I'm Gonna Need a Bigger Bed!

Emma at 7 months

Each night before I crawl my weary bones into bed I walk down the hall and peek in on Emmabug. I love how she sleeps with her arms spread out and her little lips are puckered and soft. Sometimes I find her with her feet on her pillow or her stuffed animals covering her head. I gently rearrange her, kiss her on the head and leave her to her dreams. As I walk the hall to my room I stop in Katelyn's nursery. It's been finished for 3 months. There is new bedding in the crib and a picture my grandmother painted is hanging on the wall. Her name is displayed on a shelf and there are pretty purple flowers everywhere. I sometimes sit in the rocking chair and try to imagine myself holding her for a midnight feeding and singing her back to her dreams. It's hard not to cry even though I know she is warm and safe in her incubator surrounded by medical staff. I regain my composure and head to my bedroom to snuggle in my hubby's big arms. Bedtime is my favorite part of the day. I love to have quiet time to talk to hubby and tease him. I feel like we are newlyweds again with no worries. Colt likes to let Bear jump up on the bed but Bear always snuggles on my pillow and leaves behind his stinky hair. Colt thinks it's funny. I get back at Colt by putting a fake spider under his covers while he is brushing his teeth. When he comes to bed and pulls the covers back he screams like a girl and I can barely breathe I am laughing so hard. Laughter has been rare at our house recently and it feels so good to be myself and feel it burst through my throat.

On Saturday mornings I try to sleep in as much as I can. This morning Emma crawled into our bed at around 7am. She snuggled up to me and we fell back to sleep. Before Colt and Emma woke up I lay there thinking how great it felt to be surrounded by two of my three favorite people. Emma's feet were in my hip and Colt was snoring gently in my ear and I loved it. Despite all the joy that was creeping up on me I couldn't help but wonder how my precious Katie slept all by herself. When Colt and I went to see her last night She was so cute resting with her arm covering her head. I mentioned to Colt how she sleeps like him and that it is therapeutic for preemies to have their hands by their face. He said it was therapeutic for him too. I asked why and he responded with a straight face that his arms were so big it made him feel like a tough guy. Oh Brother! Even in the NICU with machines and beeps around laughter seems to find us. It feels good. I was looking around Mini's bed and noticed her feeding was in the pump but the pump wasn't running. Katelyn is getting about an ounce of milk every two hours. She is too small to take a bottle so she has a tiny tube down her throat to her tummy that her feedings are administered through. To try and keep her from bloating they run her feedings over the 2 hours. I asked her night nurse if the feeding I saw was being prepped for 8:30 which was in about 15 minutes and she said she just noticed it and she needed to ask the nurse practitioner if it was stopped. Mini has been having trouble with her feedings because of some extra protein they've been giving her to help her grow. The past week while trying to fortify her feedings with extra calories she has been throwing up. You can't gain weight if you throw up. Katie has only gained 10 grams in the last week. That just isn't going to work, neither is a lazy nurse forgetting to push start on a pump. I worry that she is never going to make it past the 2 pound mark. Maybe when I go see her today I can convince the nurse practitioner to stop the protein and switch her to formula. I need her to gain weight and come home so I have an excuse to get a King size bed. I need to be able to fit a Hubby, an 80 lb German Shepherd, a princess and a tiny miracle all snuggled around me on Saturday mornings.