Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Thank you for continuing to follow Britian and Jillian's story. They are true miracles and we are blessed each and everyday to have them in our lives. We pray that 2013 is a blessed journey for you and your family.

Praise Report

Lots of big milestones in our house these past couple of weeks, so much to give praise for.

Britian is walking full time, no crawling from her whatsoever. Seems like just as I posted the last update she set out to prove me wrong and stopped crawling.

Jillian is climbing on anything and everything that she can. Her latest is on top of the foot stool to our glider. Not only is the foot stool 18" or so off of the ground, but it moves. She has mastered climbing on top of it and happily sits there rocking herself and having a the greatest time of her life. She also now uses a walker around the house to encourage her walking. What a blessing it is to see her up and walking and also with the motivation to walk. Not long ago, just earlier this year, she wasn't crawling nor did she have the self motivation to go anywhere on her own. I know my baby girl will be up and walking without the walker very soon, she is so determined and loves to be up with Britian racing around the house.

Liam is also mobile. He started crawling finally this week. His first destination was the pantry of course because that boy loves to eat. So now everyone in our family is up and moving.

How long before I have to chase them in 3 different directions? :)

Major Milestones for the Girls

Britian (left) and Jillian (right), 22 months

Britian and Jillian have been accomplished some major developmental milestones lately. As you can see from the picture, they are growing wonderfully and before we know it will be celebrating their 2nd birthday.

Britian is now walking nearly full-time. She will crawl to be silly or if she thinks she can get somewhere faster. I still catch myself doing a double take when she comes walking into a room, watching her walk makes my heart swell with excitement. She has come so incredibly far from that little girl in the NICU isolette. Not only is she walking but she has also become our little daredevil. And dare I say she is the most adventurous of our children thus far. She climbs into and onto anything and everything she can get ahold of. Tonight she discovered that she can get onto our dining room chairs which means nothing on the kitchen table is safe nor is my computer desk which has one of our dining rooms chairs for it's seat. We will all have to be more diligent about putting stuff away so her little fingers stay safe.

Jillian is also making great strides. Everyday she is getting stronger and more stable in her standing. Her Daddy has really been working with her on standing independently and her progress has been tremendous. She also now can stand up on her own in the middle of a room without assistance. This week she has also started pushing around a walk behind push toy. Also earlier this week she took her first 4 cruising steps along our coffee table. Not only did she take 4 steps on her own to get a toy she took these steps to her weaker side. After physical therapy this past week we now have a walker to use here at home. Brit had the same one to help her transition into an independant walker and we are hoping it will work the same for Jillian. She is so motivated to walk and is so happy when she is up and walking, I am hopeful that in very little time we will have 2 new walkers in the house.

Thank you again to all of you who continue to follow our journey and lift us up in prayer. We've come so far in the past 2 years, seems like just yesterday sometimes.

Grieving for a Special Needs Child

There are times in our lives when we ask ourselves "how did I get here?" or wonder "I never thought I would be in this situation."

If you have a child that others describe as having "special needs" you know exactly what I am referring to. I can almost guarantee that like myself, you never imagined yourself the parent of a "special needs" child. I know I certainly never did, not in a million years. Having a child with uniquely beautiful blessings was one of those things I always thought happened to other people.

But here I am, immensely blessed with my amazing little Jillian.

Realizing, accepting, and embracing your special child is a process though. Most of us don't come by it naturally and must go through an emotional roller coaster much like the process of grieving. I must admit that I suspect I am early in my grieving process. During the day I happily embrace Jillian for all that she offers our family. But at night when I am alone, sometimes I cry. I cry because it is overwhelming, I cry for my worries, I cry for a whole host of other reasons. I need that release, that emotional opening of the pent up worries from the day. I know there will be more crying, more worrying, and more questions as we walk down this road with our beautiful Jillian. After all, we don't even have a diagnosis yet.

January 29th is the day. I know I will be a mess. . .I'll keep it together during the marathon appointment but eventually I will have to cave and cry and cry and cry some more. Then I will be ready to continue advocating for Jillian like I have from the very beginning.

