Counting our blessings.

1. They were born at 32 weeks. This seemed too early at the time, but in retrospect, it could have been a lot worse. And basically everyone has told us so. "Oh, thirty-two weeks? That's not so bad."
2. They are twins. Twins do better in pre-term births than singletons. Much better. Of course, they're also statistically more likely to be pre-term than a singleton.
3. They are both girls. Girls do better than boys as pre-term births in general and with lung development in particular. Who said life was fair?
4. They got betamethasone 48 hours before birth. Not everyone gets a chance to get this intervention before they go into preterm labor. The fact that we showed symptoms a few days before it happened made it possible for us to use this to ripen their lungs. And they've had no lung issues -- they were on room air from Day One.
5. The smaller one was born first. This made it possible for us to avoid a C-section as a preventative measure. If it had been the other way around -- and this was some kind of cosmic coin-flip coming up "heads" -- we might not have had the choice.
6. They were not our first birth. Having a track record for labor allowed us to make decisions and get advice like a couple of real experts. And that track record gave the MDs confidence to allow us to proceed as we had wanted. As Dick Vitale will probably never have the opportunity to say, "Proven pelvis, baby!"
7. They were born after school started. This was not immediately obvious as a blessing, but having Patrick start school when he did made it possible for us to get to CPMC as quickly as we did.
8. They were born before school started. This one is harder to fathom, but if they had a later due date and had been born at the 32-week mark right now, Christine would be back at work we would have had a lot fewer options for Charlie and Patrick. Christine and Mom have been a real blessing.
9. We have had tremendous support from our family and friends. Frankly, our only real chore has been coordinating the abundant offers of help. We've been really grateful for everyone's generosity with their time, particularly those who have cared for Patrick and Charlie throughout.
10. They were born without medical issues. Obviously, this is the most important one of all -- really, it's a culmination of all the other blessings. They needed to be in the NICU and then the SCN not because they were sick, but because they needed further development. We've seen the heartache of the families for whom a positive medical outcome was far from assured, and we feel blessed that all of our angst has been wrapped up in "when" and not in the more awful cloth of "whether."

I'll probably think of more.