity.

Please share your stories with me and help ease a mom's mind..................................

OH and I do get tired of taking them out in public and people constantly commenting on our " new babies".

Can't help myself

Since 80% of my long time followers are still on this blog, I wanted to share something with you guys:

House on Market

After going through numerous realtors, we found one this weekend and our house should be on the market by end of this week. I won't lie, we have A LOT of work that she wants us to do. With two full time jobs and two babies, that doesn't leave much free time. Thankfully my Aunt S is still visiting from California and taking care of Lilah. We did so much this weekend while the time was there and available. Here is our to do list:

• Rip up and install new carpet in the loft & utility room. We did rip up carpet in utility room this weekend!
• Re-paint utility room and all the door frames. We have Aunt S working on that!
• De-clutter house. We took out 3 truck loads of crap from the attic. De-cluttered the nursery, all closets in the house, utility room, bedroom.
• Replace rotted wood under gutters and re-paint the wood on house. Now this is a BIG task and not really sure how or when this is going to be done. It is an inspection violation though so it has to be done before selling.
• Before showing the house we have to get the cats and any cat affiliated things out of the house. Our realtor let us know that MANY people don't like cats and won't buy a house if cats are there.
• Before showing we also need to take the dogs away. So you got it, during a showing, me, Al, Cerra, Lilah, Olivia, Max, Lillie, Boomer, and Izzy need to disappear. This should definitely be interesting.

She wants a professional photographer to come in and take pictures of our house. She did compliment me on how well I have hide that we are cramped to capacity. She also said that I am a good stager and just gave me a few additional tips on what to do before a showing. People like the smell of vanilla or Cinnamon,  so Al and I are going to put some apples in our crockpot with a touch of vanilla and Cinnamon. 

Another issue we are going to deal with is a contingency on buying a home. It has to be contingent on selling our home. So it seems like many things will need to fall into place if we are going to sell our home and buy a new home. Oh did I mention we are on a very strict budget. It seems that sending two babies to daycare cost more than sending them to college....


Oh and a quick update on girls. They just turned 6 months old! Of course with their prematurity, they are developmentally behind a 6 month old that was full term, but their pediatrician is very happy with how they are progressing. Hoping one day they will actually be on the full term chart at doctors office. I am going to throw a huge party that day!

If you want to see picture of the girls, you need to go to my wordpress blog and enter your password.

Update

As you know I switched over to Wordpress and many of you haven't been able to follow me over. I wanted to update on the girls. Although I won't be sharing any pictures of them on this blog.

Lilah had her open heart surgery on January 27th. There were some complications and she lost a lot of blood. They also found another smaller hole in her heart, repaired a valve that narrowed and repaired the membrane around her heart. She was on the vent for 7 long days. After coming off the vent, she started going through withdrawals because of the amount of medications used to keep her sedated. She ended up in the hospital for two weeks, but everything was repaired! Initially we thought she would come home and be able to drink bottles. Since they had to send her home on methadone and she was on it for several weeks, she wasn't able to drink bottles and stayed on her tube. We were a little disappointed at first, but then a few weeks ago she came off the methadone and started drinking 100% of her bottles. She is now drinking almost 3 ounces per feeding! She went from being on over 8 medications daily to 1 heart medication. She is growing! My baby girl is up to almost 10lbs now. I can sit here and tell you how hard this journey has been, but there aren't words to truly explain unless you have been through it. I can honestly say I am so happy this is all over with. I hope I never have to watch my baby go through open heart surgery again in her life time. But the most important thing of all is we have our daughter. 

Olivia is doing fantastic. She is almost sleeping throughout the night and is such a charming baby. She is always smiling and loves to talk. Right now she is almost rolling over ( so close). She loves daycare and all the teachers love her so much. They tell me she is the smallest baby in the class and they just want to hold and cuddle her all day long ( which is okay with me). She goes shopping with her daddy every weekend. He packs her up and off they go. It is so cute seeing Al with her. And it is a special time for them. He told me the other day, now that Lilah is healed and off restrictions, he is so excited to take her with him also. 

