Liam and Dashiel

Liam Alexander Brown

Dashiel Perrin Brown

The boys made their entrance in the wee hours of September 16th, several weeks ahead of schedule. I'd already been staying in the hospital to deal with various complications, and it was Charlie who got the 2 am phone call and had to make the mad dash drive from home to get there in time. At 3.50 am Dashiel and Liam were born, just one minute apart. Charlie got to hold each of them near to me so that I could see, and then they all whisked upstairs to the nicu to get checked out while I was pieced back together again.

Dashiel weighed 5 pounds 1 ounce, and Liam 5 pounds nine ounces. Big boys! Since they came so early, they still have some growing to do and skills to learn before they can come home. We can tell already that they aren't identical....their faces are strikingly different and they have different shades of wispy hair. Dashiel seems determined to experience the world through sticking things in his mouth. Just after he was born, he impressed the nurses by shrieking until he was given something to eat. Liam is more observant and likes to look around and see things. Often I'll look over at his little space capsule bed and see wee dark eyes peering out at me. Over in the other capsule, Dashiel is wiggling until he can get a fist out of his swaddle and into his mouth.

the boys in their space capsules

Thank you to all of our family and friends who have been celebrating with us. Life with babies in the nicu isn't quite the same as your typical homecoming....it's more difficult to have visitors, and we can't always answer the phone or talk because we're spending time with doctors and nurses. In some ways we have more time than your average new parent, since those same doctors and nurses are taking care of the boys 24 hours a day. In other ways we have less, while we spend lots of time at the hospital learning about how the boys have advanced each day and what that means for their development and growth. The boys can't breastfeed yet, so I'm trying to get my body to realize that I had babies early and pump breastmilk that they can eat through a nose tube. Oh, and heal from this pesky c-section thing too.

Hopefully the boys will be coming home in a few weeks, and we will definitely be in the "bring us a lasagna and hold a baby for me so I can close my eyes!" stage that most new parents go through. Till then, I'll try to be sure to take lots of pictures and share them here so that you can see how awesomely cute a tiny person can be when they look a whole lot like a miniature Charlie.

we did it!