2 months old!

Here's a few pics of the boys from the past few weeks...I cant believe how fast they are growing. They are still eating every 2 1/2-3 hours, but just recently started giving mom and dad an extra hour of sleep between feedings (if we're lucky) once at night. It's amazing what an extra hour of sleep can do for sleep deprived parents!
I took the boys into the doctors this past week and Josiah weighed 11.8 lbs and Benny weighed 11.5 lbs.
Jojo had always been a pound ahead of his brother, but Benny is quite the little eater and is quickly catching up to his brother!
We also went on our first road trip this past weekend up north for our family's annual trip to Bishop's pumpkin patch. We had so much fun seeing our families and we had lots of hands (big and small ) that wanted to hold the boys. I love how baby crazy our family is. Jen & Aaron's middle son, Austin, asked if he could "pet" the boys...too cute!
Stay tuned for the boys in their cute Halloween costumes...

Christopher and Jojo!

Putting their heads' together...

Dana and Melissa came to visit!

Cale and Grant giving Jojo a kiss

Jalissa and Jojo

Trevor and Benny

Hangin' with Brandon, Alicia, Faith and Richard at Bishops Pumpkin Farm

Cous-Auntie Jen with Benny Boy

Kylie girl is so good at holding babies!

The many faces of Benny boy!

Sweet Jojo Bear

Cous-Auntie Kimmy and Great-Aunt Cristie are wonderful baby holders

Grandma Jan doing the double baby hold

Grant holding Jojo

Auntie Annie with Benny

The Herzog Bunch

Our Super Men!

Auntie Amber, Uncle Matty and Jojo at the Pumpkin Patch

6 weeks old!

How did that happen?! Apparently, both Kirk and I are natural bloggers as so much time has passed since our last post. Time has seriously been flying! We are all happy and healthy and HOME! It's hard to even think back to when we were all in the hospital and especially hard to think about when we were discharged with Benny while Josiah was still in the NICU. I still can't talk about it without crying.
Josiah is a champion eater and is super alert...he gives us lots of smiles and laughs a lot in his sleep (melts our hearts!)
Benny is still the smaller of the two, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's caught up with his brother...he's eating ALL the time these days!
I was hoping the blog would be a journal of sorts chronicling our life with our twin boys, but it has proven to be much more difficult for both of us than we thought to get to the computer and keep up with it. Between feeding, burping, changing, rocking, sleeping and finding time for us to do some of those things as well...getting to the computer has taken a backseat. Luckily, i found the blogger iPhone app, so I'm composing this blog while double breast pumping (sorry, TMI) and the boys are having a rare moment of sleeping at the SAME time :-)
Both the boys are getting more and more alert every week and are reacting a lot more to our faces and voices. It is such a blast watching them grow and change...it's amazing.
Our hearts feel like they could just burst with love for these boys, it's seriously amazing being a parent!
I must also say that neither one of us have ever known sleep deprivation on this level before. Sometimes I get nervous thinking, "how can I be THIS tired and still (this is where I stopped cause something came up)...
So a few days later, I'm resuming this post to say that I am determined to be more diligent and keep this blog up to date since for some of our family and friends out of town (and who don't have Facebook), this is our mode of updating them.
We've been blessed to have lots of visitors, and some in particular have been Kirk's mom and grandma all the way from Michigan and Indiana! They stayed with us for a week and were so amazing. Pam can really do circles around anyone I've ever met...her energy is endless. Grandma Shirley is the best baby rocker I've ever seen. We were so sad to see then go as the boys are growing so fast and next time we see them, they will have changed so much. We miss our families so much!
My parents have come and stayed with us several times and lots of our family from up north have made the trek down south as well. It means so much having them come down and meet the boys!
Here's a few pics of the boys over the past few weeks...I know, they're WAY too cute!!

Their first trip to the Doctor's office together

Precious

We are 1 month old!

We love Papa D!

Milk drunk Koala Bear Benny

Great Aunt Glenda & Uncle Phil came to visit for the day!

Jojo Bear!

Jen & Jeremy came to visit...what a fun surprise!

Benny hanging out with Uncle Brandon and Daddy

JoJo loves his Grammie Jan!

Hanging out with Grammie Pammie, Great Grandma Shirley, Uncle Brandon, Aunt Alicia and big cousin Faith!

Auntie Amber & Uncle Matty

Benny & Auntie Ally!!

Day 3 (this was supposed to be posted a LONG time ago!...as in day 3after boys were born)

Hey everyone,

First off, I realized in my exhausted stupor last night that I didnt give any updates about Mommy's status! Kris is doing very well (other than many tears on both our parts about Josiah). She is recovering well though she is still very swollen. She is obviously exhausted from recovering from surgery and feedings throughout the night, but she is in good spirits, and she has not had any abnormal or large complications. One of her blood works came back a little anemic, but she seems well and a little more rested after a good nap a couple hours ago.

