Way Back Whensday

Raechel came up with a great idea for Wednesday posts: "Way Back Whensdays." She maintains that since she's not able to be "wordless" on Wednesdays (And I quite agree. I'm an English major, it's in my nature to explain), then she'll take the opportunity to post a few older pictures for the sake of nostalgia. Also, it's a good way to show off our babies' photos from before we started the blogs.

We mothers always have an ulterior motive.

The boys turn 2 in less than two weeks, so I'll start with a few of them from their earliest days. Jack and Baylor were born just about 2 months early. I went into labor a few days after I had hit 32 weeks, and despite the best efforts of doctors, nurses, and ambulance paramedics from two different hospitals, they came. This sometimes happens with twins, although I was pretty ticked about it, as I had been on strict bed rest for 7 weeks to prevent just this thing from happening. I kind of felt like a gestational failure for awhile.

Luckily they didn't have any health problems beyond the typical lung immaturity. Jack weighed 4 lbs., 1 ounce, and Baylor weighed 3 lbs., 14 oz. They were born at Baptist Women's Hospital in Memphis, which was the closest hospital with a NICU to where we were living in Mississippi. So for two weeks my mom and I, with Stephen accompanying us about half the time, dutifully took the 1 1/2 hour trip there and back each day, sometimes falling into bed very late only to wake up early and start all over again. It was a grueling routine, as we weren't just sitting around holding plump, gurgling babies all day. We were working hard to help our very skinny babies grow, eat, and breathe. We only skipped one day, and I was racked with terrible guilt, even though my poor ankles, which had swollen to the size of watermelons after my C-section, desperately needed the rest.

It was a very trying time, and just thinking back on it puts a very achy, throbbing sort of feeling in my chest. We didn't know how long they would have to stay; some babies this early have to hang out in the NICU until their original due date. Like I said, our boys were very healthy--they just needed to gain weight, eat well, and breathe strongly on their own--so we didn't have the harrowing, edge-of-death sort of experience a lot of parents with preemies do. But it was still very scary and uncertain and fragile, and I was hormonal and swollen and craving my babies, whom I couldn't take home with me when I was discharged from the hospital.

You should have seen the meltdown when we drove away and left them there. Worst day ever.

Anyway, lots of images and impressions and scents and sounds and what-have-yous fill my mind when I remember this time. I can hear the beeping of the gazillion monitors in the NICU. I can smell the latex of the gloves we wore when handling them and the milky, soft scent of the much quieter Neonatal Continuing Care Unit. I can feel the exhaustion of pumping milk every two hours, and the exhilaration of proudly carrying my bountiful supply into the ward in an Igloo cooler, every bottle carefully labeled and packed with ice. Every image, every face, every single sight seems burned into my mind with a laser-like intensity, and even now reflecting on it makes me want to burst into tired, confused tears.

But most of all, I remember my little, helpless, covered-in-cords and poked-with-needles babies.

Baylor, about an hour old

Jack

My mom holds Baylor.

We called them our little burrito babies.

Hey, I can see my Igloo!

(This was toward the end of their NICU stay.)

Jack's little wrinkled, red-haired head.

I think I need a moment to collect myself. And maybe kiss those little boys while they sleep.

Please jump in on the "Way Back Whensday" bandwagon! I'm going to dig through the files and find some childhood pictures to scan. I'm sure I have some dirt on my sister the goddess that needs to be made public. And I'm also sure my mom will help in any way possible.

We're just that devious.