Thursday, April 28, 2016

Twins' Birth And Last Four Months

Well the twins will be four months old in just a few days and I've been meaning to write a post about their birth and homecoming for about three and half months! But as you can imagine life as been a little busy at our house. We've had kinda of a crazy four months with lots of surprises along the way which I will also briefly explain in this post.

The boys were born on December 31st, 2015 (6 weeks early) in Pensacola. We got to see them pretty quickly after they were born.  Ezra weighted 4 lbs 9 ounces and Everett weighted 4 lbs 2 ounces. They were admitted to the NICU to be monitored immediately.  Everett was on oxygen and a feeding tube for less than 24 hours and Ezra took a bottle right away and was just monitored.  They both progressed really fast and were discharged in less than a week!
 
During their hospital stay we got to know their brave birthmomma more and loved on her as much as we could.  Once they were discharged we were able to meet some of her family and take pictures of the boys with her.  We already cherish those pictures and know they will be important to the babies someday. We are beyond thankful that we have an open adoption and are able to stay in contact with their birthmom.  It is such a gift to have a relationship with her not only for the boys but for us.

We found on January 12 that both Florida and Wisconsin cleared us to go home.  So we bought tickets for the following day and said an emotional goodbye to their birthmom. But we will visit her again!

Not even a full week after we got home Everett ended up being admitted to the NICU in Duluth because he was having trouble breathing and would actually stop breathing.  He ended up having RSV and was in for three days. It was a scary experience but so thankful for the people God has in our lifes to help with our other kiddos and support us.  He did end up in the PICU in February for the same kinds of issues but was not quite as severe.

In the beginning of February Ezra had a ABR hearing test as a follow up for failing his newborn hearing screening in Florida.  We honestly didn't think much of the appointment as we were told not to worry its very common for preemies to fail and usually everything is normal. So we were shocked when the test showed Ezra has severe-profound hearing loss in both ears. He has already had some tests and has more coming up to see if the hearing loss is connected to anything else.  So far he has had a urine test which everything came back clear for and an ekg which has to be redone cause he wouldn't lay still hehe.  His next appointment will be at the U of  M Lions Pedatric Hearing and ENT Clinic in Minneapolis where he will have an MRI and another ABR and EKG.  Then we will have an appointment with the ENT to discuss the results.  We are also waiting on the genetics testing which takes quite a while to process. I wanted to write about this because many have already seen Ezra with hearing aids and have questions.  They are basically trial hearing aids as there's a big chance they won't work.  Another thing the ENT wanted checked was his eyes since its common to have eye issues with hearing loss.  Today he got his first pair of glasses. It might a be temporary thing or could be permanent. But we are already seeing a difference in how he responds and plays with us just in the last few hours! Lots more smiles as he can see us more clearly!

So...what does this mean? What's our plan? We do not fully know yet. We will find out more after his next round of testing and then we will have lots of decisions to make and just like any child will continue to make decisions we feel are best for him after lots of prayer.  We are Super excited that we just got signed up for a program called Deaf Mentors and will be learning American Sign Language! We have been using some basic signs with both babies like milk, mom, and dad.  At just four months Ezra knows what it means when we sign milk.  He instantly wants his bottle! Anyways...we ask for prayer for discernment as we make decisions and start a new journey for our family.  We may not have known about Ezra's hearing loss til the test but God knew and He placed Ezra and Everett in our family. We are So thankful for the joy they are both bringing and for the gift of life their birthmom chose for them.