26 weeks old today!

We got to touch the babies!! We got to touch the babies!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!  Okay, now that we got that out, let me compose myself.

Good evening everyone, how are you tonight?  We are fantastic! Thanks for asking, haha. We got to the hospital tonight and saw that Brady and Patrick had the same nurse. It happened to be the one that put both PICC lines in them, so we know they were in good hands. Even better, she said that she asked to be Primary nurse on Brady, and the nurse that Patrick does well with asked to be his primary. Awesome, good news already. She had mentioned that she had just closed his incubator, but then a few minutes later said she would let us "in." We were able to get to get really good pics of Patrick. I excitedly took pics, and as she was walking away she said "you can touch him." OKAY!!!! So, I foamed my hands really well, and dove in! I touched his hands, his arms and chest, and rubbed his little head. He held on to my pinky after a little bit. Touch still startles them a little, but he did well. He did open his eyes while I was talking to him. You could tell it took all the strengh that he had to do it to. Then we went to visit Brady, and she said we could touch him too! I was very excited because I had never touched Brady before. This was my first contact with him. I can not wait to hold these little nuggets.  We learned today that Brady gets very excited with touch. He was moving all over the place! I actually had to stop touching him because his heart rate was going up. I didn't want to stress him out, but I was so excited!

                                                                I am in love
Okay so here are the updates from tonight.

Brady
Brady is doing well tonight, excpet for when I touch him, haha. He did not need a transfusion today. They are taking blood gases very twelve hours instead of four. He's on room air right now.  He looks good at this time. Hopefully it will hold. He was moving around a lot tonight. He was more on his side, and he looked more comfortable.

                                                     

More tape on his chin now, uughhh!

                                                             He likes his feet out!

Patrick
Patrick's O2 was at 28% tonight. He did not need a transfusion either. They did increase his Fentanyl because his blood pressure was going up. They think that it's because he is moving around to much. The doctor was giving rounds while we were visiting. She laughed and said that they are moving way to much, and they are very feisty. She said that she felt bad for me because she knows that they were probably doing it inside of me too. I laughed and said yes, they were always active. They really don't want them to move around at all. The basically said that their job is just to stay still, and grow. They are not staying still. Haha.  He did open both eyes, so that was an improvement. His right eye had been fused shut, but now both are open.

                                           He is actually starting to look more baby boy like.

    We were trying to explain to everyone that the pictures don't actually do their size any justice. This gives you a better idea on how small they actually are. It was hard for me to touch them, because I felt like if I pushed to hard I would hurt them. I had to be so gentile!

Thats the word from the NICU tonight! Night all!

Echo day

Hi friends, how is everyone?  We are good today. We were able to sleep in today a little after last nights visit. I actually got to sleep on my back last night, which is the first time in like 4 months. I forgot how much I missed it.  It's the little things, it really is.  I apologize now for any gramatical errors that come up in any of my posts. As we go back and read things that we have written in the last few weeks, we realize a lot of it is nonsense talk. Our brains are scramble eggs at this time. Please forgive us. So, we made it over to the hospital today, and there were a few changes.

Brady
Brady is doing well. Not only does this kid have big feet, he has like a full man beard. I kid you not. The nurse said he has been doing well today. He was quiet, but kicking his feet around. He did have an echo today to check his heart. His PDA is still there so they have decided to start him on his 2 course of heart meds. They said that he can get up to 3 courses of it before they have to decide on surgery or not. He received his first dose tonight. His labs were good today, platelets were up, so he did not need a transfusion today. Sweet. Also, his blood gases were fine. Their nurse said that tonight, or tomorrow, should be the last dose of antibiotics they receive too. He did lose an ounce. He is back to 1 lb 7 oz, but they are not worried, the weights are expected to go up and down. Otherwise she said he is doing okay.

Patrick
Patrick was also quiet today. He did start to wiggle around a bit while we talked to him. He is off of his Dopamine at this time. His oxygen was also lowered today. They also did an echo on him this afternoon while we were there. His heart murmur has become larger. He had a very small one that they were not worried about, so they didn't start him on meds.  However, since it has opened more, they decided to start him on the same meds as Brady. I believe its called Indocin. He received his dose tonight too. His labs were also good tonight. Platelets were up too, so he didn't need a transfusion either. Double sweet. He is still on his Fentanyl to keep him calm with the osc. vent. They said that he also lost an ounce. He is 1 lb 1 oz.  She did say that he urinated so much that they had to change the blanket underneath him. That kid likes to flood things. He is also going to probably receive his last dose of antibiotics tonight or tomorrow.

I did put a link about PDA on the home page. I don't know if it's all correct but it explains it well. Thats pretty much the word from the Connor house.  Good night all!

Picc line success!

