burping

Happy Thanksgiving

“Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 136)

These words leap to mind this Thanksgiving. Daily in life we have much to be thankful for. I am often annoyed with for how much I take God’s daily blessings for granted. I am surrounded by His blessings and mercies, and yet, often I only notice them when they go missing. And then it is all too easy to make the attitude one of, “how dare you let that be taken from me God” rather than a thankful attitude.
However, this Thanksgiving it is significantly easier to adopt a thankful attitude without having to work at it. In fact the thankfulness just seems to flow out. What I find particularly interesting is that the joy and thankfulness over the girls being home spreads out. It reminds me to be thankful for the “little” things as well.
Wouldn’t it be nice if these sorts of experiences lasted forever? If one didn’t become desensitized to the blessing, in this case of having his daughters at home, and have to continuously remind oneself to be thankful? But that’s not the way it works. Well, I’m still living on the high so who knows, maybe I’m wrong this time, but life has taught me that humans, by nature (myself included) easily forget to be thankful for the blessings their Creator/Savior/Sustainer has showered down upon them.

We need benchmarks. We need things in our life to remind us of those blessings.
A friend of mine talks about never realizing how great it is to be full until right after being very hungry. He actually likes being ridiculously, extremely hungry because “the food tastes better.” And let’s face it, he’s more appreciative.
I am sure that it is easier to be thankful in the midst of Parker’s long scream/cry/fuss periods because the girls didn’t come home with us, and because we worried we would never get to this point. That said, I really wouldn’t recommend having your children be born 14 weeks early just to teach yourself to be a more thankful person ;)
But as I was saying, we need benchmarks in life. Things we come back to that remind us to be thankful. Things that remind us to “Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.” I think we need to go out of our way to set up these benchmarks. They can be big things or little. I know for me, my wedding ring is a big one. It has always been a conscious reminder to me to remember to be thankful for my wife, to not take her for granted, nor the incredible blessing she is to me. However this experience has added meaning to my ring. Ever since I put it on Emma Jane’s arm it has become a reminder of where we started, and consequently, how far we have come. How merciful God has been to us during this whole experience.

I could go on and on but I fear I may be getting rambly quick. It has been a looong time since I last slept. This isn’t just because of the girls. We had an impromptu stop at the Emergency room last night. Not for the twins…for Mary Jane! She had a kidney stone. She has gotten them a few times over the years but this one was by far the biggest one she’s ever had, and of course with that fact comes the truth that this was by far the most painful one, and interestingly enough I think it was the quickest as well. Thankfully, she is doing well. Actually, Mary Jane and I were talking about it and we have a lot to be thankful about concerning the kidney stone. The last one she got was right before Mary Jane got pregnant. When they did their tests the doctors discovered she had a bunch just sitting in her kidney hanging out, one day to emerge and create their own particular brand of trouble. We were very concerned this might happen during the pregnancy which could have been very bad, but it didn’t. And while neither of us wanted the ER to be a part of our Thanksgiving we must admit it would be hard to find a better time for this to have happened. Nana and Pop are in town for Thanksgiving (Mary Jane’s mom and stepdad). Nana was able to take Mary Jane to the ER enabling me to be with the girls and make sure they were properly fed and everything that is currently going on with that. Then there was the concern about Church this morning (I was supposed to preach and once again my supervising pastor was out of town so there really wasn’t anyone around to take my place—if you know nothing about my vicarage other than this blog than you probably get the impression my supervising pastor is always out of town. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The guy never leaves town. He has tried to leave twice in any type of recent history. Both times things looked fine and secure and both times the Broge family decided to have a medical emergency. Go figure.) but then Mary Jane passed the kidney stone pretty quickly and got home in cheerful spirits just in time for me to get changed and over to the Church.
“Give thanks to the LORD, He is good; for his steadfast love endures forever”

We pray all of you have had a relaxing holiday. Know that all of you are on are list of things we are thankful for. Very high on the list in fact. Your prayers, comments on the blog, e-mails have meant the world to us. We are sorry that we haven’t been able to write back as much as we would like, but know that just jotting that quick e-mail, or writing that quick blog post, or stopping and saying that quick prayer, means the world to us.

Hmm…this got really long.
Well, maybe that makes up for missing a couple of days?

Blessings
The Broges

Sleep...where we're going we don't need sleep

nuff said

Squirmy

Have you ever tried to use a blood pressure cuff on a preemie to get their blood pressure? Me either, but I've watched Mary Jane do it a bunch of times and let me tell you...just as hard as you'd think. They get all squirmy and anxious about it, which, of course, raises their blood pressure, giving you a false reading and making the whole process mute. Luckily...I have a PNP (Pediatric Nurse Practitioner) in the house, so I really don't have to worry about it too much.

