Home at last! Home at last!

It is a red letter day. Kate-Lyn was able to come today at last after 16 days. Young Dominic is hopefully not too far behind. He is getting better at drinking from a bottle and is not having as many reflux problems.

We still have to take a few precautions with Kate. Not too many visitors for a least three weeks so that she can build up her immune system.

Kate-Lyn home today

At last Kate-Lyn has nothing attached to her. She is so perfect. She is such a cutie pie. We are looking forward to having her home soon.
Look Ma no tubes or drips! 

Christmas at the hospital 

Merry Christmas everyone
Heres wishing everyone a blessed and peaceful Christmas. May your day be filled with all the joy that is in ours. Two beautiful new babies and a healthy and happy family.

Don't all pig out on the gammon. Mike Brown I am missing the smell of the turkey being gently cooked in the Weber. Strange to be having Christmas in Jhb this year. We will celebrate with a Brown Bomber a little later.


Emma's present from Audra.

And Citroen makes three. We got our new car today. A 2.0 HDI Citroen Picaso. Three proper seats in the back for you know who! What a pleasure it is to drive a new car again. We got a great trade in on the Hyundai. Much better than we were expecting. As soon as Laurie can drive again I suspect that I am going to have to pry the keys from her to get a chance to drive it. Trips down to Durban are going to be such a pleasure.

Merry Christmas Laurie. 

Flowers, flowers everywhere. This is just a few samples of the pretty flowers we have been sent. Thank you everyone - the Folks, Graham and Jenny, Chris and Audra, Novell, Business Objects, Helen and Alastair.

Flowers from the folks. 

Flowers from Novell 

Dominic 21 December 

Kate-Lyn 21 December 

Kate-Lyn 20 December 

Dominic 20 December 

Laurie's second day out of ICU and looking much better. All the remaining tubes were taken out this morning. Laurie is alot more mobile. The doc is still concerned about her blood pressure. He does not know what to give her because it will effect her milk. Laurie should be home tomorrow.

Dominic and Kate-Lyn continue to improve and get bigger. Dominic is now under an oxygen dome. We can finally see his face properly.

Dominic 17 December 

Kate-Lyn 17 December 

We bought these great little bears for the twins. It makes the ICU a little bit more personal and like home. The nurses looking after these guys are really great and they really care for them.

Kate-Lyn 16 December 

Dominic 16 December 

Day 2

I saw Laurie this morning and she is doing better. They are going to
keep her in ICU for a day longer.

Her lung capacity has been diminished. Probably due to spending 4 weeks
on her back in hospital. She has to do some exercises to help stretch
the lungs. She is still retaining fluids. They are not giving her any
medication yet in the hope that it will clear itself up. Hopefully that
will happen in the next 24hrs.

The twins are looking really well. They will try and feed them today.
Dominic is being given some extra oxygen but is still breathing on his own.

Laurie has given me a great office chair for my study. Kathy has given
me the box set of the Die Hard movies. Excellent! Bronwyn bought me a
movie guide book for 2005 and the folks bought me Hits 37 which has some
new music that I can listen to in the car.

I have decided to buy myself a new car radio / CD player. The radio in
my car is just so old and often I can not get decent reception. So I am
going to splash out. From Dad to Dad;-).

Kate-Lyn 15 December 

Kate-Lyn Amy Jones 

Dominic Michael Leon Jones 

Twins are born today

I had 5 weeks of stress compressed into one day. Laurie called me on the way to work to tell me that Dr G had decided that today was the day. The C section was planned for 12:15 but only happened at about 13:30.

Dominic was born at 14:05 and Kate-Lyn at 14:07. I was very brave and managed to sit through the whole thing. The twins were small but a good colour. Dominic came out screaming, Kate-Lyn not so much. He was 1.9kgs and she was 1.85kgs. They both went to ICU straight away.

I only got to see them about 2 hours later. The peads doctor is fairly happy with them. Although they are small they are breathing on their own. Dominic is getting a little help with some oxygen being pushed up his nose. Neither are being ventilated which is a good thing.

One can not take a flattering picture of a baby in ICU but I have included them anyway. They have soo much growing to do. They will probably only come out of ICU on the 8 January.

In the meantime Laurie was admitted to ICU herself. Her blood pressure was high, she was not passing liquids the way she should have been and she was 'oozing' from the operation - probably due to the high blood pressure.

When I was able to visit Laurie in ICU she was hooked up to every medical device. She was drugged up to the eye balls so I wasn't able to speak to her much. By the time I left at 8 'o clock her blood pressure was starting to drop. They were still worried about her fluids. I guess Laurie just needs some time to recover from carrying the twins. I am hoping that she will get a good nights rest tonight and feel better in the morning.

I am dead on my feet right now and not quite sure where I am getting the strength to type this out. So many ups and downs today.

I have gotten a great birthday present today. Two pretty health babies. I can hopefully enjoy the day tomorrow with the knowledge that Laurie is OK.

What a stressful week. On Thursday Laurie had a scan. The Doc was concerned about the size of the twins. According to the scan they were only 1.9Kgs each. That surprised us because Laurie has grown so much while she has been in hospital. Laurie said that he had a hard time doing the scan. The twins are sooo packed in that it was hard to get a good reading. Dr G said that the scanning equipment can be out by as much as 500g. He later said to Laurie that he had re-looked at the scan and he was very happy with the head circumference.

Since then Laurie just seems to be getting more uncomfortable. She has had a sharp pain in her chest. The doc says it is the babies are pushing all her organs upwards. Sounds like fun.

She has been in hospital for 31 days now. Boy it would be good to have her home soon.

We are hoping that Laurie can be home for Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed!

Laurie dilating

Good news. It looks like we are going to have some action soon. Doc is going to keep Laurie on the drip a day longer because ICU is full! He will then start to wean Laurie off the drip and replace with the tablet form of ?Iprodol? Hopefully this week the twins will be born. Laurie is in her 35^th week. The babies are over 2kg’s so keep your fingers crossed that they do not have to go into ICU for too long.

The more things change the more they stay the same

Laurie found out yesterday that she will have to stay in hospital for another two weeks. Needless to say she is not too pleased. The doc does not want to deliver until she is 36 weeks. Not sure what he will say then.

 

It is getting rather depressing not having Laurie at home. Emma is doing well and Kathy and I are doing our best to keep her in her routine. Laurie’s mom has been a God send. She has been so helpful, even if she is spoiling Emma somewhat. What are grandparents for?