Home Away from Home

We got back to the hospital today, thanks to a lovely friend who picked us up in his four-wheel drive Jeep.  The roads actually looked a bit better than they did after the first big snowstorm over the weekend, so maybe DC is finally figuring this out.  Hopefully in time to not have more weather like this for a long time.  The little ones were waiting for us with all sorts of antics.

Lucas had a few apnic episodes over the past day, which is where he stops breathing briefly.  The docs say this is totally normal as he adjusts to the lower cpap pressure, but they are going to give him a couple more days to get used to this before they try to move him to the high-flow nasal canula.  He keeps trying to push off the cpap mask, which we think is his way of telling us that he's ready for the next step :)  He continues to be a champion eater.  His feeds were increased to 20 mL of breastmilk every three hours, with all the IV nutrition discontinued.  Hopefully he'll get the final increase to full feeds tomorrow and if all continues to go well the attending will remove his pick line on Saturday.  He's now up to 1190 grams, which is 2 lbs 10 oz, and is looking very cute and even a little chubby - at least in his cheeks :)  We'll try to get some good photos tomorrow.

Olivia pulled a big stunt before we came in this morning, managing to get her ventilator tube out. They were able to easily reintubate her, although the wonderful fellow who actually did the procedure told us how much he hates to do that because the babies look at him as if to say, "really, you're going to put that back down my throat?"  She still looked a little uncomfortable when we came in this morning, but our nurse was able to get her much more comfortable and when we left midday she was all snuggled up looking much happier.  She will get her echo tomorrow so then we'll know what's going on with her PDA.  We're rooting for her!  And either way, this is the last course of medication so the doctors will propose a course of action tomorrow or Saturday.

We bumped into one of our favorite doctors in the hallway as we were getting ready to leave today, and as before he had wonderful and very reassuring words for us.  First, he told us that he was very happy with the progress of both babies and then was the second person to say that we'll be amazed how quickly Olivia makes progress on her breathing and eating as soon as they take care of her heart.  He also explained to us what the heart surgery would entail, if that is necessary, and it was much less scary than we had thought.  She would get an incision under her arm and they would thread their way to her heart where they would clip the valve.  The clip will dissolve over time and it sounds like the scar will be tiny.  We're still hopeful this course of action won't be necessary, but it's good to know what would happen.  We really appreciate him taking the time to talk with us and reassure us, as he's not even on regular rotation in the NICU right now.

We've had some requests to show the world outside Lucas & Olivia's beds, so we took pictures of the NICU this morning.  Here is Lucas's bed, with the covers pulled down so he can sleep.  The lights are frequently lower, but they've been doing some procedures the last couple mornings, so the babies get their shades drawn to maintain a nap-friendly atmosphere :)  His monitor is to the left of the bed up high and the cpap maching is directly to the left, with the white and blue tubes:

This is Olivia's bed - pretty similar set up just across the way from her brother:

 

And here's Mom pumping next to Olivia - the babies are excellent inspiration :)

And one last picture, showing Olivia's bed in the foreground and Lucas's across the isle.  We are sad they are not right next to each other, but we look forward to the day soon when mom or dad can hold them closely at the same time.

It's definitely not quite the setup we had imagined for thier first weeks of life, but they are being made very comfortable and recieving excellent care.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has been taking such good care of keeping us fed.  I realized today that I haven't been to the grocery store in over three weeks and yet we've eaten wonderfully with very little take-out. The home-cooked meals and kindness that comes with them provides us with physical and emotional nourishment and we only hope that we can one day return all the favors that we have received.