Thursday, September 27, 2007

THIS KID CRACKS ME UP!!!

post signature


Sunday, September 23, 2007

A GREAT WEEKEND!

On Friday the girl's and I met up with Angi and Elizabeth at Frootogo Orchards. This place had everything! A great play area, a huge sandbox, some farm animals, and of course lots and lots of fruit to pick.

All the girl's did really great at picking lots of Apples, and even sampled a few along the way.

After we had finished our apple picking we purchased our apples and a few little pies, and headed off to lunch. By this time all three girl's were really exhausted. Olivia & Avery started to get VERY crabby, while Elizabeth had to fight to keep her eyes open at the table. It was really very cute.

Playing with the toys

Elizabeth in the sandboxTrying out the slideSome crazy goatsAgain having fun in the sandboxBig girl swing!Olivia picking her first appleElizabeth having a little sampleAvery picking her first apple
On Saturday we all got up early and headed out to Baka & Dida's house. We dropped the girl's off for the night and headed out. This weekend was our fourth year wedding anniversary, and since we haven't done ANYTHING together in two years we decided it was time for a date night.
We drove across the border and shopped all day, we headed back around 7:00p.m, had a nice dinner in Niagara Falls and got in some gambling at the Casino. We actually didn't make it home until 3a.m in the morning! I can't remember the last time we stayed out that late. Were usually in bed in this house no later than 11p.m.

Even though we had a great time being out on the town, enjoying a nice dinner and a few drinks, we both missed them like crazy. We spent most of our time talking and laughing about them.
Even though they were on our minds we still needed one day to ourselves just to reconnect with each other again. It was great!! I think we just might have to do it again, sooner than later.
I almost forgot to mention something very exciting, Olivia went pee pee in the potty yesterday at Baka's house!!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

ANGERED BY FAKE PREEMIE MOM'S!

The other day I came across a blog about two former preemie girl's and a little boy born at 23 weeks just two weeks ago. This mother described her daughter's as both having CP and that her 23 week old son was in hospital fighting for his life. This woman's story broke my heart and also brought back many unpleasant memories of my own children's NICU stay. I had been so intrigued by this woman's strength to be raising two special needs children and having another preemie fight for life, that I added a link to her blog on mine.

This morning I read a comment left on my blog by another mother (claiming to be a former preemie mom) and when I went over to her blog, her story sounded very similar to the one I had just added a few days ago. Only her story consisted of a set of twin girl's, a one year old son, and a two week old daughter fighting for her life in the NICU. She discusses how her twin girl's and son all have GJ feeding tubes, how her son will be blind by the age of three, and how her most recent preemie in NICU is fighting off an infection, is vented, had a chest tube placed, as well as a PIC line.

Seeing as these stories sounded so similar and their blogs are very new, I decided to do some investigating myself. I was told that this woman is a FAKE and she has recently joined a support group for former preemie moms who have children with CP. I am absolutely outraged that someone would do this! Having a preemie is not a joke. Having a child with a disability, is not a joke. It is an experience for us parents of former preemies that is horrifying to say the least. Reading her description of her child fighting for their life brings back a lot of unpleasant memories for myself and I'm sure a lot of other mother's.

People like this should be ashamed of themselves! Of all the things they could be doing with obviously a lot of spare time, they choose to "mock" as I see it, an experience that none of us ask for. But one that we all still re-live on a daily basis.

I have removed the link to this blog, and hope I never come across this again!!

post signature

Saturday, September 15, 2007

TWO YEAR'S AGO TODAY SHE CAME HOME....

Not being able to bring home the girl's together was so hard on us, but once we had both girl's home we realized we had more of a challenge than we ever expected. Not because we were dealing with two babies on our own, feedings that would take four hours to complete sometimes, and reflux but, because Olivia in reality was not ready to be released from the hospital when she was, which was partly my fault. I was just simply sick and tired of hospital life. I wanted both of my kids home and I wanted to start to live as a family. Meaning, I didn't want to deal with doctor's everyday, or nurses watching over me as I shared a quiet moment with my daughter, endless beeping sounds of monitors going off, and sounds of mother's crying because they had just delivered their baby prematurely.

On this day two year's ago I begged the doctor's to let me take Olivia home. The reason she had not been released with Avery was because she was not waking on her own to feed. But at the same time, the NICU nurses weren't giving her a chance to wake up hungry because every three hours they came in and pushed her feed into her stomach through her NG tube. How was she ever to feel hungry on her own? So I promised the doctor's that I would wake her every two hours to feed her. They agreed, and within a few hours we had our discharge papers in hand along with our other baby.

Once she came home I did as I promised, I woke her every two hours for a feed, but all she wanted to do was sleep. Sometimes her feeds would only consist of half an ounce. Which even that was a struggle. Then when you add reflux into the equation it only became harder. That half an ounce that I would have struggled with to get into her, would sometimes come right back out of her. So we would have to start all over again. Not much fun when it's the middle of the night and mommy hasn't had much sleep as it is.

We reflect back on those times a lot and remember wondering if that time would ever change. Well it has changed in some ways, the reflux is gone, but she still continues to be a picky little eater. One thing that hasn't changed is the fact that I would do it all again for her if I had to.

On September 15th 2005, we were finally a REAL family.






post signature

Thursday, September 06, 2007

MY LITTLE AVERY....I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE'S BEEN HOME FOR TWO FULL YEARS!!






post signature