Roller Coaster of Love

do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do
Your love is like, a roller coaster baby, baby
I wanna ride, yeah, uh huh
do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do

Ah, the joy of the nicu roller coaster.  One day your in, the next day you might be on your way out.  We left rounds on Sunday with the following direction:  Lucas will probably be ready by Friday; Olivia might be able to be strong enough to go with him.  Olivia will have to prove herself, we were told, taking all of her feeds by mouth for 48 hours and continuing to gain weight.  If not, he might come home  first, leaving her behind until next week.  Crazy, we thought (well sort of thought because it is so surreal its hard for either of us to believe it could actually be happening), the landing gear is coming down.

We also both waited with baited breath as we walked into the nicu this morning.  Though we didn't talk too much about it, we both thought that we would check Olivia's weight gain the second we got in (they measure it each night during the night shift but we always save it for morning--as opposed to calling at night to find out--as a kind of present or test score waiting for us).  If she gained weight, we thought, we would be that much closer to them both coming home together this week.

We did talk about our weight checking plans for a brief moment.  We stopped outside the hospital for a brief spiritual pep talk.  We would try out best to accept our daughter, fate, weight gain, God's will, whatever you want to call it, exactly as it is, and not have expectations or get too hung up in wanting things our way, in this case wanting the kids to come home together and soon.

Well, because this is the nicu and nothing is simple, and doubly because this is the Olivia of pda fame who likes to wait until the last minute, we didn't get an easy answer.  Minus 10 grams we read.  Ok, that's not weight gain, but its not too bad either.  We've learned enough that a bigger weight gain tomorrow could be interpreted as weight gain collectively for the two days.  And, because Olivia has a flair for the dramatic, the nurse informed us that she ripped her feeding tube out last night.  I don't need this anymore, she said, bring this full p.o. feed thing on.  She took all of her feeds well that night, so they chose not to put the feeding tube back in.

So, we were feeling pretty good.  And then, do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do, your love is like . . . sorry.

As we prepared for the 8 am feed, the echo tech came in.  Time for their exit echocardiograms.  If I had truly gotten the hang of this pushy thing, I would have said, actually no its not time; it is time for them to eat, so why don't you come back in an hour.  Nope.  Don't quite have it yet, so we chose, we'll feed Lucas while you echo Olivia, then we'll feed Olivia.

Trouble is, the echo ain't so much fun.  Olivia is up, sonogram thingy and cold gel pushing on her chest.  Crying.  Etc. Etc.  By the time it was her turn to eat, she was rather pooped out.  She didn't give much effort to nursing and fell asleep within minutes.  The wheels started churning in mom and dad's head.  She wouldn't take her bottle.  The nurse practically forced half a feed into her, and then gave up.  Olivia passed out, fast asleep.  The wheels continued churning.  She didn't get a full feed.  She failed on a p.o. feed.  How can she gain weight with half a feed.  The nurse said she would put the feeding tube back in for the next feed.  The wheels churned, guess Friday is out for Ms. Olivia.

I hope this is not dramatic, but I kind of thought that sucked.  Not fair really.  Lucas and Olivia have been in the nicu for 10 and a half weeks.  We've been rather patient.  Here we are, days away, and an ill-timed echo would push the little girl back.  I headed off to the office to enjoy some extra days at work because I'm trying to take as much time as possible while the kids are at home, not in the hospital.

do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do
roller coaster of love, say what
roller coaster, yeah

So, we have a new attending doctor in the nicu this week.  As luck would have it--or if you choose something more than that--this attending is the same doctor who runs the follow-up clinic, i.e., it is her job to follow preemies after they go home.  She was not so concerned about the morning events.  Maybe, as we had hoped, she gave Olivia credit for her great work last night and a pass for the hard work of the echo.  Actually, the attending said, I think they both could be ready Friday, maybe even Thursday.

Um, excuse me?  What?  The wheels came to a halt.  You're not going to push us to next week?  Friday?  Thursday?  do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do.

Needless to say, we've been through too much in ten and half weeks to believe that we are only a few days away, but it certainly seems real possible.  The kids were started on their trend monitoring today.  We are bringing in the car seats tomorrow (another exit test is to see how they do sitting in their car seats because preemies can have trouble adjusting to breathing while sitting up).  If they do well tonight, we might be rooming in at the hospital tomorrow night and touching down, gulp, on Thursday.

Lucas is doing great.  He's taking all his feeds, he has kept the feeding tube away, and he's developing a healthy set of lungs to tell us when he hungry (or just as mad when it's his turn to echo).  And Olivia is enjoying being Olivia.  From the girl who brought us three courses of ibuprofen, only to officially close her pda valve at her first parent teacher conference, she is bringing us right down to the wire with when she will pass her final nicu tests.  To celebrate her latest victory today, she enjoyed a visit from her personal trainer and hammed it up extra for the camera:

I have to admit, my self defense mechanism through times of great struggle is to keep my head down and focus as hard as possible on today.  For the last ten and half weeks, I've used every spare ounce of me to not think about tomorrow or yesterday, not think about why they came early, when they would come home, or when they would feel like normal kids.  Instead, from the guy who enjoyed taking the bar, I can honestly say I've tried my best, and mostly succeeded, at enjoying this nicu experience.  It works great.  It spares me a lot of needless fear, stress, and worry.  Trouble is, it also seems to keep me from getting too giddy.  For at least another day, I'm going to keep my head down.  But I have to tell you, it's real tempting to start getting excited.

do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do

Lovin' you, is really wild

Oh, it's just a love roller coaster

Step right up, and get your tickets

do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do