Home, Sweet Home

Sooo, I planned to write every day that we were in the hospital... it didn't happen obviously. :P
But, here's a summary of our stay:
Alex's surgery also went really well. (We had an amazing surgeon!) But unfortunately his spinal block for pain afterward didn't work nearly as well as Lincoln's did. Poor little Alex was having a hard time with the pain for the first little while until the morphine started working. I was also able to go back and see him in the recovery room before they brought him up to the room and since he was having such a hard time, they let me sit in the bed and hold him on the way up. Everything went well for the first day and then Alex started having breathing problems... again!! Just like his first surgery! He just kept breathing SO loud and the nurses and doctors kept coming in to listen to him. I kind of panicked a few times because it was just bringing back too many memories of the first surgery where we almost lost him, but every time they checked on him they said that his lungs sounded clear and it was mostly his airway that was inflamed, most likely from the tubes they had to put down his throat during surgery. He ended up getting about 5 breathing treatments and 2 steroid shots during the 6 days we were there. He's doing so much better now and we haven't had any problems since, thank goodness!
Our hospital stay consisted of mostly keeping on top of their pain control and learning to change their diapers. It took Lincoln just a few hours to start pooping but Alex didn't start until the next day. Their diaper rashes started within a couple days and we had to make sure we were just dabbing at their bums instead of wiping, and we had to put a lot of barrier cream on. They definitely don't like getting their diapers changed! It's pretty sad to listen to them bawling while we try to get all the goopy poop and cream off their little bums. :( We seem to be increasing the amount of diapers we use each day. We have to change their diapers as soon as they poop because it needs to be cleaned off right away. We are now changing 1-2 diapers an hour for each of them because they are starting to poop so often! We've been getting help from the ward for diapers and from a couple other people. I feel so blessed to have so many kind people around us!
Right now we're just taking it one diaper change at a time and looking forward to the day that we don't have to be changing them every 30 min!

Here's some pics of their first day in the hospital.

Lincoln

Alex

Surgery Day!!

We brought our boys in at 3 pm yesterday and admitted them to the pediatric ward. Within the hour they both had IV's in and were being prepped for a bowel clean-out. Luckily we had a good nurse putting their IV's in and we only had to poke them once each. It breaks my heart when they are crying so much! I just had to try to comfort them and distract them the best I could.
They put an NG feeding tube down their noses and started pumping the bowel cleanser in to them around 5. It worked REALLY well! They were filling their bags pretty fast and it was like water coming out of their colostomies. This made the sticky wafers around their colostomies fall off every 5 minutes. So I was having to change bags non-stop from 5-11pm. It definitely made me excited to be getting rid of the bags soon!
After they were done with the bowel cleanse things finally started calming down and we were able to try to rest for about 5 hours on the little couch-bed and chair-bed. SO uncomfortable! I'm not looking forward to sleeping on here for the rest of the week. :(
The surgeon, Dr. Downey came by around 7 to say hi and let us know everything that was going on. Lincoln went into surgery at 8:30 and we just stayed in the room with Alex waiting for Lincoln to be done. 
They let us know around 2 that his surgery was done and we were able to go down and wait for them to bring him out of the recovery room. They normally don't let family members in there but they allowed me to go in and see him while he was waking up. 
He was so groggy and he looked ornery and pale but he seemed to respond to me being there and I was able to calm him down. I felt so bad for him just laying there being confused and probably in pain. He's not in too much pain though because he basically has an epidural and that should last for 12 hours. 
Alex is in surgery right now and should be out around 6. We're just trying to keep Lincoln comfortable and as happy as possible while we wait for Alex to be done.
I feel so blessed with how happy and easy-going our babies are! They keep smiling and laughing at everyone even though they probably don't feel very good with all the medicine being given. They are such cute little boys and I feel so lucky to be their mom!
We have a lot of support and help from our family and friends and I'm so grateful for that! I know that Heavenly Father is watching over our boys and I have faith that everything is going to go perfectly.