Speaking of Al. He seems to amaze me each and every day with our girls. I always knew he would be a good dad, but never in my wildest dreams did I know it would be like this. He loves them so much. He changes diapers, he feeds in the middle of the night, he watches the girls so I can nap on days I am exhausted. He stayed home with Lilah for six weeks after her surgery and managed to still cook, clean and keep our daughter healthy. I am not sure what I did to deserve him, but I will definitely keep him. If I had a better paying job, we could let him stay home with the girls ( maybe one day it will happen).

We are also in the process of listing our house and finding a new home. I was so scared at first because I didn't want us to go into debt. After many months of budgeting and looking over things, we figure we could make this work. We can't go out and buy our dream home, but we can afford a bigger place with a few acres to raise the girls until they get older and then build our dream home on the property. I am really excited about this! We have three houses to look at this weekend. Hopefully we will be moving when Cierra graduates in May.

Cierra finally got her drivers license a few days ago. This has been a huge relief, because Al and I have been driving her back and forth to work for almost two years now. We are tired. She is graduating in May. I can't believe she is all grown up. I can't wait to see what she chooses to do with her life as an adult. Starting college would be the first step. And I have to say that Cierra is an amazing big sister. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine she would be so in love with her baby sisters. It truly makes my heart swell.

Before I go, I don't want to make it sound like our life is some dream world, because it's not, we do have our issues with the babies and life in general. That is such a small part though, it doesn't compare to everything in our life that is so blessed and we are blessed beyond measure. All my years of infertility, all the losses, everything, it was worth it to be where I am at right now. All. Worth. It.

Wordpress

I made the change to wordpress yesterday and many of you have contacted me for links to my new blog. I also heard from a few of you that you weren't able to see my blog. Unfortunately you will need to set up a wordpress account or you won't be able to follow me. Although this is a pain in the butt and I will lose many followers, I am keeping my blog this way.

I do want to let you know that I set up a private NICU facebook group for the girls when they were born and I still update on there about how they are doing etc. If you are unable to follow my new blog and want to keep up with the girls, please send a request to me. There page is Lilah and Olivia Rapp NICU 2014.

I am excited about starting this year new with my girls, letting go of bad things in my life and just moving forward. Once we get past this surgery, I hope that all the health scares are over for a VERY.LONG.TIME.

Thanks to everyone who had helped support me through so many years of infertility and then a difficult pregnancy and now getting Lilah's heart fixed. It has meant so much to me. You all have meant so much to me. I will continue to keep this blog to follow everyone so I don't have to move that over to my new one. So I will definitely keep up with you beautiful ladies!

Back to work and Four Months

. I am not sure where the past nine weeks have gone. I now know what if feels like to be a stay at home mom and even more, one of twins. I never thought that stay at home moms ever had a easy job, but I also didn't know how hard it was either. There were some days that I was ready to be back at work do to all the stress. Some days I wanted to be home with my girls forever. Luckily I was able to work out a good schedule during the day and was able to keep the house clean and chores done. Thankfully Al still does all the cooking and grocery shopping. He also takes Olivia grocery shopping with him every Sunday and that is a huge break only having one baby. Things are so much easier with only one baby after you're used to juggling two. 

So I have prepared everything for going back to work on Monday. We are still keeping Olivia home one more week before she starts daycare ( that will be another post). This week my sister is staying at our house three days and Al is staying home two days. Next week his mom is coming to stay with us for two weeks and watching Lilah. We heard from cardiology yesterday and Lilah was approved for surgery. We are now waiting for the surgeon to call and schedule. So she will have her heart surgery within the next four weeks. After much consideration and discussions, Al and I decided we only want one of us home taken care of her after surgery. We thought Al could take long term disability and get a partial paycheck, but it only works that way for him, not any other members of the family. Luckily we have been saving for something like this. He will be able to stay home with Lilah for 5 weeks after surgery. We also have my aunt flying in from California to help where needed. This will come in handy while Lilah is in the hospital for sure. So I think we have everything in place.

Today the girls are four months old. Yesterday we had Lilah weighed and the RN was able to get a hold of a preemie growth chart. Her weight put her at 5th percentile and height at 25th. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but she can do it. All the doctors constantly tell us how impressed they are with Lilah. According to the cardiologist, her hole is so big that she shouldn't even have the energy to drink her bottles. They have also found another issue with her heart, but the surgeons will confident it will be fixed when they are repairing her VSD.

