Lost in Time

Today I got lost.  That's just all there is to it.  I got lost in Olivia.  Where does the time go?  I spent an amazing two hours with her, holding her from 5 - 7 pm after a long day of work and of readying the house for her arrival.  I can just sit and stare.  Next thing I knew, our kind nurse was telling me it was 7 and time to go.  Holding these kids is unquestionably the most magical thing I have ever done in my life.

I wish I could write the way I felt after I left at 7 pm.  It was a sense of peace, serenity, and happiness I have never known.  My daughter is beautiful.  My son is beautiful.  Today, all is well.

Lucas and Marni agree.  They contentedly spent another day together nursing.  Lucas got to nurse twice today, and rumor has it he will get a bottle during the night shift tonight.  He was great with mom during his morning and afternoon sessions, actually latching on and figuring out what to do.  Mom is supposed to be dry because she pumps beforehand, but this morning she pulled Lucas back to find him smiling and holding a mouth full of milk.  No desats.  Good heart rate.  Normally, they don't really expect this kind of performance, especially from a boy, before 34 weeks.  Lucas is way ahead of schedule.

Ho hum, the kids continue to rock it out.  Lucas continues to get more opportunities to eat.  And he spent most of his day at 100% oxygen saturation on the lowest level of cannula support.  The weekend attending agreed that he could be completely off cannula by next week.  Olivia also is getting much better with her lungs, inching toward graduation from her cpap.  The weekend attending said that could happen this weekend, though my money is on sometime next week.  She is at 1370 grams today, and they would like her "between 1400-1500" before they take her off.  Because she is participating in a breathing study (for babies who were intubated before going on cpap), she is staying on the cpap until she is ready for regular cannula (skipping high-flow cannula).

We're in no rush.  The time is already flying by.  Today we had a nurse we both really like who spent some early days with Lucas and Olivia.  It seems like only yesterday when this nurse was taking care of our kids, rooting for Olivia to close her pda valve, and wondering if the snow would allow her to drive home after her shift to attend to her own baby daughter who had a cold.  

Because time insists on continuing to do its thing, we will continue to embrace each day and the opportunity each 24 hours brings to spend magical moments holding Lucas and Olivia and watching them grow.  That said, I'm getting pretty excited to see little Olivia's beautiful face.  Though, Rosa, you are correct, she is gorgeous exactly the way she is right now.