The Adventures of Seth & Izy: Am, Izzy & Seth

For years I have continually commented on the busyness of my schedule. Between crazy work hours, church activities and relationships, I would tell you that I had no free time and was always on the go. Many times when I brought this up, wiser people responded with something along the lines of "just wait until you have kids". I didn't quite grasp the depth of that statement until the past two weeks.

With two kiddos in the NICU, our schedules are definitely busier than ever (and as crazy as it seems to me, it is 10x worse for Am). We are constantly feeding, soothing, changing diapers, talking to nurses and doctors, and occasionally trying to sneak in some sleep. I had grand plans of doing blog updates every 3 days but have fell quite short...and heard about that failure from many of you...repeatedly. So I start with yet another apology for leaving you all hanging.

We are still residing in the MCV NICU but are definitely getting closer to our greatly anticipated release. Both Izzy and Seth are still off the respirators, out of the incubators, and are now off the feeding tubes! They are getting all of their nutrition from breastfeeding which has been another big step forward for them. As of this morning, Seth was up 3.5 ounces over his birth weight and Izzy was up 3.0 ounces. Both babies have passed their hearing tests and received their Hep B shots. Seth survived his dreaded circumcision and is healing up well. The last remaining hurdle they must leap before receiving their release papers is some additional weight gain and we have found this to be a slow but steady process. If they can knock out some strong weight gain numbers over the next couple days, there is a possibility they will be able to go home the middle of this week! Please keep praying for continued progress and good health.

Am continues to feel better and better as the fluids that were pumped into her body before the delivery continue to make their exit. She looks like a completely different person from the lady they wheeled back to surgery (I would make a comment like many others regarding how gorgeous she looks now but I never thought she lost that trait!). We are holding up pretty well on the limited sleep that we are getting. We moved to sleeping at the hospital (instead of at Am's brother Drew's) Friday evening so we could breastfeed around the clock. This has cut the sleep down to just a couple of hours a night but God keeps providing what we need to make it through each day. Again, we would appreciate prayers for God's continued provision in giving us the strength to make it through the long days and short nights.

Here are some pictures from the past week. Enjoy!

We will start with some shots from when we put the two of them in a crib together and allowed them to interact for a little while.

(Great profile - still think it is obvious which one is the boy and which one is the girl!)

("Oh yeah Seth, you may be bigger but I can pack a powerful smack!")

("I'm ripping the monitoring cords out Izz, we're blowing this joint!")

("Oh Seth, will you please stop singing - you're killing me!")

("Let me check your pulse Seth - those monitors can't be correct!")

("Not a lot to do in here sis, how about we hold a karaoke night!")

("Rumor has it that if we hold our tongues out like this, mommy will give us a treat.")

(Best buddies!)

("Nice duds Seth, is that cotton?")

(Seth is a ladies' man - the nurses think he is super cute!)

Here are some of the many crazy faces of Izzy:

Our nurse the other day decided she needed to do a Halloween shoot with the candy containers that have been providing a constant flow of sugar to our nurses:

(Izzy does not look thrilled.)

And here is one of the most brave people I know, my awesome son. I couldn't be more proud of him!

And some miscellaneous shots:

(Just to provide some perspective on how tiny she is!)

(Izzy loves to hold fingers.)

(Here's the crazy equipment they use to test hearing.)

(Power to the people!)

(Izzy's hands always seem to end up in front of her face for pictures - including ultrasounds. I think she got those genes from a certain brother of mine!)