Jillian is a huge blessing and an overwhelming joy to our family. We wouldn't be complete without her. But until you are the parent of a beautifully blessed child you won't fully grasp what that means. Just like you don't know unconditional love until you are a parent. Likewise, you don't know how joyful a child with unique needs is until they are your own flesh and blood. From the outside these children may look like a stress and a burden. But please, I implore you, do not ever think that when you see a unique needs child. They are a joy! A pure, innocent, beautiful blessing to their family and everyone that comes to love them.

Happy Halloween

Ever wonder how hard it is to get 6 kids to all smile and look at the camera for a simple photo? 15 attempts at a picture before trick-or-treating and this is the best one. It is all about the memories right? :)

We were blessed to be able to spend Halloween in San Diego this year. It has been over 2 years since were "home". It was a fast 10 days but we had so much fun and had amazing weather.

Our 6 beautiful blessings: L-R Irelynn as Ariel, Jillian the Ladybug,
Alex the pirate, Britian the ladybug, Tyler the pirate and Liam the Iowa Hawkeye football player. 

I didn't get a good one of the girls by themselves but here is my little hambone grinning for the camera.

This was the first year that the twins got to go out trick-or-treating. While they didn't go door to door they did ride along while we took the older 3 out. It was a ton of fun and they enjoyed watching all of the activity.

October 2012 Update

Look at how my 3 preemies have grown!! What a blessing they are.

Britian and Jillian are now 20 months old and Liam is 8 months.

The girls had an appointment last week with high risk infant follow-up in Iowa City. They were each assessed on their adjusted age of 16 months.

The results were much like I expected. Both girls continue to grow wonderfully and stayed the same on their growth charts or bumped up a bit. Our next appointment with infant high risk will be to assess Britian at the magical "all caught up" 2 year birthday mark. The girls were due mid-May so our appointment will be late April or May sometime. Jillian's delays are too much for her to continue with high risk so she has been referred to a specialist to assess her situation. I have a sense of ease with her upcoming assessment though because I know her and see all of the progress she is making.

7 months ago my little Jillian couldn't even get up on her hands and knees in a crawling position. Today with the help of our wonderful physical therapist she is not only crawling but she crawls over objects, onto boxes, pulls up on anything and everything including flat walls (huge milestone) but today she also took 3 steps toward me cruising on the couch. Praise the Lord!!!

I know in my heart that even if Jillian has lifelong delays they won't hinder her living a full and active life. Will she be diagnosed with cerebral palsy? I'm not sure. But if she does have CP then her case will most likely be a very mild one. She is a blessing and a joy to our family each and every day regardless of what doctors think or what is written in her medical charts.

Stats:
Britian: 32", 22#6oz
Jillian: 31.5", 20#14oz

And even though this blog is about the girls, I should add that Liam is 21 pounds. Yes, their little brother who entered this world at 6lbs is now heavier than Jillian and quickly catching up to Britian.

18mo update!!

Has it really been 6 months since I last posted? Wow! Not surprising though, I hardly have a minute to myself these days let alone enough time to gather my thoughts and post a coherent blog entry.

It has been a busy 6 months! Some of the highlights include:

• Jillian is now crawling
• Britian is so very close to walking
• Both girls are feeding themselves everything 
• Britian has orthotics on both feet to help correct pronating and other feet position issues when standing. Jillian will have her own set of orthotics before too long to help with standing stability.
• Jillian's nervous system continues to improve and she is far less shaky then she was earlier this year.
• Both girls are finding their voice and what beautiful voices they are! Britian has a few basic words but like most toddlers communicates is many other ways as she learns the words to say what she wants. Jillian says "Momma" but mostly still babbles. She has new sounds that she is practicing though so like most other things, she will just be slower to reach this milestone. The fact that she continues to progress is all that I can ask for.

And most importantly. . .

• Jillian is off of oxygen!!

Yep my little peanut is finally off of oxygen. At our appointment back in June she was finally given the green light to come off of oxygen and she hasn't looked back since. Thankfully she didn't need to go back on it like Britian did when she first came off. Jillian came off of her oxygen just in time because soon after her graduation she started crawling.

At their 18mo appointments, Britian weighed 21lbs and Jillian was 20lbs. They've both come a long way from their birth weight of 1lb 6oz!!

Jillian the day she came off of oxygen!!