Week 6

July 30-August 5, 2010

Right after Ross and Janet left, my mom and dad came back for a few days after their Russia trip. I'm pretty sure they saw each other at the airport passing by with luggage! We headed out Sunday afternoon to a nearby agriturismo for lunch. It was a beautiful day and we were the only ones there for lunch. Contrary to what these next few pictures look like--the boys slept the entire time during lunch.
I love these little coordinating stripe outfits and still cannot get over how small they are in them. Their little heads are teeny.
Even kisses can't stop the crying that ensued!
Mom and Dad left the next day and the next photos show what we did to get used to life with just the four of us.
Sleep.
Nap. Recover from having visitors for 6 weeks and get used to life on our own. What a wake up call not to have 2 extra sets of hands around at all times of the day. We were so fortunate to have parents willing to travel across the world to see our little bundles AND they were so helpful too. From cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, holding babies, feeding babies, changing babies, getting babies to fall asleep, to just being supportive to me and Evan during this emotional whirlwind of a time in our lives.
The week after everyone left, Eli had a scheduled MRI to check the mole on his head. Everything seems fine on the surface, the doctors just want to make sure there is nothing below the surface. Besides spending 7 days in the hospital at their birth, this by far was one of my toughest moments yet as a mom. I was not too excited to return to the Italian hospital, but the base clinic does not do MRIs on children. We checked in to the Pordenone hospital early in the morning and had to feed him at 5 a.m. because he couldn't have liquids 4 hours prior. Porter was a trooper and hung out in support of Eli.

Once we checked in, the anesthesiologist decided she didn't feel comfortable giving meds to such a small baby and she went back and forth with the nurses and MDs on whether or not she would participate. Meanwhile, we were informed that we would be sticking around the hospital for 4 hours at least after the MRI for observation. Okay, good to know, thanks for letting us know so Evan could take the entire day off work on the spot.

The anesthesiologist let us know she has children and if it was her, she would wait until they were 6 months old to do the test. The MD says, "No, run the test today." Okay, decision made. Three nurses had to hold Eli down and put the band around his teeny little arm to insert an IV. Insert crying now. We were then put into a room to wait, and shortly after I took Eli down to get the MRI. It was in one of those 18-wheeler type mobiles with a few people and the machine. I had to hand over my teeny little boy to an Italian nurse and I was not allowed in. Break.My.Heart. About 30 minutes later, he was returned no worse for wear. We got back to the room with Evan and Porter, who had been sleeping the entire time, and I was able to feed both boys and eat some lunch myself. Shortly after we were released and told that the preliminary results showed everything was fine. The picture shows Eli's bandaid from the IV.
Supportive Big Brother P was such a trooper all day! After such a production with the hospital and staff, we were all tuckered out. Evan returned to work and we took naps and got back into our 3 hour routine.