Logan and Emma meet their Memaw

Saturday June 27th, 2009
Logan and Emma got to meet their Memaw today. She is their 95 year old Great Grandmother who unfortunately has Alzheimers. It was amazing to see her light up when those babies came into the room. She was a totally different person! Bless her heart though, if she asked once, she asked a hundred times who's babies those were, if they were twins, etc. Alzheimers is such a sad disease and it breaks my heart that the babies and I do not get to know the Memaw that I've heard all the great stories about.

Here are some great pictures of Memaw with Logan and Emma:

Here's a good 4 generation picture of Logan and Emma, Tony, Mike and Memaw:

Logan and Emma meet Amelia

Thursday June 25th, 2009

Jen and her Mom brought Amelia out to my house to visit. It was great to meet Jen's precious little girl. She is absolutely adorable! It seems like just yesterday Jen and I were talking about wanting to get pregnant, and here we are now hanging out together with our babies. It's amazing what a difference a year can make! I can't wait until I can get out more with the babies, so Jen and I can meet for lunch, shopping (at Target, of course) or a nice stroll in the park.

Aunt Trisha's outfits

Here are Emma and Logan in the cute outfits with the stuffed animals that their Aunt Trisha made them:

First Baths at Home

Logan and Emma's first baths at home went suprisingly well. Not many tears - they were pretty calm and happy as long as we kept warm water on them. We snuggled them up in their cute little hooded towels afterwards.

Nap Time

3 Weeks Old

Emma and Logan relaxing in their bouncy seats......

First Doctor's Appointment

Friday June 19th, 2009

We were instructed by the Neonatologist when Logan and Emma were released from the NICU to take them in a week for their first visit to the pediatrician. Both of them were weighed and had their temperatures, length and head circumference taken by the nurse. Dr. Cade then met with us and checked them both out. They both looked great!

Emma was up to 6lbs 4oz and Logan was 7lbs 30z.

Here's a few pictures of them all dressed up and acting silly! They were really cracking me up!

Babies are coming home!

Thursday June 11th, 2009

After a long two weeks in the NICU, we thought that it would be at least another week before they'd be able to come home. They still had to be able to take a bottle during all 8 of their feedings and not need their feeding tube at all. Our main concern with bringing Emma home was that her SATs dropped while she ate. This is the saturation level of oxygen in her blood stream. She was basically forgetting to breath while she ate (the suck, swalllow and breathe is a difficult task for preemies) and she would turn a bluish, grey around her mouth. That was very scary for Mom and Dad since we wouldn't have the comfort of the monitor to look at when we got her home. Luckily she started to improve towards the middle of the week and we became more comfortable at recognizing the signs and were able to slow her feeding down before her SATs dropped.

We got the call on Wednesday morning, June 10th, from the nurse at the NICU. She said that the Neonatologist was ready to release the babies and that we needed to schedule our "rooming in" for Thursday night. OMG! The babies are coming home! We were so excited and nervous all at the same time. We did not think they would be coming home before the following Monday, so we had to scramble a little to make sure we were ready for them on Friday when we brought them home. We also had to bring their car seats to the NICU sometime that day in order for them to test the babies while they were still hooked up to the monitors to make sure they'd be able to tolerate the ride home. They passed with flying colors.

We got to the hospital Friday night at about 9pm and had to watch a CPR video and show the nurse that we understood the video and could perform infant CPR if necessary. The babies were then loaded up in their little cribs (clear plastic bins) on carts which had all their goodies that we might need during the night - diapers, formula, wipes, etc. and we were off to our room.

It was a super tiny room - with only enough space for a double bed, glider, and sink. It wasn't the Ritz Carlton, but it served it's purpose :) Tony and I were up with them every three hours to feed them, change their diapers and then I would pump. The babies did awesome and I guess so did we, since they let us bring them home on Friday! LOL!

