A little home time

On Tuesday, January 13th, our whole family was finally home! On Friday, Amelia's MRI results came back without any signs of damage. Once they had weaned her off the IV nutrients, and determined she could regulate her own temperature, she got to go home. She actually put on some weight during her hospital stay with all of the nutrients they were giving her, so she came home noticeably bigger and plumper than her sister. Her only remaining issue is a little anemia from the blood loss, so she is on an iron supplement and is a little paler than her sister. We thought we'd have trouble telling them apart, but with their unique weights and skin tones we think the difference is obvious! They are also beginning to demonstrate their different personalities to us. Eloise loves to sleep and snuggle, and Amelia is alert and interested in interacting with us and the world.

Tuesday was also a homecoming for our cat, Lily. Lily had been acting sick, and got much worse after we came home with Eloise. She crashed rapidly the night before her scheduled vet visit, and by the time she got to the doctor she was close to dying. As we were waiting to find out Amelia's MRI results, our vet was giving us the option of putting our cat to sleep or doing extensive testing to figure out if she could be treated. We opted for tests and treatment, and after determining that Lily was suffering from a terrible bacterial infection, the vet inserted chest tubes, put her in an oxygen tent, and treated her with fluids, antibiotics, and painkillers until her infection was under control. Poor Lily and Amelia were both in intensive care units with all kinds of tests and tubes going on. Our little fighter kitty responded well, and was able to come home 5 days later shaved and sad, but on the mend. We are very grateful to our friend Krisana for taking her to the vet and watching out for her, and to Toni for giving her special care while at the vet.

Now that everyone is home, we're learning what life is like with newborn twins - crazy. Before they came home, everyone said that the advantage of having twins and no other kids is that you don't know how much harder you have it because you have no point of comparison. Though delighted to have Eloise with us, we also gained an unfortunate comparison point - we know that two is much harder! We have been working hard to try to get them on the same schedule, and to try to find a way for their moms to get some sleep! Thank goodness for all the great help we've gotten from friends and Christine's mom.

Meanwhile, the girls seem to be changing every day! Both girls are still pretty sleepy, but have been having more alert and crying time each day (particularly Amelia on the crying). They definitely like to look around and check out faces. They seem to be noticing and reacting to each other a little - we even caught them touching hands once in the crib!

We have finally got around to posting more pictures - check out our birth & homecoming album! If you haven't already picked a time to come by and visit, please do so. We'd love to see you and we're eager to introduce our little ones to all of our friends and loved ones.