Human Touch

Today has been a day of rest. Amber's blood pressure has been a little high, but we are convinced it is mainly from lack of sleep. At the risk of being rude, I've asked everyone to hold calls and visits today. My phone is available of course, but we've unplugged the room phone and put Amber's away. We still need your encouragement and prayers, Amber just needs quiet for a few hours. :)

Mattie is doing well and continues to seem to improve just slightly. Sophie is having a long day. She is still not producing very much urine at all and they will do an ultrasound to look at her kidneys and then do an x-ray to check her brain some time this afternoon.

One of the things that I thought I knew before but am getting a new lesson in is the power of human touch. Most of our Doctors and nurses have been great (there are a few that seem to stress us more than calm us, but they are the exception). However, a handful of the doctors have a way about them that is incredibly calming and reassuring. All of you who have twins know how many people are in the OR when you give birth. They each came in to introduce themselves ahead of time so we would know who all was in the room. The Neonatologist, Dr. Rojas, came in while several other doctors and nurses were buzzing around and took Amber by the hand and let us know how well he would take care of our daughters once they got here. Later, Amber told me that when they were putting the spinal in, Dr. Garrison, the high-risk pregnancy specialist (she wasn't even supposed to be there but had come after work to do the procedure since we were comfortable with her) took Amber by both hands and calmed her since I couldn't be back there with her. During the procedure, the anesthesiologist, Jonathon, kept rubbing Amber's forehead, talking quietly to us to explain what was happening, and reassured us that all was going well. I also found out later that while I was with the girls in the NICU and they took Amber back to the room, that Jonathon held her hand and then told her not to tell her husband! I never thought I'd be thankful for another man holding Amber's hand and saying that. I have no doubt that God uses these people to show His love to people in the hospital here.

As thankful as I am for those gifts of calming touch, today I learned what it felt like to hold my daughters hand...sort of. I was just trying to ask the nurse if the girls would suffer from not having enough skin to skin contact and while I was trying to figure out how to word it, she said I could touch them. Of course I ran to the sink to wash and was told that light touches are too stimulating right now so I needed to be firm. I was able to reach inside Sophie's incubater and cradle her feet for a few minutes. She has monitors and IVs in both hands so I couldn't really touch her hands. Then I got to reach inside Mattie's incubater. Mattie likes to sleep with one arm as far back as she can get it and the other by her face. I put my pointer finger in the palm of her hand and barely pushed and her tiny fingers reached halfway around the tip of my finger and held tight. The nurses had to give me space since my eyes started watering so badly (I know that's hard to imagine since I usually am not a crier) I think I don't have a chance at all when I can finally hold them next to me.