In regards to our little Benjamin, he continues to do very well and family are enjoying his laid back and content mood as he is passed around many hands. He is a tiny bit jaundiced but not much, and he has had a little bit of trouble keeping his temperature up but nothing that a little time on Mommy's chest and some warmed blankets couldn't cure : )

As for our little Josiah, he has had a mixed day, but overall better than his previous two. He appeared much more relaxed than yesterday and his breathing appears less labored but still breathing a little hard for breast milk. He is showing quite a bit of interest in his pacifier and seems to be more interested in possible breast feeding. Hopefully if breathing continues to get better, he will be able to feed soon. The doctors decided to take him off the antibiotics, as he does not appear to be infected, liquid in lungs is improving, and white blood cell counts are down. Unfortunately, all blood counts are a bit low right now including white, red, and platelets (including specifically hematicrit-not sure of exact spelling). They are especially concerned about blood cell counts since not having enough red blood cells means a harder time getting O2 around, so he is receiving a blood transfusion right now as I am typing this. I heard that it may be because he is used to Kris' body producing a lot of that stuff for him, and he may just need a little help getting that going all on his own. Regardless, it seems to be a fairly common procedure, and they had warned me that he might need one at some point in the process. Also, just as other fyi's, they stated that underdeveloped lung issues are probably one of if not the most common issue dealt with in the NICU so they have lots of experience and many babies go through this, and it is not uncommon for babies with some lung issues to have a short 24 hour or less honeymoon period in which they seem fine, but then the lungs catch up with them, and they end up needing a little time in the NICU. Overall, our little Josiah seems to be doing well, though he may need to spend a some more time with those sweet NICU nurses before he is ready to be back with Mommy, Daddy, and Benny. We were told that when he is released from the NICU, he will be in a normal room (which we may have to share) where we can all stay together. Fortunately, if there is some time in between where Kris and I are released to go home but he is still in the NICU, we only live maybe 5 minutes from the hospital so trips back and forth not be far (glad we dont live like 40 minutes away). We are allowed to stay for a max of four days (Tuesday) in the hospital, after which if everything is great with Kris (which it pretty much is at this point), we will have to go home. We are planning on staying here with Josiah as long as we can.

Here is a some more pictures below, including our little Josiah in the NICU (so sad but at least he seems to be feeling a little better). About all those little lines going to him, he currently is getting his heart beat, breathing, O2 saturation, and blood pressure monitored at all times. They had a really hard time trying to get his IV started, probably because he was dehydrated, has such little veins, and may be a little hard to get IVs started with if he is anything like his Mommy and Grandma Jan, so he has lots of little pokes and bruising all over his hands and feet before they finally got some in through his head and through his belly button. Poor little guy! I know Kris and Jan experienced much of this while they were in the hospital too. He has a line that he is being fed through, I believe a possible second line with just liquids, a line that goes through to his artery for blood draws and such, and a line going into his stomach to keep air and other fluids out since often the O2 will get into his stomach. Lots of lines and monitoring. He also has a cool sensor on him which senses his tempature and constantly adjusts a heater above him to keep him at the right temperature. So blessed to live in a day an age and in a country with so much care for our little Josiah!

Little JoJo before he headed off to the NICU

Benny not much appreciated having his heart beat checked (he also has not been much of a fan of the temperature check either)

Josiah showing a little of that discomfort before heading down to the NICU. So glad that we at least got to spend some time holding him before he headed to the NICU

Benjamin with Mommy

Josiah with Mommy

Just cant get over all that black hair!

Benjamin checking things out

Friday night, Day 1, Josiah's first visit from Mommy in the NICU

Josiah after his oxygen was upped

Ben checking things out some more!

BenJammin : ) (my new favorite nickname for him) bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 3 am!

Who was it that said that we better get our sleep before because we wouldnt be getting it for a while? Oh yeah, everybody!

Josiah and Benjamin updates

Unfortunately,

I wish the rest of our day went as well as it started off.  Both Benjamin and Josiah went back to the  recovery room with us and stayed with us for about 8-9 amazing hours.  During that time, Benjamin did great, but Josiah had trouble getting his temperature all the way up and was grunting a lot, which can be a sign of difficulty breathing, usually from liquid left over in the lungs that didn’t quite make its way out in the process of birthing. 

