THANKSGIVING.... THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

SPENDING TIME WITH FAMILY

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIT

I recently received an e-mail about my previous post in regards to "preemie moms verses full term moms".

I am writing this post because I feel I need to clarify with everyone that when I wrote of these "full term moms" that I had met, I was not referring to ALL full term moms out there.

I know a lot of mother's who have given birth to full term babies and they are exceptional mother's. I spoke of this because this was what I had witnessed on this particular day and on other occasions as well.

I'm sure that even a woman who has given birth to a perfectly healthy term baby has had encounters with other mother's that were not so pleasant. I guess I just notice these type of people more because of the experience I have been through with my own children. I can also say that I'm sure I have been judged on several occasions as well and labelled as being "Too over protective of my girl's". I AM AND I ADMIT IT. I am actually extremely overprotective of them. If their birth had of been different, maybe I would be different.

But...

-I am a mother who gave birth three months too soon.

-A mother who watched their children fight to stay alive night and day.

-A mother who spent hours pleading with God to give them a chance at some type of life.

-A mother who was asked if I wanted to have a DNR signed if Olivia crashed because they didn't think she was strong enough to make it.

-A mother who had to donate blood so both of my children could receive a blood transfusion.

- A mother who two years later is still dealing with my children's prematurity.

A mother who is waiting an Autism/Asperger's assessment due to prematurity.

-A mother who has lost friends because I had too many "rules and regulations" about visitors at my house.

-I am a mother who has been through a lot!

As Billie recently wrote in her most recent post "I cannot pick and choose my audience of readers" I now know exactly what she means by that. This does not mean that I will stop saying my opinion if I have one.

Like I said before at the beginning, WE have all witnessed parent's handle a situation in an inappropriate way, and every time I see this I always think to myself "I wonder if they would scream, yell, and roll their eyes at their child if they went through what myself and many other's have gone through". I appreciate every single breath that my children take because I know the other side of things. I know the feeling of possibly losing my child to prematurity. This doesn't mean that a full term mother doesn't appreciate their kids less than I do. It just means that I see certain things differently than others. If I had insulted ALL full term moms than I would be insulting women who are a part of my family as well. But that's not the case.

I honestly don't think that what I said was offensive. It was what I saw and how I felt. Once again, I never said ALL mother's of full term babies are inattentive. I said the one's I saw on that particular day were.

So I'll leave it at that. I think I've set the record straight!

PRESCHOOL, TEARS & FULL TERM MOMS VERSES PREEMIE MOMS

Over the past month I have been checking out different Preschools in the area. Most of them were not taking any kids and others were just way too expensive. Can you believe some parents pay $40.00 a day for one child! If you double that for someone like me with twins that's a lot of money. Putting the girl's into Preschool was a suggestion made by their Pediatrician at our last visit. He suggested it because he noticed how attached they were to me and of course how attached I am to them. So after a lot of searching I finally found one that I liked and that I knew the girl's would like.

So today was the big day for them, I got them all ready to go and had all these wonderful plans for myself. I figured since I didn't have any kids I would be able to get a million things done. WRONG! I dropped them off, stayed for about 15 minutes while they got settled in and then I quietly walked away. I wasn't even in the car for 5 minutes and my eyes began to well up with tears. When I walked in the door I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. There's so much to be done around here and I just couldn't do a thing. My house was so quiet that it felt so strange.

When I arrived back at the school to pick the girl's up, I waited patiently for them to come out, and what I expected did not happen. I expected to be greeted by two little girl's who were anxiously waiting for me to return. Not really the case. They were happy to see me, but they acted as if I never really left. Which is a good thing I guess.

I got to meet some of the other mother's today as well. I have never compared myself to a mother who delivered full term before. Really if I did it would be like comparing apples to oranges. They are two totally different experiences. But I'm going to admit that today I did. I got to observe a lot of the other moms and see how they handle situations with their child. I noticed that a lot of them walked in, said hello dropped their screaming child off and left. I myself could never do that. No wonder these kids are crying, to them it's the place that their mommy's leave them at. One poor little guy was crying so hard he ended up throwing up all over. I watched his mother as she rolled her eyes and walked out the door. To me this child needed some type of reassurance that he was going to have fun and mommy would be right back. I know that's how I would have handled it. It doesn't really take that long to distract a child away from something that they are upset at.

So all in all the girl's survived and I survived. Maybe next week I'll be able to get some things done while they are at school and not worry about them as much. I still can't believe they are in a Preschool program.

Where have my preemie babies gone?

Some cute artwork from their first day of Preschool

THIS KID CRACKS ME UP!!!

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!!

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!!

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.

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

TWO LITTLE MONKEY'S

JUST BECAUSE THEIR CUTE!

WHAT WERE YOU DOING 2 YEAR'S AGO TODAY?

Two year's ago today, I was excited, nervous and had a lot of anxiety because as the girl's were now around the 3lbs mark and it was time for them to start to learn the suck and swallow technique. They were both doing really well with their breathing, only needing to be on a little oxygen at this point so it was time to start preparing them for their homecoming. I always said from the start I would breastfeed, and from all the reading I had done, I wasn't planning on it being easy. Every article I read reminded new mother's of the importance of it as well as the difficulties they may have. What I didn't plan on was how difficult a time emotionally I would have gearing up for the moment when I would actually get to bond with my children like all mother's do. I was so nervous the girl's wouldn't latch or that they just wouldn't be physically ready. Which would mean we were not going to get to go home anytime soon.

