Welcome home, Dylan and Trevor

Finally, our lives can now really begin. It's been such a long road. How scary the first several days were. I most likely kept Starbucks in business this last month, what with my daily stops there on the way to the hospital. (I highly recommend the strawberry-blueberry parfait...yum!)

I got to know the nurses, occupational therapists, Dr.'s, nurse practitioners and discharge nurses so well, I actually got a little emotional saying goodbye.

This is how it all went down.

I had been told that the boys would be coming home soon, probably by the weekend. I had been told that before and was disappointed, so I didn't want to get my hopes up. By Friday, it looked good that we'd take both of them home at the same time. Then, Saturday they called. They said, very anti-climatically I might add, "Come get your boys". OMG! When I called Jeff to tell him, he said, "OMG, what do we do?" Sounds funny, but I was thinking the exact same thing. Deep down I think I half expected to visit my kids in the NICU when they were 2 years old. Well, an hour later, Trevor had another episode but this time it wasn't during eating. It worried the NP enough she reconsidered and wanted Trevor to stay one more night for observation. We were a little sad, of course, but ultimately wanted him to be in the NICU if he was going to have "episodes". Jeff's parents came over to watch Zach and we went down to pick up Dylan. It took a while because we were in the middle of feeding time and when we got home it was about 5pm.

Our first night was pretty uneventful. If we only had one baby coming home, it would actually be very do-able. I played with Zach, Jeff hung with Dylan. Then we'd switch off. Pretty easy, actually. When we added the third one the next day, we were outnumbered. Pretty much sca-rewed. Dylan wakes every 3-4 hours to eat and we just set our alarm clock to get us up because he wasn't waking. I'm still pumping away so that adds to the mix. He wakes, we change a dipe, he eats, he goes back to sleep. That's it. I forgot how simple newborns are.

The next morning (Sunday), the NP called and said that Trevor had no episodes and did great and we were free to come get him. Off we went after the IL's came over again to watch Zach. That was an even faster exit out of the NICU. Sign some papers, pack up the hospital grab bag, take some pictures and we were on our way.

My parents came that afternoon. They;ll stay for as long as we need them, but I think my Dad is going to go back home early. He's a little out of his element with the whole baby thing. Although he does love holding them. He looks like those pictures of the big gorilla holding the kitten. Too cute.

So, we are all home. Zach is being adorable with his new brothers. He wants to hold them and touch them. He's very gentle around them, too. I'm pretty surprised he's such a pussycat with them, considering he's usually jumping off the ceiling.

Ok, enough of the rhetoric. Let's get to the pictures!

Home at last! Dylan and his first few moments home.
Zach holding Dylan for the first time. He climbed up next to me and said, "Hold Dylan!" Cute!
Proud Grandma and Grandpa!
Ok, I will give credit where it's due. I did not come up with the clever onesie idea. My friend, Heather had her first son in the NICU and made him a "NICU alumni" onesie. I totally stole the idea. Thanks, Heather!

I'm gonna be ripped carting these two around!

My Dad awkwardly holding Trevor

Trevor holding my Dad's hand

Proud Nana holding Dylan