We met with the doctor at about noon to go over our discharge instructions. She said the babies were in pefect health and should have no long term effects from being born early and being on the C-PAP machine and oxygen, so that was a huge relief! We were told to schedule an appointment with their pediatrician in a week. Emma's weight was 5lbs 8oz and Logan's was 6 lbs 2oz. After our meeting with the doctor, we loaded up all their "goodies" and put them in their carseats and we headed out for our first car ride home. It was an emotional goodbye, but we were so glad to finally be bringing them home.

NICU

Since Emma and Logan were born 7 weeks early, they had to spend 2 1/2 weeks in the NICU. I was able to see them as much as I wanted the first few days while I was still in the hospital recovering from my c-section. I was very sad when they released me because I had to leave without my babies.

Since my water broke early without any warning and there was no fluid left around Emma, we did not have the time to do the two rounds of steriods to help lung development and they had to perform the emergency c-section. Since their lungs were not developed properly, they both had to wear the c-pap machine in order to give them some extra oxygen to keep their lungs inflated. Logan was able to get off of his after about a day or so. It took Emma a little longer - she had to wear the c-pap for about a week and then another few days of just straight oxygen through a little tube in her nose. She sure was a fighter.

They both were a little jaundiced and had to spend a day in their "tanning bed" wearing the cutest little shades to protect their eyes.
They had to be fed through a tube only for the first few days and then were were able to start feeding them one bottle a day. The nurses were so nice and coordinated their bottle feedings for when I was up there to visit the babies. They were both hooked up to all kinds of wires to measure their heart rate, oxygen levels, etc. It made picking them up and feeding them very difficult, but there were no amount of wires to keep us from holding our little ones!
I was able to visit the babies twice a day - once in the morning and once in the evening during their time in the NICU. The nursing staff was awesome, so I knew they were in good hands, but it sure didn't make it any easier leaving each time. Since I wasn't able to drive for the first two weeks, it made it very difficult because I had to rely on people to drive me there and back. Our friends and family were so great to help out! Even though that was probably the toughest 2 1/2 weeks of my life, it did give me some time to recover from my surgery and prepare for the babies to come home.

Here's a few other pictures of the babies while they were in the NICU:

Recap

Okay, so I've been a very bad blogger! I'm going to do several posts to try and recap the past 7 weeks since the babies were born. Yesterday (July 13th) was actually my official due date - and the babies were 7 weeks old - I can't believe it! They are just the most precious babies a Mom could ask for! I will try to do a better job of keeping up with the blog :)

Happy Birthday Emma and Logan!

Monday May 25th, 2009

Memorial Day 2009 seemed like just another day. Tony and Michael went to pick up Stephanie from her house and Thomas and I went grocery shopping for our Memorial Day cookout. We had Hot Dogs and all the fixings for lunch and then all sat down to watch the movie "Taken." We planned to go to the Littons house for dinner, so after the movie around 5:00 or so, I went upstairs to finish getting ready so we could leave.

After I used the restroom, I was standing in our bathroom in front of the sink and out of nowhere - my water broke! Talk about a shock! I started freaking out and ran to the bedroom door and called out to Thomas - I told him to go tell his Dad that my water just broke and to tell him that I said I wasn't kidding. A few seconds later, Tony came running into the bathroom. Needless to say, I was SCARED! I had to change my clothes and grab some extra towels, but then we were off to the hospital.

I think Tony broke several laws on the trip to the hospital, but we made it. Luckily I was not having any contractions or pain. Once at the hospital, they wheeled me up to Labor and Delivery and admitted me, hooked me up to several monitors and started an IV. Dr. Moss was on call, so they let her know what was going on. We met with Dr. Moss when she arrived and since I was only 33 weeks, she was hoping we could hold off doing my c-section for at least 24 hours, so we could do 2 rounds of steroids to help develop the babies lungs. After doing an ultrasound, she discovered that I had lost pretty much all the amniotic fluid around Emma and said that in her opinion it was not worth the risk to hold off on delivering the babies.

