183 Days Later

The girls turned 6 months today. In some ways it seems like a long time ago since my mind works hard to forget the stressful days while Kristina was in the hospital and then the girls were in the NICU. Thankfully, the NICU days seem long gone. In other ways time has flown by. Going to work and helping parent 3 kiddos when I'm home does not create much boredom. In that sense, time has zipped by and so it seems the twins cannot possibly have already traveled half way around the sun.

In many respects the girls have come quite far. Never mind the feat of just getting out of the NICU without crazy major complications. Clara has reduced her oxygen needs faster than anticipated. With the help of the physical therapist's weekly visits and Kristina's uber-mom diligence with therapy, the therapist is already seeing good progress as the girls attempt to catch up to their peers. It is also nice to have a therapist around to look for some of the subtle signs of neurological damage (she hasn't noted any) and to observe that the girls are hitting milestones roughly together (they have). At this point the girls are relatively healthy, are gaining weight well, and are mostly happy babies. They are even starting to crack a little bit of a laugh now.

Still, there have been enough scares to stay a bit cynical. Perhaps my memory is poor, but it seems like when Alex hit a milestone, he grasped it fairly quickly. For the girls, milestones seem harder to judge as they develop gradually. And Clara has hit a bit of a wall with her oxygen. We were hoping she would be off oxygen by now, but some experiments removing oxygen from Clara as she tries to sleep have failed (though she is so very close). A little coughing fit doesn't strike fear anymore, but receives a lingering raised eyebrow of worry. I'm grateful for the progress already made and ecstatic to see the girls' little faces light up when they see me in the morning an again when I come home from work (they are happy babies). However, there is still a constant undercurrent of concern.

I'm curious to see what the next 183 days will bring.