1. Your son’s nurse knows you so well she asks you if you want her to hit your husband when he makes some sarcastic comment.
2. The nurses know your oldest daughter’s gymnastics schedule.
3. You receive mail there.
4. The security guards in the hospital lobby know your name when you go to sign.
5. You understand what the doctors are saying when talking to each other about a treatment plan.
6. You no longer hear the constant beeping that is the soundtrack of the NICU!

It has almost been three months since our boys were born, and it is difficult to remember what it was like before I spent my days at their bedsides’.  I feel like it was forever ago when I was just getting the sense of what it was like to have babies in the NICU.  Now I can’t imagine what it will be like to have them at home.  Three months ago I would lay awake at night wondering what I was going to do to get through this time in the NICU.  Now I lay in bed wondering what I am going to do to get through the next few months with two newborns at home!  Three months ago I worried about brain bleeds, ventilator settings, heart problems and if I could touch them.  Today I worry about keeping up with the laundry of four kids, balancing my time between two newborns, a two and a half-year old and a kindergartener, having time to make dinner and if I will ever sleep again once the boys come home.  My head is spinning thinking of all the preparations that need to be made before the boys come home.  Three months ago all I wanted was to fast forward to the day that the Doctors would step up to my boys’ beds during rounds and say “Not much to report.  He is eating and growing.”  And now that time is here!  While the boys each have their hurdles to jump before being discharged we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Carter could be home in the next week and Griffin should only be a couple of weeks behind him.  True to form, Carter still has bad lungs and will come home with oxygen support (a whole new bag of stressors!), while Griffin is still having eating/digestion issues and will stay in the NICU until this is ironed out. 

In the end, the NICU hasn’t been that bad.  I wouldn’t want to do it again and I wouldn’t wish what we went through on anyone…but all in all, it wasn’t terrible – the staff there made it bearable  and I believe my boys will come out on top when all said and done.  I can definitely say that I am a better person having been there and having gone through this experience, but I am happy to see our NICU time coming to a close in the next month.  Only time will tell what the lasting results will be given what we have been through since Ocotober 8th.  Just think, three months from now my post will be all about my lack of sleep, the number of diapers I changed and how many times Addie cried because I couldn’t do something for her until I was done feeding one of the boys.  Ahh, won’t that be wonderful to have such simple problems!