So, before I had time to get nervous or scared, I was being wheeled back to the O.R. and got my spinal. Tony had the video camera during the delivery - I can't wait to watch it. I remember most of it - I remember Emma and Logan being born and Dr. Moss showing them to me over the curtain. At 8:15, Emmalee Grace Cortez was born at 5lb 2.7 oz. At 8:16, Logan Vincent Cortez was born weighing in at 5 lbs 6 oz. They were both 18 1/4 inches long. They were both rushed off the NICU. Only three hours afer my water broke, the babies were delivered - talk about a whirlwind!

I fell asleep towards the end of the surgery and remember waking up to a lot of visitors in my recovery room. They had given me some anti naseau medicine in my IV during the delivery to make me sleepy because I had eaten Hot Dogs for lunch only a few hours earlier :) Trying to prevent me from getting sick! Luckily it worked! I was in and out of it the rest of the night and into the next morning - I was getting some good pain meds in my IV! I remember Tony asking me to read over something from the NICU and I read the 1st and 2nd item on the list and fell asleep - that happened several times - because I couldn't keep from nodding off!

Well, that's the story of how Emma and Logan made their grand appearance into this world! They sure gave Mommy and Daddy a big scare and had to spend some time in the NICU - I'll post a recap of the past three weeks soon.

Here are pictures of our precious babies:

31 Week Belly Pic

Here's a new belly picture taken today -31 weeks and 4 days. Less than 45 days left before these babies arrive!

30 Week Doctor's Appointment

I had my 30 week doctor's appointment last week (May 7th). It was a fairly short appointment. We met one of the other doctors in the practice (Dr. Moore). Tony didn't make the best first impression because as we were walking back to the nurse's office he made a comment about the office next door. He said "Man, someone really needs to clean their office!" - and of course, Dr. Moore was standing right behind him - LOL! It was her office! Luckily she has a good sense of humor and laughed it off.

They did the FFN (fetal fibronectin) test on me to check to see if there is a certain protein present that might indicate I'm at risk for pre-term labor. Luckily the results were negative which means that I should not go into labor within the next two weeks!

The doctor also "checked" me for the first time - yikes! Again, all good news there - no dilation and cervix was fully closed. She also checked the babies' heartbeats and they were both normal. Nothing at all to indicate a need for bed rest or any other restrictions. Very succesful appointment!

My next appointment is May 21st and that will be with my regular doctor (Dr. McGowan). They will perform another FFN test and do an Ultrasound to check the babies. Hopefully everything is still looking good!

One More Baby Shower!

I've been so behind this past week on updating the BLOG with what's been going on. I had my final baby shower on Saturday May 2nd. The guests at this shower were my c0-workers and a few other friends. I definitely want to give special thanks to both Anna and Wendi. Anna hosted the shower at her house and made some super cute decorations - including her famous "diaper cake"! Anna's husband brought food from his restaurant (Blue Coast Burrito), so we had a Cinco De Mayo theme going - and since I LOVE Mexican food, it was perfect! I want to thank Wendi as well for all her hard work in co-hosting the shower. The food and desserts were incredible and I couldn't have asked for a better shower! I also want to say how excited I was that my good friend Jen was able to make it to the shower! She is also pregnant and has had some complications but luckily was released from bed rest the week before the shower! It meant a lot to have her there - and she also brought my favorite dessert - chocolate covered strawberries! :) Yummy!

Everyone that came was so generous and I received lots of cute baby gifts! I work with a great group of ladies - and for that I will always been grateful! I've been with Greenvale for over 5 years and I have developed some very strong and lasting friendships. I can't wait for them to meet our newest additions to the family!

3D Ultrasound

On Thursday, Tony and I went and had a 3D Ultrasound done so we could get a preview of Emma and Logan. It was really an amazing experience.

Here is our precious litte girl -

Here is our handsome little man -

Here's a few more shots of each of them:

http://s499.photobucket.com/albums/rr360/jcortez2157/?albumview=grid