Ramblings from Alabama

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Elise has a new home!  She moved to an open crib tonight after her bottle and bath.  She also hit the 4 pound mark tonight.   Two big steps in one day!

And here is Mary just after her bath.  Isn’t she cute in her little outfit?  She weighed about 3 lbs 7 oz tonight.  Only 9 oz to go for her!

Both girls are eating well these days.  Mary is taking a bottle every third feed, and hopefully we’ll get the go-ahead to attempt nursing tomorrow.  Elise is now considered “ad-lib,” which means she gets to eat on demand.  Nursing is going well with Elise…we are getting lots of practice.  The babies are hilarious when they get full.  They make a funny little grunting noise and look like they are in some sort of “Ugh-I-ate-too-much” stupor, kind of like I am after Thanksgiving dinner or China Gourmet buffet, but (usually) without the grunting.  Nurse Jan says they are “milk drunk.”

Mary is still on a little oxygen but is doing so well since her transfusion.  She has a new-found energy and was wide awake today when I went to visit.  I held her for a while and she finally went to sleep.  She may surprise us all and turn out to be the fiesty one.  There’s still talk of Elise coming home soon.  Actually, last night we were talking about it near her bed, and she promptly had a major de-sat and bradycardia.  Jan said, “You just bought yourself another five days here, young lady!”  I think she doesn’t want to leave Mary behind…how sweet…but annoying!  Oh well, she could still come home by the end of next week.  We’ll keep you posted.  Or just wait for the blog posts to come to a sudden halt for several days.  Then you’ll know she’s home!

Thanks again to all of you blog addictees for keeping up with our little family and for praying for us.  We are nearing the end of our hospital stint here and eagerly await the next phase.  Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare our home for the girls and then as we adjust to having them home.  It will be a crazy adventure, I’m sure!

Looks like we are getting closer and closer to Elise’s homecoming.  Jan, tonight’s nurse, predicts that she will be coming home in the next 7-10 days.  She says this may be our last baby-free weekend, so we should get whatever we need to get done, done…shopping, cleaning, etc.  We’ll do what we can.  I figure we’ll never be totally ready anyway!  Mary will probably not come home with Elise.  We figure it will be another week in the NICU for her after Elise leaves.

Both girls are doing well.  Mary has continued her bottle feedings once or twice a day.  She gets pretty tired during her feeds but does a little better with each bottle.  She has really begun to let us know when she is hungry.  About every three hours, right on schedule, she pitches a little fit until she gets some attention and some food.  Elise has bottles several times a day, depending on the nurse, and she is breastfeeding once a day.  She has done so well the last couple of days, latching on and eating for a good ten minutes and then taking what else she wants from the bottle.  We tried a second nursing session of the day tonight when we went in, but it didn’t go as well as it did earlier today at noon.  We woke her up to feed her so she just wasn’t as ready to go as she was before.  But at least I know she can do it!  We’ll keep practicing, and I’ll be praying for patience! 

Weights tonight were 3 lbs 4.6 oz and 3 lbs 13.6 oz.  I’ll let you figure out which weight belongs to which girl! 

Mary seems to be doing well with her new blood.  The nurse has turned her oxygen down and will try turning it down again more tomorrow night, as long as she continues to do well where she is now.  Also, the doctor said this afternoon that he didn’t hear Mary’s murmur.  The nurse still heard a quiet one, though.  Perhaps this is an indication that the PDA is closing.  As Travis said in his last post, we are hoping that the blood tranfusion is going to help her with her O2 saturation and with her PDA.  Maybe these are signs that it is…we are hopeful.

Thanks to all of you for keeping up with the girls’ progress and for all of your sweet prayers for their health and for our family.  We appreciate it so much!

