I wrote this to another woman on my Facebook TTTS Survivors with Gaurdian Angels group and I want to share it here:
It was crazy on Wednesday night my parents were watching the news and I was flossing my teeth, I heard something about people spending last Thanksgiving in the hospital. I had a feeling it was a TTTS story and it was! I was excited, TTTS is getting recognition! But of course it was a happy ending story as both boys survived (born at 27 wks) and are doing great a year later. I don't think they went into much detail on the disease, it was a short story. I was upset after it aired because that's the only publicity TTTS gets - the happy endings ones.  I want to contact that TV station and say "hey, you guys need to research and report that not all the babies make it. If I hadn't gone through the experience personally I would think from that story if I got pregnant with twins and had TTTS, the babies might be born early but they'd be okay."
That's all.  Missing my Faith tonight.

Thanksgiving

We went to Iowa for Thanksgiving.  It was a good time. The drive wasn't too bad, but I only drove for 30 minutes.  We left at 3:20 and got to my parents at 10:45 (9:45 central time).  The girls were pretty good, Chloe had a rough patch for awhile where she wouldn't calm down.  Kylie was just fine the whole time because she just watched movies.
I got to sleep with Kylie all weekend - that's an experience.  She turned 180 a couple of nights and usually she'd have to have some part of her touching me. Plus she talks in her sleep and grinds her teeth. Oh boy.  I don't like the grinding teeth part but I'm not sure how to go about fixing that.
Joel had Chloe in his room and she was having "crib parties" as he calls them.  She would get up at 3 and not really go back to sleep unless he was rocking her in a chair. Except on Thursday night when Joel went shopping all night.  He was at Best Buy at 5 PM Thursday and was number 100 in line.  His picture was on the front of the paper.  He got what we wanted.  He's crazy but I think he enjoys doing this once a year.

I feel off on my seasons and it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving.  It's probably because I missed last winter and most of spring that I'm messed up.  Some days I think to myself "the warmer weather will be here soon. Oh wait, no it won't."  That time I thought would never come back in March is here, Chloe is doing great (except she has a cold, poor girl) and I am so thankful for her progress.

Holidays are Coming

I want to be happy and excited about the holidays this year. But I feel like I'm holding my breath, waiting for something to happen. Last Thanksgiving we were celebrating finding out we were having twins. My one regret with that is not telling all the family right away because I wanted to see the looks on their faces.  In a way having multiples is like winning the lottery. It's scary and exciting all at the same time. The weeks before Christmas were the bad ones, finding out about TTTS and the surgery - I can't even believe we went through that, I guess we are stronger for it.  But I feel like because it's Thanksgiving and we'll be seeing family, something will happen that we can't go or we'll be making a trip to the doctor before we go. Chloe does have a cold now. Kylie is fine but a lot of kids at day care are sick. I had something on Friday because I had aches and chills.  I'm glad it only lasted a day.
I pray the God will settle my worries about this coming week and blesses us with some quality family time.
I also pray I have patience and wits tomorrow at work. I should have a new computer because my current one is slow, like being on dial-up. It would take me 30 min to an hour to log on and another 30 min to get into email, maybe 5-10 to open files. I almost put up my Christmas tree, but I didn't want people telling me it's too early.

I haven't looked into another blogging site yet, but I was wondering if I just stuck my email address on here then people could comment. I can't promise to write but, my own family hardly hears from me (I think they are glad I have a blog just to get an idea of what's happening).
Email:  emersonlisa3@gmail.com
It's the one I set up for this blog so hopefully I won't get spammed but I probably will. What interesting about the address is I tried using lemerson and that was taken so then it showed me what I could use and when I saw emersonlisa3 I knew that was the one for me, 3 kids. 
That reminds me, I went to Sam's Club on Saturday for an eye exam and I filled out some paperwork. A question on there said "Any major surgeries?" I didn't know what to put because I didn't want to get into all the detail with the eye doctor. I just put "C-section."  A few months ago when I gave blood, the nurse asked about my pregnancy last year and the birth. Then she asked if everything went well. I said "No....Oh with me, everything was fine, no problems."  She kind of got flustered and apologized. I told it's okay. I wasn't thinking about the question, at the eye exam I had the time to think about the question to form an answer.
I have some laundry to take of before bed. 

