A Somber, yet Joyous Anniversary

Today is exactly one year to the day that I went into pre-term labor. We "celebrated" with the following thought: If Dr. Hartford and the amazing nurses hadn't done such an awesome job, today might have been either Gracie and Luke's first birthday, or a very sad day remembering babies that once were. It's a sobering thought, but to make it happy, we had a very busy day.

We took Gracie and Luke for their 9 month check up. Gracie is 15 lbs, 2 oz and Luke is 16 lbs, 13 oz. They are both up 3 lbs in the last 3 months, but are just barely on the curve. I think our biggest percentage was Luke's head! He's in the 5th percentile for his age. Dr. A is very impressed with Gracie's crawling and, not to be out done, Luke decided to crawl forward about 8 inches to impress Dr. A (aka his girlfriend). They were very cranky after their immunizations, but we forged on to visit Dr. Hartford (our OB).

At Dr. Hartford's office, we delivered 2 of Eddie's pecan pies and a card thanking him for making our 9 month check up possible. He looked stunned, but happy that we came. I gave him a card with a very long "thank you." That night one year ago, my Dr. Hartford stayed with me until 2 am, making sure the nurses in L&D took care of me and monitored me closely. He was there when I was admitted to the Perinatal High Risk Unit and was put on IV Magnesium Sulfate. For the next 12 + weeks, he visited me in the High Risk ward. His conservative treatment and straightforward personality helped me keep my babies growing inside until 35 weeks 6 days.

After letting Luke flirt with Dr. Hartford's nurses, off we went to visit the nurses at the High Risk Unit. There, we delivered Eddie's Rustic Apple pies and Toffee Cranberry cookies. We saw several of the nurses who took care of me and some of the PAs as well. In addition to my OB, the nurses in the High Risk Unit held my hand, encouraged me, talked me down off of the ceiling when I had a bad day of too many contractions, made me laugh, brought me shredded wheat when I was craving it and my Eddie was in another hospital room recovering from surgery.

While we were there, we met up with another lady who had had a very long stay in the High Risk Unit along with me. She brought her twin boys and we had fun trying to get them to smile. James and Jonathan are adorable.



The Twinsies were not too excited about all of the transferring into and out of the car seats, but in the end, we felt like we had done what we set out to do:
Say Thank You to those who made our 9 month check ups with the Twinsies possible. Instead of being their 1st birthday yesterday, it was just any other day to them. What a gift that is! We have so much to be thankful for today!