Off to a Good Start

It's amazing how much love can fit into a single morning.  We got to the hospital this morning and the babies were doing great.  As I unswaddled Lucas to take his temp and change his diaper in preparation for being held, I noticed that he was wearing a onesie!  This is the first time we've seen him in anything but a diaper, and he sure looked cute, even though he still has some growing to do to really fit it.

He's been making good progress on the growth front, steadily putting on weight with his full feeds - he's over 2 lbs 12 oz now.  The attending doc said that we'll keep the cpap on for a few more days and then we might reassess.  That would be exciting, because one of the steps for taking food by mouth (nursing and bottles) is to get off the cpap.

Olivia is also growing really well.  Her feeds are steadily increasing - she was going up to 8 mL every 3 hours tonight, which is almost halfway to full feeds - and she now weighs over 2 lbs 6 oz.   Mom is working with her on sucking the pacifier, to help get her ready for feeding by mouth - still a little ways off, but no harm practicing.

Both babies look much bigger in the past couple days, especially when we look at early pictures on the blog.  The doctors are really encouraged by Olivia's progress and think it's possible when we do an echo on Monday that her PDA might be closed.  That would be news worth celebrating.  Her other baby step for today is hopefully coming off the temperature probe, which would mean she could get swaddled.  We're excited for that because being baby burritos sure seems to make these little ones happy :)

All in all, it was a really great start to the day.  We love this new routine of taking both babies out together, and can't wait until their beds move together so they can hang out next to each other.  For now, Mom & Dad enjoy smiling at each other while holding the sweetpeas.

It was actually quiet and peaceful in the NICU all morning, so much so that we could hear the music on their neighbor's crib mobile rather than someone's monitor beeping.  It almost felt normal.