Tomorrow (Monday) we head back to the hospital. The girls get their next eye exam. Prayers that would go well, and that the girls would eat!!

In Christ,
the broges

Chapter Two: Home, home on the Nagel

...are often the beginnings of something else
Someone commented yesterday about the longest, scariest, slowest drive of their life being the one where they took their son home (paraphrased...not an exact quote). Well, yes and no. It wasn't the scariest. But it sure did seem to take forever. I just wanted to be at home with my girls (all three of them). After 12 weeks in the NICU every car on the road, every red light seemed to be a personal affront. The idea that we could get in a car accident never occurred to me. Perhaps I was just in too giddy and naive to think about the possibility, but while irony is a cruel cruel mistress which strikes at the worst moments it seemed too cruel even for irony.

By the time we got there the girls were zonked. Too much excitement for one day. Who can blame them?
So we put them to bed. Their bed.

All in all it was pretty near a perfect day. We ended it ...well..really late...or really early, depending on how you want to look at it...but happy.

"Give thanks the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever"

End Chapter One

So as those of you who read the last post now know...this was a busy day.
We've known it was going to be today for a little while now but have purposely been quiet about it. Mostly because it was never 100%. There were a million little things which could have kept us there. Chief, of late, was/is Emma Jane's whole hypertension issue. So we kept the day quiet so as to not have to turn around and say...oh yeah, it didn't happen.
We got to the hospital early this morning and were quite giddy. We fed them and then changed their clothes. Parker got her NG tube taken out, but not permanently. Mary Jane just really wanted some going home pictures where we could see their faces, and it was time to change it anyway, so Mary Jane figured, might as well go ahead and take it out. Mary Jane had purchased special out fits for the girls, so after we got them cleaned up we changed their clothes (in the process taking off all their wires!!! I have wire free babies!!! That old Pinocchio song "I've got no strings...has been running through my head non stop)


You can't see it in the picture, but the shirts say 2 petite pears. Which they are. After that it was mostly a matter of waiting for the discharge papers. We had a lot of visitors from other nurses as we were getting our stuff together. We've been their quite a while and the girls have managed to make some friends in the staff. The girls are ecstatic to being going home, but they are going to miss their excellent nurses.

Next it was time to get them into their car seats, along with their special going home in cold weather hat.
Funny thing about those hats. Cute as all get out, but way too big. We could probably comfortably fit them into hat if we tried putting them in feet first. Mary Jane found them on line and ordered the "preemie" size, but the designers of the hats must have had some giants as preemies. Cause I bet we could easily fit those hats onto a 20 pound baby, let alone a 5 pound one. YES that's right...I said 5 pounds!!! I have said it before...but I can never say it enough...mercy upon mercy

Then we put them into a wagon to wheel on out.

Course....there was time for a quick family photo

But not much...by this time Mary Jane and I were going out of our mind a bit. We were ready to take our kids home.

We left vowing never to return!

At least not until Monday when we have an appoint scheduled with the eye doctor. And then the next Monday when we see our pediatrician, and then we have an appointment with doctors to discuss Emma Jane's hypertension coming up, and then the regular preemie check up and...well...we'll be seeing a bunch of the hospital

But the key is we left. It took a long time to get here and there was a lot of prayer, support , and care that went into it from all of you. Thank you. We couldn't possibly say it enough. All the love you have shown us has meant a lot.

End Chapter One...

....course the funny thing about endings is...

Some last minute decorating

So we've had a last little bit of decorating that we wanted to do. Here you see part of a thing a friend made for us. It's fun and inviting for the girls.Here you see a sign which was made by someone in our small group and was used at their shower a couple weeks back. We thought it would be fun and inviting.

And then, as you can see, we had just a couple of other things which needed to be done.

The changes in this last picture might be a little subtle. I encourage you to look closely. Let's just say I will be blogging again tonight when I have a little more time.

Blessings.

A serious moment of a science

One of the basic distinguishing characteristics of mammals it that the females of the species produce milk.




Only humans freeze it.

"eye" 'm all stressed out

Mary Jane is censoring me on this one. I want to talk about how their eyes might pop out of their head at any moment. If they did, they would likely shoot out like tiny rockets across the room. She thinks I am being extreme. So I won't say that. Instead I will just tell you that the girls had another eye exam on Monday. We thought this would be the last one, cause they have done well on the others, however this one ended with more of a hmmmm then a looks good. When asked to explain that we were told they would really like to see their eyes again next Monday, because they are not developing quite as well as might be hoped. What does that mean? Heck if I know. Probably nothing. Cute coke bottle glasses are not guaranteed to be in their future because of this. (but dad is sure their eyeballs are set to go flying across the NICU.)