Good morning to all. I really mean that to, because I am typing this at 245 am. We just got home about an hour ago. We spent most of the day catching up on bills, paperwork for the twins, and more paperwork for the twins. Then Craig took a much needed nap today. I didn't care if he slept all day, as long as he slept. So we had a late start, but it's okay. So here is the deal tonight.

Brady
There are not a lot of changes in Brady today. Which is fine I will take it. I can't remember if we mentioned that he had an echo done, and he does have a heart murmur. She was unsure of what grade is was, but she said she could hear it. He received three doses of his medcine to help it, which I apologize, I can't remember the name of. We will see if this closes the hole, and go from there. They will recheck an echo soon, but she was not sure when. She said that after they check it, they can give another round of it if it's still there. After that, she wasn't sure of the next step, but potentially it could be a surgery thing in the future. His hemoglobin and bilirubin were up a little, but not enough that it was a concern. His pcv was up too, it was lower at one point. He did receive a PICC line in his arm this evening, which is awesome. She explained to us that as of right now, the lines were going into the umbilical cord. There are two lines. They can only use them for so long because the belly button starts to close up, and then it pinches the line. His was not closing yet, so they had time, but they wanted to do it if able to avoid problems later. He did receive another transfusion today. Otherwise he was doing well. He responded to our voices, and opened his eyes while we talked to him. He was kicking a lot, and moving his arms. They said last night that he even wiggled out of his diaper. He has a bunch of hair, and really big feet. I understand the hair, but the feet are a question because I have small ones, and Craig's are a normal size too. This kid has Shaq like feet. haha.  We were able to get close today because his incubator top was open.

                  He hates his tube in. When he can't turn his head he gets annoyed and grabs his tube.

                                                                           I see you!

Okay, I love/hate this picture. I love it because I can really start to see his little features, and all that hair. I hate it because it makes me sad that the tape on his face pulls his skin so hard, and it looks all broken out. The nurses say that all of it will heal, and that the skin will shed, but it is still hard to look at.

                                                        Take a look at those feet, haha.

Patrick
Patrick finally got a PICC line! Yea! This is exciting because they had already tried twice with no luck. He was getting very stressed out, and his blood pressure was rising. They had to up his O2 after wards. Craig called after we arrived home, (they were going to try again while we were leaving) and they said they got it in, and he did well.  His belly button was starting to close, so the samples were becoming harder to get.  He had a transfusion also. His blood gases were the same. They lowered his Fentanyl drip. He is still on the oscillator.  They said that they tried to leave him alone tonight as much as they could. The PICC lines really stressed him out, so they wanted him to settle down for the rest of the night. The nurse he had tonight has had him before, and said that she has good luck with him. He seems to do very well with her. She was very nice!

                                                           Waiting for his new line.

Moved a little for us, but was quiet tonight.

                               Just to show you how small the diaper is. It is actually huge on them.

Mommy and Daddy
Everyone has been asking about us too. We are doing well, just lacking sleep. Get used to it right? We know, and we are. Now that I am out of the hospital, it is one less trip that Craig has to take. That makes it so much easier for him, believe me. I seem to be doing much better after the last surgery. Hipefully it will last! I am not going back to the hospital again, I refuse. I will treat myself with IV fluids at home. so far so good though, I have a small amount of pain, but no fever. Craig is doing better now that he has had a little sleep. Hopefully we can get ourselves on a schedule this week. The late nights are tough. We are doing our best though and we seem to be stronger than we ever thought.

I just wanted to thank all the people again that donated blood to the boys. There were about 20 people from work that donated, and the boys are getting that blood now.  Also, a big thanks to Craig's co-workers. They also donated, and set up donation locations at fire stations in different cities. Awesome, just awesome. I have said thank you a million times, but I feel like that phrase doesn't cut it any more.  Words cannot express what you all mean to us, and I wouldn't even know how to tell you all how much we appreciate all of you. You are all rock stars! I am so glad to have you all in our lives, and I look forward to you being in the boys lives too.I feel like everyone just officially became aunts and uncles.

Emily and Craig, signing out.....zzzzzzzzzz

Update: Tuesday, June 26 - The boy's are one week old!

Hi everyone! Sorry we didn't update as much as we wanted to the past few days; things have been pretty busy around here.

Em went back into the hospital Sunday night after her pain started to get worse. She was admitted just before midnight and she is hoping to go home tonight. She had to have another D&C, which seems to have relieved her pain. But, after her surgery, she had a fever of 103, so they kept her for observation and put her on several antibiotics. She is doing much better now and will hopefully only be in the hospital for a few more hours.

Em before going in for her surgery (D&C #2)

The boys are both doing well. Craig and I (Aly) went to see them last night and we just saw them again a few hours ago.

