Dear God,

Please help our babies grow so we can bring them home.

We're back on the third floor of North Memorial.  Jesse has just expressed his regret for not naming one of our sons Ernie.  Ernie Nelson.  Apparently that is one of the announcers for March Madness.  A few years ago he thought we should name a kid Smush after one of the college players, so I should probably try to get the remote away from him this time of year.  On the upside, I don't believe we'll be having any more children, so his name ideas will run out of steam pretty quickly.

This is probably the longest I've gone without writing something, so I am trying to think of what has happened since last time.  I'll just go with the most recent stuff.  Our boys have been doing really well, until the last couple of days.  Before the nurses hook up their feedings at meal time, they attach a syringe and pull out of their feeding tubes, to see if there's anything left in their stomachs from the last time.  Well on Thursday we got a call that Rex had some blood come back in his.  They weren't sure at the time what was happening, thought maybe his feeding tube was irritating him.  Turns out he has some kind of bacterial infection and wasn't being his feisty self, so they took out his feeding tube and put in another IV.  He wasn't really interested in eating for awhile, so he needed some nutrition.

Today we found out that the other two boys also have this infection, but don't really have any symptoms.  They're all being given some medicine now and it should be cleared up in five days or so.  Rex is eating again, and is generally back to his old (can I say that about a 3-week old preemie?) self.  When they didn't know if Eero and Magnus had this infection, we were to be wearing gloves and gowns to handle them, which made me feel like we were working with blood borne pathogens rather than our own children, but safety first, I guess.

Please help our babies grow so we can bring them home.

We spend a lot of time in our little suite in the NICU, feeding our babies, taking temperatures, changing diapers and clothes.  It's very peaceful as our boys are so far very good babies who don't really make a peep unless they need something.  That's not really the case in the bigger nursery attached to us.  We're thinking they're regular human babies in there, but they produce some interesting sounds occasionally, which kind of makes us feel like we're in the exotic bird exhibit at the zoo.

Magnus is out of his isolette now, too, so they're all maintaining their temperatures, a big step toward going home.  If we can get them eating via bottle or breast at every feeding, they'll pretty much be good to go.  When that will happen we can't exactly say, but could be only a week or so.  The one doctor told us yesterday that it's often like a light bulb going on, and they are just all of a sudden ready to do everything they need to do to go home.

Please help our babies grow so we can bring them home.

Their feedings are going really well - they're all nursing like champs and take bottles when I'm not there, which is causing them to gain weight steadily.  Eero is up to 5 lbs 6 oz, Rex is up to 4 lbs 15 oz (and would probably be more if he hadn't been slowed down by this infection speed bump), and Magnus is 3 lbs 14 oz.  One nurse on Friday said she has a hard time telling them apart, but we can do it.  Eero is blonde and fair, Rex is darker and has chubby cheeks, and Magnus is darker and of course small, and always has a wrinkled, concerned forehead.  We've taken some more pictures, but I haven't really looked at them yet, so perhaps I'll get them up here tomorrow.

One of the nurses has looked up the meanings of their names, which we didn't really bother to do, and here's what they are:  Eero = ruler, Rex = king, Magnus = great.  We may have a power struggle on our hands.  Plus, throw in Axel.  Something's gotta give.

Please help our babies grow so we can bring them home.

It's been interesting hearing how everyone has ideas on how we will have to handle this when we get home with all of these boys.  It seems we're going to need a full-time nanny, an open-door policy where volunteers come and go as they please, and our mothers will have to move in with us.  No one has said, "I think they'll be just fine on their own."  I have to say I'm vaguely offended by this, but just chalk it up to personality differences.  Everyone else is way more overwhelmed by this situation than Jesse and I are.  Maybe some people would need all of those things, and maybe after a little while we will, but I don't really think we'll know what/if we need until we try it on our own.  I'd like to try.

On Thursday we had corned beef and pretended we were Irish, as we've done for the past few years on St. Patrick's Day.  This time I put it all in the crock pot right after lunch and walked away until supper time.  That is a fantastic way to cook; I use my crock pot as much as anyone else, but it might be my new best friend.  If anyone has any slow cooker recipes he/she'd like to share, I would love to hear them.  I'll share mine, too, so it's not a one-way street.

Please help our babies grow so we can bring them home.  We're definitely making the best of this, but it's getting tiring.  Most people go in to the hospital, have a baby, and go home a few days later and carry on.  I stayed in the hospital for over five weeks and the babies have been here for almost four weeks after that.  It's hard.  Please let us bring them home.  Amen.

Here are some more recent photos - this is Eero, Rex, and Magnus.  They've definitely all got their own looks. . .