Our Remaining Stay in the Hospital

Hospitals are places often filled with deep concern, hope for healing, and lots of prayer.  Our stay was no different.  Some hours before our C-section, Amy developed a fairly serious infection that, according to our doctors, could have killed her or the babies 50 years ago.  We are very thankful for improvements in today's modern medicine and God's merciful protection and healing.  Both of our boys contracted at least part of Amy's same infection, so they were cautiously held in the NICU for two days to receive antibiotics and be monitored constantly.  Our hospital's NICU allows parents to visit their children for all but two hours of the day.  We were thankful that our boys were under the care of wonderful NICU nurses who helped establish "caring times" every three hours.  On day 2 (Sunday), Jason went to most of the non-late night caring times and learned some very important father-of-twins roles.  The pictures below are of Jason caring for Cody.  The kind nurses taught Daddy how to CHANGE DIAPERS...
   

...FEED FROM A BOTTLE (for needed nutrition until Mommy's infection cleared up and could start breastfeeding)...

...and BURP A YOUNG SON.

We were blessed to have some special visitors come see us in the hospital.  The hospital staff was caring and kind.  They could not replace seeing friendly and familiar faces from our immediate family and church family, however.  We didn't get a picture with each person who came to visit, but here are a few we did take.  Our close friend, Jenn, joined Amy for a Day 2 visit to hold the boys in the NICU.  Amy is holding Jaden.

Jason's brother, Jonathan, (and Jon's sister-in-law, Lindsea) drove through Billings on their way back to Nebraska.  Jonathan is wearing a cute shirt he doctored up with a sign to read "Holy Twins".

Uncle Jon was pretty happy to be the first family member to see the boys.  Here, he proudly holds Jaden.

After spending their first two days of life receiving important antibiotics and care in the NICU, our young sons were released to our room on Monday morning, Day 3.  Our identical boys seemed pretty content and rested well after hearing the great news about being healthy enough to move, too.  For those of you who are still considering their "identical-ness", Cody is on the right.

Days 3-5 in the hospital were filled with many blessings and one main challenge.  Any guesses on what challenge we all faced together?! :)  Two words:  SLEEP DEPRIVATION.  Enough complaining.  Some of the many blessings we experienced from God's gracious hand and the care of other special people were...

-Having Grammy (Amy's mom) arrive in Billings to be a huge support and a needed extra set of hands.

-Welcoming a few more visitors from Church including our dear friends, the Bolls, who even brought us yummy non-hospital food dinner. :)

-Receiving some out-of-town love and support from various family members.  We were able to talk with all of Jaden and Cody's grandparents, aunts, and uncles during our hospital stay which was a great encouragement to us.  The first picture is a special gift of flowers and balloons from Grandpa and Grandma Schleicher.  In the second picture, the boys are showing off a special gift of "Snuggle-Mes" from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim.  Thank you, family, for your support of gifts, words, prayers, and love!

-Learning a system of organization to track the boys' feedings and other bodily functions.  Here, Jaden looks on as Daddy tries to keep things organized.

-Seeing the boys MOSTLY enjoy a special Bella Baby photo shoot which gave us very professional pictures for future use.  You may see some of these on a baby announcement soon. :)  These first three cute pictures are of Cody.

These next three adorable shots are of Jaden.

These final two precious photos are of our beautiful double blessings from God.  Cody is on the left in both of them.

On our 4th day in the hospital (Tuesday), it was hard for us to think about coming home.  As of our 5th day (and after one more night of people coming in at all hours to poke, prod, monitor, and wake up Amy and the boys), we couldn't get in the van fast enough.  After five days in the hospital, we praised God for Amy's significant progress and recovery from major surgery and a concerning infection.  We thanked Him for His providing good health for our little boys.  We asked Him to be glorified in our family which doubled in size from the time we checked in and was finally heading HOME!  Cody is on the left and Jaden is on the right in these fun going-home pictures.