Patrick:
Patrick's weight is now up above his birth weight by 10 grams, bringing him up to 1 lb 3 oz. They have dropped his dopamine level twice, so it is now down to 5, instead of the 15 he was at last time we updated. Patrick's blood gases have been getting better with each one! He is still on antibiotics and he had a another blood transfusion yesterday. Patrick was much more active when we went to see him today, which was a nice change since he is usually pretty calm because of the medications he is on.

Brady:
There aren't many changes to report here. Brady's weight is at 1 lb 7 oz, so he is getting closer and closer to being back at his birth weight. His bruising looked even better this morning than it did when we saw him last night. He is still on antibiotics as well. Brady had his arms tucked in again today because he is still pulling on tubes. He was sticking his tongue out today and sucking on his tube, so cute!

If you look really close, you can see him trying to stick his tongue out!

The boys are officially one week old today! Both boys had head scans and chest x-rays this morning and as far as we know they went well. Craig will probably head back over to see them again tonight, and hopefully he will have more good new for us then!

Thanks again for all your well wishes and support! We really appreciate it!

Saturday, June 23 Update

Proud Parents!

The doctor said that overall the babies are having a good day today, and that they are doing better than they were when they first came in, but there are a few changes that we wanted to update everyone on:

Brady (Baby A) :
Brady is doing okay today. His bruising has gone down a bit since we saw him yesterday. He had another blood transfusion last night along with an ultrasound that revealed a grade 2 brain bleed. There are 4 grades, with one being the smallest, and 4 being the most severe. The doctor will continue to do weekly ultrasounds to monitor the bleed. In most cases, the bleed will resolve itself and there isn't much that can be done about it until then. Right now it is just kind of a wait and see game. Brady is still on the ventilator and he is handling it well. He had a little bit of twitching last night, which they thought could be a seizure, but the doctor said that he didn't think that it was. They gave him Phenobarbital as a precautionary measure. The doctor said that even if it wasn't a seizure the medicine would calm him down a little bit. We were able to watch the nurse change his diaper today and we got to see him without his eye mask on. He is being a little bit of a trouble maker and spends a lot of time pulling on all of his tubes and wires, so throughout the day they have to tuck his arms in a little bit tighter so that he can't pull anything out. He spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to suck his thumb since all the tubes are in the way.

Close-up of Brady. Look at all that hair!

Patrick (Baby B) :
Patrick is doing pretty well today. He also has a grade 2 brain bleed, which like his brother's bleed, will probably clear up on it's own. The doctor tried to lower the level on his oscillator today, but his levels dropped a little bit so they had to move it back up to where it was when we saw him yesterday. Patrick is still on Fentanyl for sedation because the oscillator shakes him a little bit. We saw his diaper change as well today, and in a matter of minutes he went through three diapers because he wouldn't quit peeing. Patrick opened his left eye for us a few times today when we were talking to him; his right eye is still fused shut. He gave Em the finger a few times when she tried to take his picture.

Overall, there are a few complications, but the doctor still thinks that both boys have improved since they arrived.

Em will post some new pictures tomorrow. She has been feeling pretty worn out all day today, but she is doing better now.

Friday morning update.

 Here is the latest update from this morning.

Aly and mom scrubbing up to go in!

Brady is doing okay. The nurse that had him today had him on his arrival on Tuesday night. She said that she feels his bruising looks better on his head, and his head is starting to get a little more shape. She took off his little visor for us, and wiped his eyes, so I was able to see his little face better, and get some better pics. She did have to pack him a little tighter in his bedding because he was trying to pull out his e-tube.  Still on ventilator at this time. Platelets were low so he did receive some today.  Seems to be resting comfortably. We were able to watch them work on him for a second while they fixed some of his lines.

Patrick was doing well on his vent-oscilator. He was on 21% which is good. She said he is handling the vent well. He was moving around a little bit more today. They did take a bg while we were there and is was in the normal range. They were going to tweak his drips today to fix that. They were taking a blood gas when we were there, and it came back normal so that is good.

They both head scans today, we are still waiting on the results of those.

I want to send a big thank you out to all the people that donated blood today! They had two trucks at work and a ton of employees packed it in there and gave blood. Words can't express how grateful we are. Seriously, I don't even know where to start, and if I tried I would literally just blubber like a fool, I mean it, for real, ugly face cry. You are all amazing! Thank you for taking time out of our day and thinking about us.  We are very blessed to have all of you in our lives.  If I could give you all big fats hugs and kisses I would! I literally could not read the texts out loud because I would get choked up. I am tearing as I write this right now. Can't thank you enough!