Soo... Don't know if I'll keep this blog as I hear it's hard for people to comment.  Maybe when I feel like I'm not breaking things I will look into a new blog place.  Apparently at work my hard drive will be crashing sometime soon and my computer is getting really slow.  The IT guy just gave me a different computer in Sept because of some issues I was having in Excel.  Deep Breaths.
On the good news side. I have really low cholesterol : )

On Track

Chloe had her developmental appointment today and it was good news!  She scored in the 7 - 8 month old range which is super.  She was the star of the morning. I think it left her a bit over stimulated though as she didn't really take a good nap today until I put her down at 7. When we were leaving another baby had arrived for an assessment and he had the breathing machine and I think some other things. It reminded me how thankful we are that Chloe is doing so amazing. The people that came to see her kept saying "she's a 26 weeker? you would never know it."
Good Job Chloe!

Nice Weekend

Nice weekend we had, the weather was good, a bit windy though so we didn't want Chloe in that without a hat.  I thought of taking the girls to the park but when I was outside this morning, a gust of wind came strong and I thought "nope."  Joel had to go into work today to catch up so it was just the girls and we watched a movie. Kylie likes Despicable Me which Joel bought for us to watch in the hospital last year after the laser ablation surgery in Milwaukee.  I had to tell him to turn it off because it hurt to laugh so he just watched it on the laptop with headphones.
Kylie and I made pumpkin pie with real pumpkin I had made up last weekend to make pumpkin soup, which I made way too spicy for me, too much black pepper and/or cayenne pepper.  I also got some house chores done but otherwise a pretty laid back day.
Yesterday Kylie had her first ballet class. It didn't go so well.  It's a closed class so the parents have to leave and either run errands or go across the hall and sit in another room.  Kylie was not having any of that. I wished I wasn't the one to take her because I think she might be more shy when she is with me just because that's how I am too. The teacher let her and I watch from the door.  I kept to the side so the little girls could only see Kylie and they were asking why she wasn't joining them.  Plus the sheet said comfortable clothes and ballet slippers.  I should have known that all the little girls would have a ballet outfit. Next week we'll go back and I hope she wants to participate, I kept saying to her "what are they doing, do you want to go in there too?"  No luck.  I believe we have a few dance outfits that pass for ballerina that she could wear.  Why did I sign her up for this?  Oh that's right, they moved the gymnastics to a Wednesday morning.
Yesterday afternoon we went to church and had dinner. After dinner I let Kylie make a Christmas tree.  It's a great idea we got from her Turtle magazine. You take a sugar cone, mix green food coloring with white frosting (I had to mix yellow and blue but it turned into a better green). Spread the frosting on the cone and then decorate with marshmallows, m&m's or other candies.  I just bought a things of 4 different sprinkles and we shake those on the tree.  One of the sprinkles are stars so we make sure to get one on the top of the tree. Kylie had the green tree, Joel and I had white ones as I didn't feel like coloring more frosting.  We made these last weekend too, so I still have frosting to use up. 
Tomorrow morning is the 2 hour developmental appointment.

Good News

This morning, November 12, 2011    Kylie, 3 and Chloe, 9 months

Yesterday, Chloe had her cardiologist appointment.  It went really well, except the part where she had to get an echo on her heart.  That was hard to keep her lying still. The whole appointment took an hour and a half.  Lots to go through. The doctor was very pleased with Chloe and her progress.  He said they like to see chubby babies as that means things are going well. The valve that was ballooned open as well as leakage from the valve is what he considers minor.  Monday will be her developmental appointment.

Not sure if I'm doing this blog correctly. I don't have a ton of time to figure it out, but so far so good, right?

I Did It

I finally did it. I hope this works out.  I set up this blog to give me more options than what Caringbridge can.  We'll see if this works out.
Chloe was very drooly today. Daycare changed her shirt once and the bib she had on was pretty wet when I picked her up.
It's funny to listen to Kylie talk or sing. The stuff she says. She was playing with some princess dolls and Mulan was mad at Belle, I could hear Kylie voice both princesses. Then Belle walked away and Mulan started to sing a song.  I caught "Frosty was made of snow and he was heavy."  Too funny.
I wonder what it will be like when Chloe can join in - hopefully not fighting all the time.