The Difference of a Day

Today was another great day.  We had a very caring and competent nurse, which helped Mom, Dad and the babies to have a fabulous day together.  Both Olivia and Lucas enjoyed a long snuggle with their parents.  Check out Dad's feet for a sense of how we set up to hang out as a family:

 

During rounds, the attending noted how comfortable we looked, especially Dad in his lounge chair.  Dad's been threatening to buy one for our living room (the babies and I will put it on our list for Father's Day).  Lucas continues to do great on his high-flow canula.  The attending discussed her plan for the next week or two, to slowly decrease the flow volume and then possibly get Lucas off any breathing assistance.  That would be pretty awesome.  Olivia continues to have a small number of bradys each day and regular desats, but the nurse was managing her oxygen support really well and two of our favorite fellows this morning told Mom there's nothing to worry about.  By 34 weeks, babies' have pretty good respiratory development, so

we're hoping for good progress this week.  She continues to eat well, getting her breast milk fortified up to 24 cal/ounce, the same as her brother.  With all that good nutrition, we expect her to keep getting cuter and pudgier :)

The big news of the day was that the attending gave us the go ahead to take the first step towards nursing Lucas.  We're still at a very preliminary stage, so much so that calling it nursing seems a bit of an overreach, but Lucas did get to come to Mom's breast and suck (don't worry, with whatever modesty I have left at this point, I wouldn't let Dad take a picture).  Even though he wasn't getting much milk (they had me pump right beforehand), this was the first time in Lucas's life that he got any food by mouth, and he was very sweet looking up at his mom as he tried to latch on.  We'll keep practicing.  For now, we know that the breast milk, however its delivery, is keeping him content :)