Meanwhile...the doctors are still trying to get a handle on Emma Jane's high blood pressure. They have her on a more long term drug now and have upped the frequency of the doses (though I think she is getting a smaller dose each time). This is something we want them to narrow in on sooner rather than later. They will not let the "h" word happen until it does.

On a completely different note. The girls room is finally ready. There is one other thing Mary Jane would like to get hung on the walls, but other than that...here it is

Should be a fun for them.

Blessings

"...an offer you can't refuse" or "back to your usual commentator"

Parker's Godparents came to down this last weekend. They are Paul and Emily Luikart. You may remember them from back when Mary Jane's water broke. They were here fro a few days when all this began, helping us out. They came back this time with the hope of getting a chance to hang out with us. Life got a little unexpectedly hectic for me so unfortunately I didn't get to see them quite as much as i would have liked, but it was still a great to see them.
Thanks for coming guys! We look forward to seeing you in January! Emily with Parker

Paul with Parker

Parker's big yawn

a staged causal shot

A Post From Mary Jane

Hi everyone. Here is a rare treat... a post from me. Jason had something unexpected come up at work today that is going to keep him at work until the wee hours of the morning. So since we didn't post yesterday, I said I would post something short and sweet so as to not worry anyone. The girls are doing well. They both are up to about 4 lb. 12 oz. Two big things need to happen and therefore these are my prayer requests:

1. Parker NEEDS TO EAT!!!!
2. Emma Jane needs her blood pressure to be lower. They went up on her medicine today which should do the trick.

Don't worry, Jason's more interesting post will be back tomorrow assuming he can stay awake :)

quickie (again)

Parker's god parents are down. Today was a busy but good day. Will try and write more tomorrow, but something was just added to my plate which is going to keep me hopping through Monday.

Overall girls are doing well. Emma Jane is still running high on her blood pressure. They have put her on a medicine which she'll be getting twice a day until...well until the good Lord deems fit to lower her blood pressure naturally. (hopefully only a couple of years.)

Will talk more later.

blessings.

"4 pounds 10 ounces" or "The four letter H-Word"

Yeah, so here's a fun game....this picture is Parker...and this one is Emma Jane. They look different, but bundled up with hats on they also look a bit alike.

They have started bantering around the four lettered h-word. Nothing specific as of yet, but I went through the infant CPR class the other day and both Mary Jane and I had to watch some videos. One was on car seat safety and the other was on "never shake a baby". Today the girls had their "car seat test". They had to stay in their car seat for an hour and not have any de-sats. They passed with flying colors. One more hurdle down. Now if the blood pressure thing would just magically sort itself out.

"Weight" till Thursday.

Well, Emma Jane has yet to get her first dose of blood pressure medication. They wrote an order to give it to her if her blood pressure went over 120. And...like magic she was going up to 117 (still way to high) but not going over 120. Then they decided to write the order for if it goes over 110 and...she shot down to 107ish. It reminds me of when I was little. When I was a kid I almost got glasses. My vision wasn't so hot and they said next time they checked me they would probably need to get me glasses, and the next time they saw me...didn't need glasses. Then there was the time they were going to take my tonsils out. I was getting tonsillitis all the time and the next time I got sick they were going to remove my tonsils...and I stopped getting sick (for a while...these days I get tonsillitis all the time and Mary Jane wants me to get my tonsils out). I guess Emma Jane is just taking after her dad. For now....
Of course Emma Jane looked like this all day, and her blood pressure was only barely under the medication stage, so there is a good chance we'll be all medicated as soon as she wakes up. Meanwhile Parker looked like this all day:

Which I think was her way of saying: Medication? What's medication? I want some medication! Why can't I have medication? I'll raise my blood pressure....watch! Where's my pacifier? Where are you? Who are you? Want to see me poop? Hey what's that? Can I hold it? Can I touch it? Does it go in my mouth? Does it go in yours? Want to change my diaper? Can I help? How about that medication? Pick me up. Put me down.....

After a couple day self imposed sabbatical, dad was back to holding kiddos. Seeking to make up for lost time he went for two at a time.

You remember the old Charlie Brown book "Happiness is"?

Happiness is...two babies asleep on your chest.