Donation info

Good morning everyone.  I placed a link to the Community Blood Centers on the side of the page. They told us that if you go, you can tell them it is for Brady and Patrick Connor.  Parents are Emily and Craig Connor. They are in the NICU at Broward General.  They take what is called a pedi-pack. It's a small amount of blood so that you can donate more than once. They said that they will need transfusions throughout this process.  The doctor that delivered is Dr. Tara Dennis, but they have a different NICU doctor each day.  Unfortunately, I can't donate for awhile because I lost to much blood during labor and had to receive two bags myself. If I get any more info, I will pass it along asap. Thank you to everyone that has expressed interest in helping. We appreciate all the help that we can get. The support that you have all given to us has been amazing. We are really blessed to have all of you in our life!

NICU update

Good evening to all. I finally made it over to the NICU to see the boys last night. This was my first time seeing Brady so I was very exited. I was able to see him at delivery for a second, but then he was whisked away to be intubated. I was able to spend about 5 minutes with Patrick while he waited to be transported from Springs. His hands were so little, he could just hold the tip of my pinky. He did wave a few times for me.  So we went Broward last night to see how they were doing. The newest update is this;

Brady (A)

Brady was on a ventilator still. They said he is breathing a little on his own, so he is not being lazy and letting the machine do it for him, which is good. He did receive a few transfusions, about three I believe. He had been quiet and resting comfortably while he was there. He is receiving antibiotics. He did lose a little weight,  he is 1 lb and 7 oz now. They said it was probably water weight, not to be concerned. He does have a large amount of bruising on his head and body still,, so they still have him under the lights. He was very bruised up from the delivery process. We had to wait about an hour for the doctor to get there, so between me being pushed all around, and him not being in fluids from the water breaking, he took a beating. Then they had to poke and move him so much that the nurses caused some to.  The first pictures of him look like he has a full head of hair but it is actually just all bruises. Hopefully that will be improving in the next few days. He has urinated multiple times on his nurse, haha. When I said goodbye to him last night, he reached both hands in the air and started to move around a lot. He was starting to scratch at his face where his tube was, and I already had to mommy voice him, and tell him to leave it in. Perhaps an e-collar is needed....

Patrick (B)

Patrick was receiving a transfusion while we were there. She said he gets 8 mls. I laughed, and said geez, we give a cat like 20 mls. That is how little he is. He is on a different kind of ventilator. It is called an oscillating vent.  The best was to describe what it looks like is this. Do you remember the exercise machine that women would stand in, and it would shake their butt? That is what it reminds me of. It basically shakes his chest to help him breath. The regular vent only goes up to 60 breaths per minute, but this one goes faster. It shakes his lungs to get them to take more breaths. She said that it is common to go on this machine, sometimes they need it for a day, sometimes more.  She said he was doing well on this. He was started at 40% oxygen I think, and he was down to 25%. Room air is 20, so we were happy with that. He did have sedation on board because it annoys them, and they don't like to be shaken. He also lost a little weight, he is now 1 lb 1 oz.  He was on a insulin drip. His glucose was a little high.  I let the nurse know to prepare herself now.  He is going to give her a run for her money if he starts to improve, haha. 

We will head over today and get some new info.  We made it through the night without any phone calls, so I am pleased!

The Beginning

Hi everyone! For those of you who don't know, I delivered the twins on Tuesday, July 19th. I was only 24 weeks at the time, and was going to the hospital for an injection of steroids for their lung development.  I was also going to be admitted to the hospital for bed rest until I delivered at 28 weeks. The boys, however, had other plans.  My water broke about an hour and a half after, and it was all a blur from there.  Brady Nathan (formerly known as Prince, just kidding, Baby A) was born at 11:28pm. He was 1 lb 9 oz and 12 1/4 inches. Patrick Jameson was born at 11:30pm (formally known as troublemaker. He was 1 lb 2 oz and 11 1/4 inches. ) They are at Broward General as of right now. They had to be transported individually by ambulance with a transport team over there.  If all goes well they will be in the NICU there until October, which was the original due date. They are on ventilators, and in incubators at this time. They will receive multiple blood transfusions through this process.  They do take donations from family and friends. I will put a link on the side to the blood centers. I know a lot of you have expressed interest in helping, and we appreciate all of it. I will be posting here everyday with updates on them.  We have been trying to give everyone updates as we go but it is so hard to text so much on our phones. Please forgive us! So, we will let you know as we know, and put pictures up too! They said it is going to be a long road, ups and downs. They said not to be surprised if they go downhill sometimes, and other days they are great. So keep your fingers crossed, and pray for them! We appreciate all the love and support everyone has given us. We have heard lots of good stories with great outcomes, so keep them coming. The doctors said that the problems they are having are "normal" for the weight, size, and situation that they are in, so it is to be expected. They said that considering, they are stable, and handling it the best they can. Hopefully they are little fighters!  Thanks everyone!

Here are pics from the first night after delivery
                                                                         Brady

                                                                         Patrick