Mary, or turkey as we have come to call her, received a blood transfusion tonight.  Dr. Novak is hopeful that this will improve Mary’s ability to maintain good oxygen levels and also possibly help close her PDA.  Obviously, Dawn and I were a little freaked out by the term “blood transfusion” being used in a sentence with our precious little girl.  We wondered what that even meant… “are they going to replace her blood?”… “do they put in as much as they take out”… “what if she rejects the blood?”… “what if the blood is contaminated?”… All of these questions and more raced through our brains and poured out our mouths as we talked about it during our drive in this morning.  Of course, after talking with nurse Dee, and nurse Michelle, and the nurse Tracey, and nurse Jan, and Dr. Novak, we now know that transfusions and preemies go hand in hand.  To quote nurse Tracey, “…no one leaves here without a transfusion.”  She has been telling us that since day one.  Mary’s blood wasn’t replaced, it was “added too”.  She received 15ml of nice, irradiated blood.  FYI, replacing blood is an “Exchange Transfusion”, in case you were wondering… like we were.  There were no complications, and no reactions.  After the four hour process was over, Dawn said Mary looked better already.  It is simply amazing that they can even give blood like that.  The blood was in a pump that slowly metered out 3.75ml per hour.  I could watch it count one 100th of a ml at a time, just too amazing.  Not to mention how microscopic the actual IV tube is that feeds it into her.  It is miraculous without a doubt.  

Here is Mary from 3/22, she has discovered a new game… pull the cannula out of your nose and stick in your mouth!  Dawn thinks this is especially hilarious because it looks like she has fangs and is about to get blood.

Here is Mary actually hooked up and being transfused… 

I received some anonymous flack that it is probably time to show a picture of Dawn and the girls.  Not wanting to upset the balance of parental bliss, I figured I’d better do just that! Below is Mommy and Mary on 3/21.

And here is Mommy and Elise from tonight 3/23…

Mary and Elise hit the one month mark today.  Elise celebrated by throwing up and being held off her 9 o’clock feed.  Mary celebrated by losing weight for the second day in a row.  Despite these minor issues, the girls are doing very good.  Mary weighs 3lbs 2.8 oz and Fatty weighs 3lbs 11.6oz. Dawn has been trying out breast feeding with Elise… I’ll let her tell you about all that.  Needless to say, Dawn was walking on cloud 9 today after Elise nursed for 10 straight minutes.  Of course the whole throwing up thing kind of burst that bubble.  Mary is taking one bottle per day now and has been doing quite well at it.  She is very alert after the feedings and will just watch you for as long as you let her.  It is so awesome.

From the messages in my email inbox, I see that our devoted blog addictees are having withdrawal symptoms since we haven’t posted since Thursday!  Sorry for the delay everyone…we’ve had a busy weekend and our NICU visits the past few days have run a little later into the evening now that there are bottle feeds we don’t want to miss.  Without further adieu, here’s the latest on the girls.

Elise is doing just plain awesome…praise God!  She weighs around 3 lb 8 oz and has just been changed to taking a bottle every third feeding.  She is gaining weight really well and is doing great with her breathing and her apnea (she’s off her apnea meds) and her temperature-maintaining.  Soon she will be moved from the isolette to an open crib.  Christina (Elise’s nurse) told me this afternoon that once they take those steps, the babies can just accelerate really fast and be home before you know it…how exciting…and scary!  Strangely enough, I’ve become extremely comfortable with the NICU and having a nurse there 24/7.  Some other exciting news with Elise…we are going to try nursing tomorrow!  Please pray for us as we attempt this.  I know it won’t be perfect this first time, so I need a dose each of patience and determination to make this work eventually!

Mary is also plugging along, just not as quickly as Elisee right now, but she’ll get there!  She’s about 3 lb 2 oz and is looking a little more “filled out” every day.  She’s still on that little bit of oxygen, but Allison (Mary’s nurse) is working with her and trying every now and then to get her off it.  Mary had her first bottle last Wednesday but hasn’t had another one until today.  Allison turned up her O2 while she took the bottle and that was exactly what she needed…no de-satting!  She took the whole bottle (with some help from Allison near the end!) and she’ll now take one a day with a little extra O2 to help her out.  Maybe we can get her started with the real deal (nursing) in the next couple of days, too.

Travis and I are getting to hold the babies each day now.  We give them their bottles and then sneak in some snuggle time after that.  They are both so alert when we talk to them…it is very exciting and heartwarming to see them stare up at you with those big eyes when they hear your voice.  And Daddy can make them “smile” instantly when sings his made-up songs to them.  My favorite goes something like, “If I sing off-key, will you smile at me?”  We get lots of smiles when Daddy sings!

Here are some pictures of Elise…check out those beautiful eyes!

And here are some of Mary…she had a really good grip on that pacifier.  She’s so strong for such a little girl!

Quick update on weights…Mary has hit the three-pound mark!  She’s 3 lb 0.5 oz.  And Elise is 3 lb 4.6 oz.  Way to go, girls!