EVIE'S JOURNEY TO SOUND: Evie's NICU Reunion!

On Sat., Sept. 26th, my husband and I and our 3 kids, drove over to Ankeny, IA to attend an Annual NICU Reunion! (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) We had debated whether or not we'd make the trip, but were asked by three different people on Facebook if we were going. That's when I decided the answer would be Yes!

These are a few photos that I took of Evie and her NICU friends nearly 2 years after their stays in the hospital! Every child pictured was in the hospital at the same time as Evie was and we still missed two sets of triplets in these! Wish I'd thought to take their photos too!

Many of the photos include a little girl that looks like she could be Evie's sister, her name is Ava. She and Evie were put in the same room at the NICU because it was overflowing at that time with babies galore! They were allowed to be together because they both had CMV and were in "isolation" from the other babies.

Each baby, or "set" of babies (twins, multiples) had their own rooms. The isolation came from the fact that our girls were not allowed outside of their rooms. Even Santa Claus stayed at the doorway and we brought her to the opening for the photo op where he didn't hold her in order to keep from spreading viral germs!

As parents, visitors and nurses/doctors went into our girls' room they were required to gown up and don rubber gloves! These stayed in the room when leaving and were deposited in a bio-hazard trash bin. This was to protect all the other babies in the NICU from our precious, tiny, cytomegalovirus infected babies! Very Scary for us parents!!

To honor the occasion, I'm also sharing some of our photographed moments in the NICU before showing you how far the girls have come!

A tired Mommy and her itty bitty Evie, weighing only 4 lb 7 oz!

Look how tiny she was! We used the buckle to keep her bundled lower body straped in. Now Evie would hang over the edges of that seat!!

Peaceful Sleeper. Her head was so tiny.

Chris and Sara with their daughter Ava. You can barely see her she's soo tiny!

Jesse, proud daddy, snuggled up with Evie. We kept her bundled like this to encourage her hypertonicity to soften and allow her to work on her head and trunk control better. She couldn't curl into a fetal position on her own, we had to learn a special swaddle to accomplish it.

Santa Claus came early to the NICU and the nurses let us take off our ugly yellow gowns for the photo, but not the gloves... didn't matter one way or the other. I was still nursing her and was skin to skin (or better yet, skin to contagious slobber) with her, many hours of the day!!

She was just so tiny and sweet. Its amazing how far she's come in under two years!! We mustn't forget where we've been, for those experiences will guide us down the roads that lie ahead.

This is Erin, our fabulous NICU Physical Therapist!

Ava and Evie nearly 2 years later!! Ava wears a Hearing Aid in her right ear, and has a Cochlear Implant on her left side. Evie has bilateral Cochlear Implants.

Checkin' Each Other Out!

Four little sweeties that have grown so much!!! All born premature, all doing very well and thriving.

Say Cheese! We were completely in the way of a walking area, four girls on the floor and two moms sprawled out taking photos!

Gotta love Ava's inquisitive nature!! This has helped her so much in her development!

Having a heart to heart?

Ava discovered my crunchy hair, and her dad discovered my camera! I looked back to play with her at just the right moment apparantly.

Laughing at her fun discovery, and wincing a bit in response to the hair pulling. Moments earlier she managed to grab my nose and scrape the inside of it with her thumb. As I hear, this is a common war wound in their house. So worth it to get to bond with her some more!!!

One more 'check you out' session... meanwhile... Evie works to knock her Right CI off with her shoulder! So sneaky and awnry!!!