If it’s not one thing…it’s high blood pressure

Emma Jane has high blood pressure. This is something we have been watching for a little while now. When the doctors first brought it up they joked that if it was Parker they would probably chalk it up to Parker being…well…Parker, but it’s Emma Jane, and it’s high even when she’s fast asleep. So the doctors have been doing all sorts of tests and stuff on her. They did another heart echo, and her heart looks fine. They did a full renal workup and found her kidneys to be fine. What it all comes down to is Emma Jane has hypertension due Chronic Lung Disease. As I mentioned a while ago (at least I think I did) the girls were on oxygen long enough to officially be diagnosed with Chronic Lung Disease. At the time I said we had no idea what that meant/would mean. We still don’t, but we may have just found the first symptom of that. For some reason that the doctors admit they can’t really explain, there is some type of link between hypertension in preemies and Chronic Lung Disease. Emma Jane is going to be trying out blood pressure medications over the next couple of days to find one that works well for her. She could be on it for days, weeks, months, years, or even the rest of her life. The chances are good she’ll be on it for somewhere in the years category. This isn’t great, but it’s nothing to fall apart over. Hey, at least now she has something in common with my dad, Mary Jane’s mom and dad, and just about all of the baby-boomers out there.
You go girl.

Parker on top and Emma Jane on the bottom

So there.

Not going to say a lot tonight. Kind of out of it from cold.
Will write more tomorrow.
Likely there will be more to say.

cough...sniffle...wheeze...hack

Alas...as those of you at Salem this morning most likely ascertained, I have a cold. At the time of this writing my voice is gone. Of course this means that I have had to go into a sort of self imposed exile. I have seen little of the girls and held them not at all the last two days. Which is killing me. It's funny, ten weeks ago I had never held either of them and now I can not conceive of life without spending quality time with them every day. It's like when I got married. One day I went home at the end of every night, and the next I shared my entire life, every moment, with Mary Jane. And within a week I couldn't remember what it was like to not share it with her.

Speaking of Mary Jane, here are some photos of her with Emma Jane

Don't worry...it's a love punch.

Mary Jane really doesn't like it when I take her picture. Here she was giving me the...enough with the camera look.

But then she got nappy...so I to have more fun.

You guys did pretty good with yesterday's quiz. Parker was on the right of the picture, Emma Jane was on the left. All that said here is another quiz. Here are two separate pictures of the girls. Which is which?

What Now?

Someone asked me recently, "What can I be praying for now, specifically" (I've already mentioned Camryn...keep her in your prayers).
As far as the girls go, the big thing they are working on right now is figuring how to eat on their own (so they don't need the NG tube) and how to gain weight from that. Sounds simple enough, I know. You figure...eating = gaining weight but sometimes it ain't so simple (Akersons...another shout out to you). I'm oversimplifying things, but when the girls are given food through the NG tube it is fortified with extra calories. When they get it straight from mom, well....it isn't. They need to learn how to take enough during feeds and then use that to grow big and fat. This last week they have been working on eating on their own more and more. They're learning, they're getting better, but their growth has slowed down because of it, and they are not where they need to be yet.


Emma Jane snoozing on dad. She stayed like that for three hours yesterday. I got there at 9:00 Friday morning, planning on giving them their 9:00 feed via bottle. There is a learning curve here for me too, I need to learn how to feed them via bottle. Again you would think that would be obvious, but many times babies have an adjustment period you have to help them through even when they are born full term. The girls, being so early, have more trouble with it. Actually they are learning quickly I am told, the nurses are pretty impressed with how they are doing, but they still need to be reminded sometimes to either a) swallow (when they don't things get very drooly messy very quick b) breath (when they don't things get very blue very quick) and/or c) suck (when they don't things get very nowhere very quick). So I got there in time to do the 9:00 feed and the little stinkers refused to wake up. They didn't stir at all when we changed their diapers. When we fussed with them they didn't bat an eye. Eventually we were forced to give up and send the feed down through their NG tube. I decided to hold Emma Jane while her feed went down. I put her on my chest and got the only signs of life I saw from her that morning. She nuzzled around a little like a little dog working it's way into its favorite spot. She got comfortable and was back in the land of nod, not to stir again, at all, even with all the commotion of decorating the room and being excited for Mary Jane, until it came time to change her diaper and stuff for the 12:00 feed.

Parker examining the world in one of her rare, calm, and contemplative moments. It's funny. We had some visitors yesterday, and Parker was calm and quiet through their entire visit. It was like she was trying to prove me a liar in front of them.

We stuck the girls together just for fun. Okay...quiz time. Who is who? I will reveal later. What do people think?