The doctor decided to take him down to the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) at about 4:30 PM for monitoring just in case.  After a few hours, they determined that he was having trouble breathing and his oxygen (O2) levels in his blood were low, so they decided to put him on antibiotics (a minimum 2-3 day stay) and continue to monitor.  They gave him an xray and it showed possible liquid on the lungs, which they wanted to be sure that it wouldn’t turn into an infection/pneumonia.  He ended his birthday in the NICU : (  We didn’t sleep much that night.  Its amazing how instantly our family went from 2 to 4 and just didn’t feel right with only 3 of us in the room.  We missed him so much!  Updates and texts became sketchy as I was spending most of my time in the NICU with little Josiah, and Kris was and still is way too busy recovering and taking care of baby Benjamin to manage phone calls or texts at this point.   (Sorry if any of you sweet and amazing friends and family are finding out through the blog and not through us, just couldn’t keep up with updates and texts). 

Overnight, Josiah's oxygen levels dropped and so they had to up the oxygen.  Also, they noticed a slight heart murmur and so came a scary phone call early this morning that they were calling a cardiologist to come check him out to be sure he wasn’t having any heart problems like possible heart defects.  Also, if surgery or other cardiac treatments would need to be required, he may have had to be sent to another hospital.  So, with much crying, some update texts and phone calls were sent out for prayers, and the rest of today was pretty much a blur.  The cardiologist came and reported that his heart was great (Praise Jesus!!!) but his lungs appeared to be underdeveloped.  It was somewhat unexpected considering his strong birth weight and how far along our twins made it (not too many make it all the way to almost 38 weeks), but little baby Josiah unfortunately just was developing his lungs a little later than his brother.  There is a substance in the lungs that helps them inflate fully and stay inflated and elastic, and he appeared to not have enough of it.  After some more monitoring, they inserted a tube into his lungs and gave him a synthetic form of this fluid to help tide him over until his body produces more of it.  They rolled him back and forth to make sure the lungs were fully covered.  They also discussed placing him on a ventilator to help him with his breathing if he continued to have trouble, but his oxygen levels continued to be good after the increase in his oxygen that they did the previous night.  Also, they did not want to increase the risk of infection in the lungs that comes with the ventilator.  After they gave him the synthetic fluid as well as did more tests, he was a very unhappy and very uncomfortable little Josiah and it took a lot of comforting from Daddy and Mommy and amazing nurses (and a little Tylenol) to finally get him settled down about three hours later.  We so wish we could hold him but just too many tubes, including IVs in arteries that would be dangerous if came loose, to pick him up  for now.  Right now, he seems to be doing much better after a hard afternoon.  His breathing seems a little more regulated and less hard, though his breathing still continues to be harder and faster than they like.  He is being fed through an IV, but hopefully if his breathing gets down enough, we can start feeding him breast milk.  Unfortunately, he cant have any until his breathing is down because it would be like trying to eat while jogging, and he might have a chance of throwing up or aspirating.  Keep our little guy in your prayers!  He was sleeping a little better when we left him for tonight.  Many thanks to all the family and friends who are offering your support, prayers, food, gifts, and extra hands while Mommy and Daddy visit Josiah!  We love you all!

As for Benjamin, he has been healthy and amazing the whole time!  He is eating well and has barely cried a bit!  He is just the most content little guy in the world right now (Praise Jesus!) which makes it possible for us to leave his sweet, sleeping, and content little self with family and friends as we visit Josiah.  I will be spending most my time in the NICU with Josiah, while Kris will still be spending most of her time recovering and taking care of Benjamin with family and friend help, so updates, pics, and such are still going to be spotty for a little while, but we will try to get them from time to time.  Feel free to call other family and friends to get updates as we may be busy, though they’re hands may be full as well so be patient : )  Love you guys!!!

More pics of first few minutes/hours!!!

Little Josiah, so much black hair!

They look so different!

Hangin out together!

Dad trying to get in on the sweet fun!

Josiah playing with his tongue!  Sorry if some pics arent oriented right.  Program was refusing to load them the right way up.

Happy Momma!

Happy Family!!!!!

Benni and Mommy

They're Here!!!

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for the delayed blog post and let me start by saying that I apologize if you have or have not been receiving updates.  It has been a hectic first two days, and my skills with Kris' Iphone are not quite up to par.

First, let's start with the birth announcements! Josiah Parker was born yesterday at about 9 am weighing 6 lbs. 12 ounces! His brother Benjamin Gregg was born only 1 minute later weighing 6 lbs. 3 ounces! Both were born via C section. Josiah sure liked playing with his tongue and was sticking his tongue out almost immediately. Josiah has some pretty thick and very black hair (on both head and back, lol) and Benny has blondish hair (though early pictures may not show well) They look so different! Both did very well for the first few hours and were able to latch on and breast feed directly after the procedure. Check out some pics below!

Just before babies!  Look at those cute socks/sandals!

Thats one excited Mommy!!!

Getting cleaned off!

Two for the price of one!!!  Wasnt quite sure how to hold two at a time but the doctor told me I would have to learn quick!

Benjamin is on the left and Josiah is on the right!

Josiah, the slightly older and bigger brother!

Benjamin, our slightly smaller and one minute younger little boy!