Day 6 - May 23, 2013

Yesterday if Adam had not been born, I would have taken the girls to one of my sisters' houses to stay with them while I went on a trip.  Today is the day Benjamin still had to leave.  It was a sad day for me to see him leave and not be able to go with him.  But Adam is more important.

Today Benjamin took off with Terry and they drove down to Salt Lake City.  They parked the car, took a shuttle, and got the the air port.  They flew to Denver and had a layover that turned into 4 hours with the delays.  Then they flew to Omaha, Nebraska on the second leg of their flights.  From there they rented a car and drove to the hotel we reserved in West Des Moines and finally crashed for the night.  It was a long day of traveling for them for sure.

Meanwhile, Cathy watched the girls without complaining even though she didn't get to go on her trip either.

I came to see Adam.  I asked the charge nurse what it is as a parent I should be doing, and she asked the doctor for me who was doing a procedure at the time.  I got orders that let me hold him at every feeding and breastfeed him twice a day.  They call this first step non-nutritive breastfeeding.  I pump everything out before he gets started and then they still give him the milk he needs in the tube.  I'm sure he still gets a little milk, but they need to control his intake.  So practice will eventually become worth it for him!

They also began the first steps of weaning him out of his isolet.  They believe he does so well controlling his temperature that they think this is a great step for him.

Today was a HUGE day for the girls, too!  Aunt Danielle spoiled them rotten (not to mention seriously tired them out!)  The girls got to go to iJump!  Then Danielle bought them happy meals and brought them to see me.  They went to a class where they became more aware of all of the things that happen in the NICU.  The class is called, "So my brother is in the NICU, what about me?"  The girls had a lot of fun seeing all of the things that they use in the NICU.  I know that in some places it is different, but the girls are not allowed to even see him until he is discharged.  That is really hard for little ones to understand.  So besides the tools that they use, I made them wheel out all of the cribs and isolets that he is or will be using.  They took a cute little doll and used tape to put the IV on it.

THEN they got cake pops to celebrate the graduation/promotion of Dallin into high school!  Back to Danielle's house to play with cousins, deny naps, and play with friends across the street.  More trampoline time and Alaina got to ride in one of those cute cars they kids sit and "fred flinstone" around in.

It took forever for them to get to bed tonight because they were so completely tired.  I couldn't even get upset that it took us almost 2 hours to get ready for bed in between the crying and earth shattering moments. It was because they had such a GREAT day.  Thank you Aunt Danielle for loving on them when it is hard to do that right now.  I feel bad that there is so much juggling at this time of their lives.  It will be over soon...  It will be over soon...

All of the good pictures of today are on my phone still, so I will update this post once I get the pictures off.