PNP (Pediatric Nurse Practitioner)

This is one of those things that should be shouted from the moutaintops. Heralds should go through the city singing songs, painters should be painting pictures, and poets should be writing sonnets, and yet this little dabbler in prose finds himself unable to give this quite the punch it deserves.
It is official, Mary Jane has passed her boards!!! She is now a board certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner!!!
Some of you looonnngg time readers will remember that Mary Jane graduated with her Masters in Nursing back in the beginning of August. Doing this is kind of like graduating from law school. You have the degree but you can’t do anything with it until you have passed the big test (in the case of law, the bar exam, in this case “boards”). When Mary Jane graduated she had an elaborate plan to take care of the boards. She, in her methodic way was going to set up a strict study plan and nock that test out the first day they would allow her to take it. And because Mary Jane is the sort of person who does this she would have studied every conceivable question and then found a handful of questions that were not conceivable and studied them as well. However, life took a turn (which is really the only reason you ended up reading this blog) and suddenly Mary Jane found herself putting the boards off to the latest possible date that she could. And her strict study regimen? Out the window. There was no time to study and if there were a few minutes to study…well it’s kind of hard to focus when your daughters are in the NICU (trust me). So studying really didn’t happen much. Mary Jane was very freaked out going into the test, but once again the world was shown the great deal of intellegince God blessed my wife with, because she passed!
What really made me happy was how excited the NICU nurses got about it. I think everything that needs to be said about how wonderful my wife is might be illustrated by how people respond to her. Everyone loves her. As soon as the test was over (it was a computer test and they told her immediately she passed) Mary Jane called the hospital room to tell me she passed (I was holding Emma Jane at the time). The moment the room phone rang all the nurses in our area of the unit came running into the room to find out whether she passed. When I nodded that she had (still talking to Mary Jane) they sprang to action. Denise started by putting up a sign and then writing with a dry erase Marker on the room doors while Jen started cutting up disposable isolation gowns to make streamers. Other nurses grabbed gloves and blew them up like balloons, while still others grabbed baby bottles, filled them with candy and hung them up around the room.The PNP was done in surgical tape

Eventually real streamers were found and things got even "streamier"

All in all it was a good day.

Congratulations Mary Jane! We are all proud of you.

I think Parker's just lonely...

So I have decided that Parker is just lonely. All this fussing is just her way of saying "Pay attention to me!!! Please!!! NOW!!!"

Why have I decided this? Because 90% of the time when she is fussing I can calm her down pretty quickly by doing this...

I simply get right up in her face and pretty quickly she calms down. If she is even remotely awake she opens her eyes and looks all around at my face and just gets a content look on her face. It doesn't work 100% of the time. If you're stomach's empty then no amount of me getting in your face is going to solve that. It will still be empty. Of course I imagine if you were really hungry and I did that to you it would shock/creep you out enough that you might forget about your hunger for awhile...so maybe it is working then and I don't know it.

It's pretty funny, because it doesn't work as well on Emma Jane. She seems to like it and be calm, but she fusses less and if I do it when she is fussing she looks at me with a "What is this supposed to do to help? My diaper's still wet, I'm still hungry...you haven't fixed anything. Why don't you go do something and THEN come be all cute with me. Sheesh"

I'm hoping this method of calming Parker down will work for a long time. I can just picture her being 17 years old and having her heart broken by some stupid boy and I pull her over and stick my eye right next to hers. She'll freak out and say "Dad! What are you doing?" And I'll say, "Calming you down?"

"What in the world makes you think that would calm me down?!?"

"Well it always used to."

"When dad? When did it calm me down? When I was a baby? When I was your little baby in the NICU? Well I have news for you dad, I'm all grown up now." "Honey, you will always be my little baby in the NICU" "Ug (storms off) no one understands me"

Oh the fun to look forward to ;)

On a more serious note. Please keep Camryn Akerson in your prayers. She is having surgery tomorrow. For those of you who do not know she is the beautiful, precocious, smart as a whip, 2 and half year old daughter of Scott and Val Akerson. They are members at Salem. Scott is the principal at the school as well the part time 8th grade teacher. Camryn has had a rough go of it in her short life and she (and her whole family) could really use your prayers. If you would like to learn more about them check out their website http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/camrynakerson

blessings

Uncle Jason and Aunt Mary Jane

At 6:30 am this morning (Wednesday November 5th) William Travis Orr was born to Heather "Broge" Orr (my little sister) and Travis Orr.

Will was due today so...he's not taking after his cousins at all so far. We're thrilled and can't wait to see him, however...it will probably be a while.

Bottles

Per Molly's request:
Some pictures of us feeding via bottles. They're just getting started. Neither takes a full bottle yet, but both are making a good show of it so far. These aren't the best pictures...cause...you know how hard it is to take a picture of yourself feeding a baby with a bottle. Or maybe you don't, but...well, it's hard