It's been a long journey.....

Hi All, it's Heather! Has Bob done an exceptional job with the website or what!?! Well, it's been a VERY, VERY long and trying journey to get these babies into the world. It took every ounce of strength I had to make it through. Having been essentially incapacitated for the last seven months, I thank all of you for your patience, help and understanding.

I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank the literal hundreds of people who have prayed for us over the last several months. We feel so blessed to have such support and love for us and our babies. Thank you to those who have shared our story with your networks of friends and family. Also, I would like to say a special thank you to my wonderful husband and family for their unbelievable daily support every step of the way.

These babies are our own personal miracles. For those of you who may not know the truth of the grim picture most drs. painted for the outcome of this pregnancy, let me put it bluntly.... Emily would not be here today if we had followed their orders instead of trusting God and our gut and moving on until we found drs. who we felt comfortable with. We also did our own research and chose to believe the other miracle stories.

It took seven hospitals for us to find St. Lukes in Bethlehem, PA. Dr. Sarno and team are brilliant, positive, timely and professional. I would NOT recommend anyone go to Robert Wood Johnson, Somerset or St. Peters Hospitals for OB (although they are supposed to be "the best").

Some drs. have said I experienced "pretty much everything pregnancy has to offer." If you know anyone experiencing troubles in pregnancy please contact me, I would be happy to help. Also, you MUST take control of your health care. Even after my C-section I had to keep the nurses on track with my medicine after they forgot to give me any pain medication in recovery. Needless to say, I felt everything they had just done to me. Not fun...please make sure and stay on top of your pain meds in this situation. Also, request a belly band (thanks Jami)...this was a great help and still helps for support.

OK, back to the girls. We are getting used to the fact that they are just monitoring them and waiting for them to grow, instead of needing constant attention and treatment. At first we felt ignored and annoyed but we now see it as a good thing that they are not really on the drs' radar right now. Avery weighs 3lbs 9oz and Emily is now 2 lbs 12 oz -- yeah!!!! They are really starting to look alike now. Most of the nurses think they will have curly blond hair....how about that!!

To get an idea of how long they will be in NICU, the drs. said to plan on one or both of them coming home around week 36 (if they were still in utero). They are/would be 32 weeks 3 days. There are certain criteria that they must meet in order to come home. The first one is feeding by themselves. Starting on april 21st we will hopefully start feeding and see how that goes.

Thanks again to everyone reading the website and sharing this experience with us.

Heather