Smile Too Much

All is good in the neighborhood.  The kids had another good day.  And the parents, with a little help from two super-aunties, made some progress on readying the home.

Lucas enjoyed another day of quiet kangaroo care with mom.  He is doing extremely well on his high-flow nasal cannula, spending his time completely on room air and mostly and maximum oxygen saturation.  And, during rounds with the new attending doctor, who seems fabulous and will now be taking care of the kids for the next couple weeks, we learned that Lucas will be ready next week to try his hand, or I guess lips, at breast-feeding.  We've heard many different stories about how this process will work--maybe breast first, maybe bottle first, a little of both, definitely a speech therapist.  My favorite part of the new doctor was she said, oh, we'll just put him to breast first and see what happens.  I mean, she said, we should give nature the first shot, right?  Fabulous.

Olivia continues her slow but steady progress.  Over the nurse's objections, we tried to have her out today as well.  Really, Olivia is doing fine.  Her temperature recovered, and they went ahead and removed her picc line last night.  She is officially on full feeds, and she is doing a great job gaining weight.  All great news.  She was continuing to desat a bit, though she was no worse while being held than while being in her crib.

Nevertheless, the nurse insisted on putting Olivia back in her crib after only a few minutes.  While I like to think I trust their judgment, let's just say some nurses are nicer about the way they handle us than others.  Because I only have so much patience, or maybe it's emotional energy, I chose not to fight with the nurse.  Some nurses have different comfort levels, and are willing to try harder to make everyone happy, but them's the breaks when we're not in charge.  One of the many challenges of the nicu is that the enjoyment of your visit can often depend on the attitude of the nurse.  And way more often than not, we have had fantastic nurses.  Fabulous really.  Easily the smartest, kindest, most caring medical professionals I have ever had the privilege to be around.  But sometimes we get grumpy ones, with whom it can feel like they treat the nicu more like a job than our lives.  I was taught the grumpy ones are the ones we should appreciate even more.  When we say daily prayers with the kids, we make sure they say a prayer of thanksgiving for all the kind doctors and nurses who are taking care of them.  Part of that lesson is to say a special prayer for the ones who don't act the way you want them to.  

But I digress, probably because I was taught it is important to share frustrations as well as successes.

Back to successes, though, huh.  Two of my sisters are visiting this weekend.  They are awesome.  They've descended on us and provided what feels like ten extra sets of hands.  Our freezer is now full of many ready-made, home-cooked meals.  Here they are in action in our kitchen:

They ran errands with us.  They make us laugh.  They make the challenging parts of this life lighter.  And it seems like they magically created more time in the day, allowing us to tick off some to-do items that had been sitting for a little while.  For example, Lucas and Olivia officially have a crib to sleep in (if they're lucky, tomorrow we'll set up the second one too):

And my favorite, unlike, say, a grumpy nurse, they make it exceedingly clear that they are here to serve us, that we are not to worry about them, that we should just concentrate on making sure we ask for everything we need.  I look forward to the day we get to repay the favor, not only to them, but to another batch of new parents in need.  The smiles of help can be contagious.