The Goods

Lucas and Olivia had another fabulous day.

Both kids got the results of their eye exams and passed with flying colors.  They had some medical terms for the results, but they don't make much sense.  In short, they both have "immature" eyes, but that is to be expected.  They are (adjusted gestational) 33 weeks and 3 days old after all!  Olivia will get her repeat exam in 2 weeks (par for the course, especially considering she was so small and has needed more oxygen); Lucas will get his repeat in 3 weeks.

Lucas's surprises keep coming.  Today in morning rounds, the fellow (above resident but below attending) gave the go ahead for Lucas to try out bottle feeding.  This is particularly exciting because in his first few days at the breast, he was playing with blanks, if you will, because mom pumps herself empty before giving him a shot.  After another practice run at the breast in the morning, Marni was able to return at the end of the day and give Lucas a bottle.  The little champ made it through an entire 10 mL bottle, which was more than 1/3 of his 5 pm feeding.

Lucas also had his breathing support reduced even further, from high-flow to regular nasal cannula.  He went from 3 liters of air per minute to 2 liters after morning rounds.  He then did so well on 2 liters that they brought him down to 1.  We're not quite sure--because as I think we've mentioned different people give different answers to the same questions--but we think it is possible Lucas could soon be removed from breathing support entirely.

For Olivia, her success is that her progress continues steadily.  She had even less desats today on her cpap, and she spent more of her day breathing "room air", i.e., the same level of oxygen that the rest of us get.  After some gentle prodding by mom in the afternoon, we got out of the attending doctor that hopefully next week, or so, Olivia will be able to come off her cpap, go straight to regular flow cannula, and begin breast feeding.  This is particularly exciting because we are certain she is as cute as her big brother.  It would also let mom and dad breath a little easier because it is tough to watch Lucas reach all these milestones while Olivia has to hold steady.  Not to fear, the doctors continually remind us, Olivia is a girl, so she'll be all right.  No seriously, girls, not surprisingly, do much better than boys in the nicu, so everyone is pretty confident that when Olivia gets to start eating she will catch up to her brother and fast.  This is evident by how well she does with her pacifier.  In fact, yesterday, she pushed my hands out of the way and insisted on holding it herself.  Pretty darn cute, and impressive.

Well, I meant not to write too much tonight and just give you pictures.  Guess their progress was too much fun to tell.  Don't worry, I will still give you the goods.  Here are some fabulous pictures of Lucas in the morning with his pacifier and with dad:

Sadly, Olivia's cpap sometimes keeps us from getting great pictures of her too.  Not to fear, lest our little girl be left out, instead we will allow her to be the first to debut the great video collection we are sitting on.  So . . . follow these links, use the password lucasandolivia (one word all lowercase), and enjoy two videos, one of the first time Marni held our little girl and one of her showing off with her pacifier.  For reference, the first video is several weeks old and the second is a bit more than one week old.  Enjoy!

Click here to see the first time mom held Olivia

Click here to see Olivia showing off with her pacifier