I will leave you with a pic of my beautiful girls at four months: 

Wish me luck returning to workforce on Monday. 

Judgement

Judgement doesn't stop after infertility. I am not sure why I thought it would and especially in the new world of social media. I am guilty of it. But seriously why does it have to be this way?

What's wrong with other mothers raising their babies differently than the way you do? Is your way the only right way? I've ended up leaving my Facebook groups for this reason and I still see it on my private Facebook and in real life. 

Is it okay not to breastfeed your baby? Contrary to popular belief yes it is. Your baby will still love you and not grow up with mommy issues because you fed them formula.

Is it okay to implement cereals or other foods to your baby before the age of six months. Yes, also contrary to popular belief your child can be introduced to these things and still live. You won't get your baby taken away for child abuse.

Is it okay to let your baby co-sleep instead of introducing them to the crib? I am by no means a doctor or expert, but I think short of jumping on them, blowing smoke in their face or having sex while the baby is in the middle, you should all be okay.

Is it okay to let your baby sleep in their cribs from early on? I've seen this happen many times and the children seem to be healthy and happy. I haven't noticed any abandonment issues.

Should I go on??

The point is, raise your babies the way you feel is the best for your family..

I do have a few suggestions on some things we might all refrain from:

No prescription or alcohol until they are older

No tattoos this young because they could change their minds.

No letting them help you drive down the interstate doing 70

They don't need a Facebook because it will cause unnecessary stress for them

Probably no drinking out of the toilet ( even if it's clean)

Cardiology Appointment

Today was Lilah's cardiology appointment. She is having them every three weeks now until surgery. It couldn't have gone any better. First of all, my big girl weighed 6lbs 9oz three weeks ago and today...... 7lbs 14 1/2 oz! She is also 21 inches long. I couldn't believe it. In fact, I had the nurse check the weight again. I think her reflux medications are helping. She is still throwing up after every feeding, but not as much volume. I have also been giving her more tube feedings verses bottles. My little girl is very stubborn and most of the time it is a fight for her to drink a bottle. By the time its over we have puke everywhere and lots of tears. SO I decided to make it easier on everyone that I do mostly tube feedings throughout the day and at her 2 a.m feed. Okay back to Cardiology appointment. The doctor is putting Lilah's case before the board on Friday and hoping to get her on the surgery schedule within the next four weeks. As happy as I am for this to finally be happening, I am SO scared of losing my daughter. I also know if she doesn't have the surgery that we will eventually lose her to heart failure. So it is really a double edged sword. Right now the only thing I can do for her is keep her healthy and growing until surgery. Of course the bigger she is, the less risk. 

I go back to work next week. My sister will be watching the girls for a week and then my MIL is coming down to keep Lilah for two weeks. My aunt is flying in from California for a month and Al is taking off work (without pay) for about 5 five after surgery to keep Lilah. We don't feel comfortable with anyone else keeping her after surgery. Since we have been dealing with all the medical issues with her since day one, we want to keep it that way as much as we can. Unfortnanetely Al found out yesterday that his disability pay only works if it is for him and no other members of the family. He decided to sell his mustang last month just in case something like this happened. So we will be able to keep him home for a month or so with her while she is healing. 

Miss Olivia will start back to daycare in a week. I am So happy it is only down the road from my job. Now I can go get lunch cuddles with her! We are also trying to wean her down on feedings. Since Lilah came home from NICU we kept them both on the same feeding schedules and it is wearing us down. The girls will be four months in four days and they still eating every three hours around the clock. Today the Cardiologist said we can move Lilah to every four hour feeds instead of three. So we will also be changing Olivia's feeds as well. 

Please keep our Lilah in your thoughts through the next few months. It is going to be hard on her and hopefully it will all pass soon and we will have a healthy heart little girl.

THanks,

 

Happy New Year

Our new year is starting off with some good news. Lilah was finally approved for her rsv shots. The prescription was called in and now we are just waiting for a home healthcare nurse to come administer! Happy New Year to us!


I am not really sure who is following my blog anymore, but I really want all of you to have a Happy New Year. I know that many of you are starting new treatments, moving on past treatments or have finally got your babies. Regardless where you are, I hope nothing but the best this year. I hope that you make many great memories.