Tough Times

Baby Daxton is still in the hospital :( I know that the doctors originally told us that the boys would most likely be in the hospital until their due date (2/2/12) and we were extremely lucky to have Parker come home earily, but one of my baby boys is still there and my heart is not complete without him. To make a long story short, Daxton is having some Neurological problems and he will be undergoing an MRI of his brain later on today. Everyone keeps asking over and over again, when will he be coming home. I know that people are just trying to be supportive but after a while, it just becomes a sore spot and a hard question to answer because not only do we not know, but the doctors don't know either. I miss my little boy so much and my heart hurts.

Daxton loves to be held and so I brought my baby carrier and put him in it and he fell fast asleep. I am doing all that I can to stay emotionally strong for my husband and my children. This year has been the hardest for me in as long as I can remember. After weeks and weeks of hospital bedrest and then preterm delivery of our boys and now with Daxton having some developmental delays, I just don't know how much more my heart can take. I know that The Lord will never give us more than we can handle, but my goodness I sure don't always feel my strongest. My moments of sadness come and go and even when I am struggling, I act like I have it all together. I keep telling myself, "Fake it till you make it". If I push forward and continue with my life as a mother and a wife, eventually will get easier. I find myself feeling stretched very thin between being back and forth to the hospital, caring for baby Parker and giving each one of our girls enough love and attention, as well as nuturing my marrage.

My best friend Leah and baby Parker

Welcome Home Parker!

My little man Parker got to come home a couple of days ago and he is just such a sweet boy and we are so thilled to be able to have him as part of our family!

Baby Daxton is still in the NICU but he will be home soon. We love both of our little boys with all of our hearts! I wouldn't choose anyone else to go on this journey with other than my amazing husband.

Thing 1 & Thing 2!

Our boys are growing bigger and bigger everyday and Michael and I are such proud parents! Today Daxton weighed in 6 lbs 6 ounces and Parker weighed in at 5 lbs 3 ounces! They are both learning to eat so well! It is a bit challenging to balance trying to be at the hospital with our boys and trying to be at home with our 3 girls. We can't wait for these boys to come home and we feel so blessed that our family has grown by 4 more feet!

Daxton Ryker Nicholas Prior

Parker Eric Robert Prior

A dear friend from high school (who also had twins) gave me these onesies and they are absolutely adorable!!! All the nurses got a good laugh! :)

This is completely off topic but Natalie is such a sweet girl! She is always so eager to please and to be mommy's little helper. Everytime we go grocery shopping and return home, Natalie helps to bring the groceries upstairs and put them away in the fridge and the pantry. When we went to Target, Natalie begged with all her might for us to buy her a princess purse and I told her that she needed to earn it and thus began the chore/allowance process. This is the first dollar that she earned!

Proud parents of our 5 children,... (in birth order), Natalie, Delaney, Kherrington, Parker & Daxton!

To my 3 little girls from Daddy

    I cannot even begin to tell you how much you three mean to me. I sit here tonight looking at pictures of the three you and can't even begin to comprehend how fast you are growing up. I thought about the future and what it will bring me. I thought about the day you three each get married. I shed a tear cause I know it will be the three hardest days of my life. You are my little disney princesses that will grow up to be real life princesses. I can't imagine what my life was before you three.
  Natalie, you are my achiever. You learn things like no other. You amaze me every day. My first born. I know that you will achieve many great things in this life. you will become someone. I hope you know that I have loved you every single day of your life and will for the rest of your life. I remember the first time you ever crawled. I remember how that green binkie ingulfed your little face. I remember how you were always bigger than all the kids your age. How you used to love pureed carrots and squash. I remember how you used to crawl on one leg and gave us the popeye look. I also remember how you used to get the food everywhere but in your mouth. I remember the first time you went to the beach and did a face plant into the sand. you did not like that :( I remember how I used to dress you up in little costumes and tape videos of you. I remember the first time you met Delaney, which happened to be the same day you decided to start walking. I remember how you cried when you first sat next to Delaney cause you were no longer the only child. Natalie you have a gentle and caring heart. You are sensitive and care about what people think and care deeply if Mommy or Daddy is happy. Natalie I know I will cry the day I dance with you on your wedding day. I often think back to a movie called BiCentenial Man where a father danced with his daughter on that day and he realized that he was losing his daughter who was becoming a woman. I think of a song written by Stephan Curtis Chapman called, "Cinderella" Natalie, you are my Cinderella. I know you will be something great in life. I just know it. Don't let anything ever hold you back. Keep your faith and morals, and go out there and take over the world.
  Delaney, you are my beauty queen and my cuddler. You do not know it yet, but the boys will be chasing you everywhere you go. As you get older, you only get more beautiful. I know you will have alot of success in life cause when you want something, you get it done. I know that you will never let anyone tell you that you can't do something. You will always be able to prove them wrong. Don't ever settle love. No one out there will ever be good enough for you. But I know that you will find your prince. I know that you are going to be our singer of the family. Often I will hear you in the other room just start singing, and you are so passionate about it. You two are my disney princess. You are my Belle. So beautiful and smart. I know that you will make a beast a princess. I can remember as a baby how you used to love to sit in your uncle Daniel's lap and just rock back and forth. I can remember how the only way to get you to sleep was putting you in the swing. I remember how I used to love taking pictures of you and I would even go as far as to put you in a mixer bowl to get a creative picture of you (it didn't turn out so well). I can remember your first steps walking from Mommy to Daddy. I can remember how you used to love me to throw you really high in the air and how that all changed just a year later.  I remember how passionate you were when you played with your toys and how when your sister Kherrington came how you wanted to play with just her all the time. I wish you would never grow up and stay little forever. I remember how you would come up to our room every night cause you wanted to sleep in my arms. I loved it so much. I have never felt so closer to you than I did when you laid with me. You would snore so loud, but I didn't care cause I had my baby girl in my arms. I hope you always let me hug and hold you and are never embarrassed of me. One day you will feel the love I am talking about when you have a little one of your own. I love you so much Delaney!
  Kherrington, my baby girl. You are my delicate one. You have always been our smallest child. You have grown leeps and bounds. You suprise me all the time. I see you watch and trust your sisters so much and always follow their lead. Anytime two children are playing you are one of those playing with the other. You have learned to do everything so much quicker than the other two. I can only imagine who you are going to become. I can remeber your first christmas when I wrapped you in wrapping paper. I can remember how much you loved to put on Disney dresses. I can remember how you love to breastfeed and made it a whole entire year. I remember how much you used to love our little pool in the backyard. You are my Sleeping Beauty Kherrington. I love you so much Kherrington and I know I have so much to learn from the three of you and now you are blessed to have two brothers in your life. I know that we still have many years in front of us. I just know that soon I will never get to see you as babies anymore and will become my grown-up children. Please know that I love all three of you with all my heart and soul. I hope that you will always be a part of our lives even when you grow up and have a family of your own. You have made me the man that I am today. I would never ever ever change anything about my life. I got the best children I could have ever asked for. I love you three so much!!!!!
Love always,
   Daddy

