The Short Blog: March 2008

It's been quite some time since we've posted news and updates, but we wanted to continue to keep everyone updated on thier progress.

The biggest news of all is that the girls are off their monitors for good. Last week, a technician came to the house to download the data from the monitors and set them up for their final neumogram. The girls had their second and final trip to the pulmonary clinic where they received all A's; the downloads and neumogram came back normal. While we were very excited that our girls are growing up strong, we were both a little apprehensive having them off their monitors. Kathryn continued to have alarms right up to the day of thier appointment, but they explained to us that it was just very deep sleep and the results from the monitor were normal. We were particularly nervous for Sophia. Sophia has had a fantastic last couple of months and rarely had an alarm. Because of this, we usually did not hook them up to their monitors during the day. About two weeks ago they were both taking an afternoon nap, but sleeping longer than normal. Emily had decided to check on them and yelled for my help because Sophia was not responding to her touch. Sophia was completely non-responsive and her color was pale if not blue. We continued to try and gently rouse her and called her name and she still did not respond to us. We almost dialed 911, but she eventually came out of it slowly and returned to normal breathing after about 3-5 minutes. This had to be the single most frightening event to ever happen to Emily and I, we both saw our entire lives pass before our eyes. We discussed this "episode" with several of the doctors and they thought it could have been just a very deep sleep and told us to keep an eye on both of them. If it happens again, we need to inform thier doctor and they may order and EKG to look into it further. As you can imagine, we are now overly cautious when they sleep and I tend to sleep with one eye open at night just to be certain they are both still breathing OK.

Back to the good news, both girls are nearly 10.5 lbs now and 22" long. Even though that may sound tiny to most, its exciting to watch them fill out and be almost 4 times their birth weight. The doctors are very happy with their fast and continuing weight gain; how can't they with all the milk they drink every 2 hours (see pic below of their stash) . Other than a stuffy nose that Sophia had for a couple of weeks, we have managed to keep both of the girls pretty healthy.

Each of them are beginning to act more and more like babies and we are starting to see thier personalities develop. Sophia is the happiest baby you'll ever see and constantly has a smile on her face. Kathryn is the more serious one, but tends to "talk" more and has the prettiest smile on the planet. Both are beginning to smile, laugh, and "talk" back to us when we play with them and they look like they are trying so hard to put words together. They are getting more and more tummy time to help them build thier neck muscles. Both can hold their heads up very good and both can roll over from thier tummy to thier backs already. We mentioned this to the pulmonary doctor and he said they shouldn't being doing that yet at thier age so they may even be a little ahead of where they need to be. We can't wait for them to start crawling

The last couple of weeks I have had to travel for work. Two weeks ago I was in Tampa for a couple of days and last week I was in Las Vegas for four days so Emily was on her own, God Bless her, she is definately in the running for mother of the year. During this time, she ending up getting sick, the monitor people had stopped by multiple times, and Evelyn was having nightmares for the first time, it seemed all hell broke loose the second I left the house. After all that, Emily and Evelyn had had enough of the home life so we decided to go on a family adventure outside the home. It was only to the mall and a few other stores for easter outfits, but they'll take whatever they can get. Everything went great and the girls were fantastic. You'd be amazed at how many complete strangers want to stop you to witness the miracle of twins - everywhere we went! We were out and about for about 4 hours and during our final stop, Evelyn got a little cranky (no nap) and the girls were a little hungry; the perfect storm! We loaded all of them in the car all the while Evelyn was crying that she wanted something from the store and both girls were screaming for milk - 3 SCREAMING GIRLS - Emily and I just looked at each other and starting laughing out loud...what have we gotten ourselves into? Now that Emily and the girls have gotten a taste of freedom, they can't get enough. This past weekend we decided to take Evelyn to "The Treehouse" in Chelsea, an indoor playground. Evelyn and I had a blast climbing, jumping, and sliding down the slides...I think we both needed the activity. Unfortunately we ended up being caught in the Easter snowstorm and it took nearly 2.5 hours to get home. I even got back to some normalcy this week and managed to get some yard work done...sunshine, fresh air, a rake...ahhh...the life of man with three girls!

Over the weekend the girls got to meet thier 2 month old cousin, Cohen, for the first time. He is my brother's son who up until recently has been living in FL for the last 2 years. It's amazing to see the difference between them at 5 months vs a full term 2 month old. Cohen was only about 2 lbs heavier, but it seemed more like 10 lbs, check out the pic below

Also over the weekend all the girls got to enjoy Easter at Mum's house and meet a few more members of thier extended family. They also had a quick visit with Grandma Bino's to show off thier bunny coats. Of course lots of pics below.

For now everything seems to be going well and we are very happy with thier progress. Our next appointment is with the plastic surgeon next week to discuss Kathryn's head and to begin to schedule the surgeries. We're nervous at the thought of our baby having to go through this, and we pray that everything goes as planned. We'll keep everyone updated.

Please enjoy some pics below and thanks for visiting!