Grateful

I can't believe we made it through our first week! It went by so slowly it feels like it's been a month, but as I recover from the delivery and am getting my health and strength back (too slowly for my taste!!) it will get easier... I hope. The boys are still hanging in there - not really making progress but at the same time not battling anything really serious. At this stage, we are praying for the "big four," which are:
1. Regulating their own body temperature
2. Being able to take feedings by mouth instead of tube
3. No heart rate decels or apneas (breathing stops)
4. Consistent weight gain.

Levi has taken a couple feedings at least partially by mouth, but he has been spitting up quite a bit so they put him back on the tube feedings to cut back on his gas. Micah still can't quite figure out the whole sucking/swallowing/breathing thing, and if he does give a few sucks, he generally just chokes and spits it all out. They tried opening their incubators for a few hours, but neither were able to stay warm, and since they were losing a bit of weight they decided not to have them waste calories staying warm when they need to grow and gain weight. So, we are 0 for 4 at this point, but it's only been a week so that is not surprising. Micah also has a terrible diaper rash from the fortifier they put in his milk, so he spends his days with his bare bum in the air, poor little guy. The skin has completely come off and it just oozes blood... ouch!!!! Overall, the doctors say they are doing well, though, and that we just have to be patient and let their little bodies catch up.

As tired and overwhelmed as I get, I can't help but be grateful as I watch the dramas unfold in the babies around us. Watching parents cry when the doctors tell them there's nothing more they can do, seeing a mom hold her baby's hand for potentially the last time before they take her away for a risky surgery, hearing a baby wail in pain for hours even while on morphine... it's a highly emotionally charged atmosphere to say the least. I can't help but wonder what we could have faced if the boys had been born when they originally thought, five weeks sooner than they were. There is another set of identical twin boys with a similar condition as ours, born at 28 weeks, and they are on their third month in the NICU and struggling with many health challenges, some probably long-term. I know God would have given us grace, but I can't help but be thankful He chose to spare us the pain I've seen the other parents go through.