Avery was such a trooper right from the start ,she caught on almost instantly so I was able to alternate breastfeeding and gavage feeding's with her. Olivia on the other hand was not so easy. I called her my "lazy baby". She preferred to sleep and be gavage feed rather then breastfed. I remember getting so frustrated at times because I knew that if she didn't catch on, Avery would be coming home and Olivia would have to stay in hospital.

This was also really stressful on me because Avery had tested positive for the Psedomonas bacteria and Olivia tested negative. Which meant that in between feedings I had to drive back to Oakville, shower then drive back to Hamilton to make it in time for Olivia's next feed. A lot of driving and a lot of showers!

During this time I was also putting together the girl's birth announcement for the newspaper. I figured we had waited long enough, things were heading in the right direction so now was the time to share with everyone we knew and the rest of the City the birth of our two precious girl's.

This is what the announcement said....

TWINS

Barcic/Schiller- Brian and Shannon Barcic are proud to announce the safe arrival of their precious twin girl's.

Olivia Donna & Avery Ana

On June 15th 2005 at 7:06 & 7:07a.m. weighing 850grams & 907grams

Olivia and Avery are the first addition of grandchildren to Matt & Ana Barcic and the latest addition to John & Donna Schiller.

A special thanks to both our families for all their support. Many thanks to the staff at McMaster Hospital for all their hard work. Especially the girl's primary nurse Janice, who has shown sincere compassion from the day the girl's arrived.

"Thank you Auntie Janice"

To Brian my husband, best friend and sole mate, in all the panic you were amazing. You are my rock. The tears you shed when our girl's were born made me fall in love with you all over again.

You are the greatest husband, and will be the perfect father. Our girl's are so lucky to have you as their dad.

Cheers to us, and our beautiful daughters.

EXCITING NEWS!!

We had our two year check up today with our new Pediatrician. We have had A LOT of doctor's appointments over the past two years but, this by far was the best. Our previous pediatrician would always brush off any concerns I ever had with the girl's which was extremely frustrating, or would dance around a question I would have which would then leave me completely confused and always asking myself why I bother taking the girl's to her.

Well different outcome today. Our new doc listened to everything I had to say, answered every question I had. Gave me some great suggestions on where to go from here now that the girl's are two years of age, and most importantly made me feel confident and comfortable with him looking after them medically. VERY IMPORTANT.
So for the exciting news.... Avery weighed in at 27.5lbs 34.5 inches in length. Olivia weighed in at 24.5lbs and also 34.5 inches in length. WOW my girl's are finally in the 50th percentile for height but are still in the 25th percentile for weight. I actually don't pay much attention anymore to the charts, I stopped worrying a long time ago about that. I am just so happy that they are both gaining weight and are healthy.

Now for more exciting news, when he was going over what the "typical" two year old (term) should be doing, one of the questions he asked me was are they saying at least two words? I told him they are talking to me in sentences now. He kind of looked at me a little strange until Olivia looked up at me and said "Look mama, a lady bug" he was in complete shock. Of course I just started laughing because of the expression on his face. He was really impressed with all the things they were doing and told me he had no concerns about them developmentally. YIPPEE!!!

Once again girl's we are so very proud of you!!!

FINALLY....A FUN FILLED & SICK FREE LONG WEEKEND!!

This has been our first long weekend this year that not one of us was sick.

We first have to wish our nephew Nicholas a BIG Happy 2nd Birthday. He turned two yesterday. His birthday celebration had to be put off until next weekend since he has a little bit of a cold. See you next weekend buddy!!

We also have to wish Cole a BIG Happy 2nd Birthday!!!! He also turned two yesterday.

Saturday we headed over to Meredith (Mimi) & Courtney's (Coco) house for some play time and a barbecue. All the girl's had a great time playing together as well as Mimi & Coco's older sister Kaitlyn.

Courtney and Olivia are so sweet together. Courtney is giving Olivia a push on her swing.

Courtney (Coco) decided she was going to indulge in some butter for an after dinner treat. Too funny!!

Anyone who has ever had a preemie knows the feeling of letting your child eat just about anything to get the extra calories they need. I guess you could say we'll take them any way we can get them.

Mimi & Coco sat very patiently with Olivia & Avery while they had their bottles. They even helped them out a little by holding the bottle for them.

Having their spaghetti dinner & dessert together.

Silly Girl's

Sunday afternoon we headed over to Baka & Dida's house for another barbecue dinner. The girl's were so exhausted from being out the night before and all day Sunday that on our way home from Brian's parents, they fell asleep as soon as they got in the car.

Playing catch with Baka

On Monday Grandma & Grandpa came over to visit for the day. They brought the twins some real fruit popsicles, which they loved!

I only took a few picture's of the girl's. Didn't manage to get any of the girl's with Grandma & Grandpa. We'll have to make sure we get some next time.

Too much talking and chasing the girl's around.

Enjoying their Blueberry/Lemon popsicles