Babies!

Our boys are growing growing growing and baby Daxton is weighing in at 6 lbs 3 ounces and baby Parker is at 4 lbs and 14 ounces! They are working hard to grow big and strong and come home to be with their 3 big sisters!

My husband is the most AMAZING person I know. He is the perfect man to be on this journey with and I can't imagine my life without him. I'm not sure my life had even begun until the day that he became my husband and I became his wife! I love you Michael!

Look at what I made....

This pregnancy has been a dream, a real difficult one but finally our baby boys have made it into the world! Daxton and Parker Prior joined our family at 8:27pm on December 23rd. My goodness, looking back on this pregnancy, it just feels like it truely has been a long tough road and I am just so thankful that The Lord has given me the strength that was required to endure this pregnancy and that we recieved 2 beautiful baby boys as a result.

This picture was taken the morning that the boys were born. My uterus was measuring over 45 weeks and my goodness, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. The pregnancy migranes were more intense than any pain I had ever felt previously. Never in my life had I ever had a migrane  but these headaches were extremely painful. The room would begin to spin and next thing  I knew, I was vomiting on the floor. This was by far the toughest year of my life. And after spending a total of a little over 9 weeks total in the hospital, I am thankful that I didn't go a little bonkers! HAHA! The Lord gives us strength to endure all things as long as we are faithful.

This picture was taken the morning of the day that our boys were born. To be honest, with all the many pregnancy complications, I'm surprised that I made it as far as I did. I was ordered to wear the Toco (conraction monitor) 24/7. I didn't mind wearing it but often times the nurse would wake me up because I would have contractions while I was sleeping.

When I was pregnant with Natalie, I couldn't do anything to get my self to go into labor. I felt as though I might be the only woman on the planet that would carry a full term baby and never deliver! HAHAHA!!!!! So, the fact that I had to fight so hard to keep these babies in was a bit of a surprise to me simply based on my past pregnancies. And the sheer size of my belly was astronomically

huge! All the sweet nurses that cared for me during my many weeks in the hospital, were more than sympathedic to my rather larger than life size! :)

After about 8 hours of contractions that were 3 to 5 mins apart, I knew it wouldn't be long before the nurses and doctors were going to come into my room and tell me that my time was up, so I called my husband and best friend Leah and they came rushing into the hospital. I was so sca red and having never had a c-section, I had no idea what may lay ahead of me but I knew that I was affraid. They rushed me into the operating room and Mike waited outside while I recieved a spinal block and then laid down on the opporating room table. When Mike came into the room, my nerves calmed down a lot and I didn't take my eyes off of him during the whole proceedure. He was so supportive and having him by my side granted me so much peace. I kept telling him how afraid I was that I would feel pain while on the operating room table that I didn't even realise that the doctor had already begun and moments later, we heard Daxton's first cry! I wanted so badly for Leah  to be able to also be by my side. After 24 years of friendship, there is nothing greater than sharing in this sacred moment. Sadly because of the number of medical personnel that were in the operating room, Leah was not permited to attend this event. As Daxton was born, I understood the reasoning as to why I was not able to have my best friend in the room. There were so many people surrounding us that as both boys were delivered, I couldn't even catch a glimps of either of them.

At 8:28 pm, our darling baby Parker was born.

And born first and 8:27 pm was a handsome baby Daxton

My first time being able to hold both babies at the same time.

It has been just over a week since our little guys were born into the world and they are doing great! Understandibly due to their premature delivery, both boys are in the hospital NICU and will likely remain there until their due date (2/2/12). The boys only had to hooked up to the oxygen for the first 3 days (never intibated, only nasal canula) and have not had to have it since. The tube which you see in their nose is a NG tube and is how the boys recieve most of their feedings. Since the boys are technically not even supposed to be born for another 6 weeks, they can't be expected to know how to courdinate the eat, suck and swallow process. There is an 8 step process that they must master before being permitted to go home. Right now they are on step 1 but they can move up very quickly if they are tolerating their feeds well. I recently began nursing them 1 time a day. Daxton is an eating machine and already taking almost 2 ounces per feeding which is a huge feeding for a premature baby. It's very aparent that he is the larger baby (pictured on the right). Dax loves to nurse and is a very fast eater! Parker is a little smaller and therefore a little slower out of the starting gate. He tolerates his feedings well but is not as interested in nursing as his brother. He prefers to comfort suck. I can see that this is going to be a challenge.

We love our baby boys!