Ella opened her eyes

I went down late last eve, after our hardest day thus far to say good night to the girls, and Ella was squirming all over the place. After a few minutes she opened her eyes! I about melted and struggled to get the camera out to capture the moment.

Today, they plan to take Ella off Cpap, Ava off the lights, and we are really hoping to get to Kangaroo w/ them...

-tinny out

Feeding

Feeding and IV's have been a problem the past couple of days. Both of the girls are currently on TPN (nutrition through the blood) with the hopes of transitioning to breast milk as soon as possible. An NG tube (a tube going through the nose and into the stomach) was placed on Tuesday and both girls were started on 3 mls of breast milk every three hours. Before each feed they attach a syringe to the NG tube and suck out what is left in their stomach, to make sure they are tolerating it. If what they pull out is the color of milk and less than 40% of the feed then they are likely tolerating the feed and can be given more. Ava has been tolerating the milk more than Ella. Ella's feeding has been stopped several times and continues to only get 3 mls every three hours, with the majority of her nutrition coming from TPN. Because of this she was given a more permanent IV called a PICC line. Ava on the other hand is up to 9mls of milk every three hours, with the hopes of d/cing the TPN soon. We have a wonderful dietitian named Suzanne monitoring them closely, so mommy is trying to be a mom and not the dietitian.

-Rachel

Day 4, A dose of reality

Today was rough. Everything to this point has been generally trending upwards, but today was discouraging. Ava was put under the lights for jaundice (but thankfully, Ella no longer needed the lights), so we were not able to Kangaroo w/ her today. Ava was generally steady but was really up and down w/ her feedings. I think Rachel may blog about that later. Ella is our little stinker. She already knows how to get to her mom and dad. She had a lot of bradycardia today (brady's for short). In layman's terms, this is when the heart rate get's dangerously low, and the baby needs to remind itself to keep breathing. They call this a self-stimulation or self stim. Basically an alarm goes off, and a nurse watches the baby to see if they bring their own heart rate back up. If needed they'll jump in and help stimulate the baby by moving and gently poking the child. They'd rather the child self stim because you don't want them to "learn" that someone else is always going to handle them.

There were a lot of these episodes today, each one lasting only a few seconds, but they are so hard to watch! Each one really takes its toll.

Here is Ava holding daddy's hand for the first time.


-tinny out

The Girls' Room

Here are a few pics of the girls’ room. Now you can see why we chose the colors that we did for this blog. I am pretty happy w/ the room, but I drove myself crazy in the process. I did most of the work right after we learned that we're having girls, finishing during the holidays. I really enjoy these kinda painting projects and would love to help out other people or do this on the side, but who am I kidding, I don't think I'm going to have much time for a second job :). We have since added bright pink curtains (thanks Grandma Tinsler!). I bought white mini-blinds for the room on Saturday, thinking that I’d get to install them soon. I guess the joke is on me!

We also have one of our cribs (thanks, Rybolt family). I assembled it last week and it looks great, perfectly matching the changing table/dresser that I painted.

Who's this schmuck?
-tinny out

Those are centimeters...

...not inches. :)

Day 3

Here are a few pics from yesterday. Ava was removed from the Cpap devise and put onto a nasal canula, basically supplemental oxygen like an elderly person could use. We think she looks a lot cuter w/ out her mask. She is taking her feeds and is passing bowel movements (both very improtant if she is to build stregth and grow. Here is Ava before the removal of the Cpap.

Here is Ava right after the removed the Cpap before they put on the nasal canular.Here is Ella. She takes after her mom and likes to sunbathe, already. She has jaundice, so they had her soaking up the rays under a special light. Has anyone seen my Oakley's? Ella is slowly starting to have bowel movements, and is accepting about 1/2 of her feeds, so they took a break on day 3, and will start them again on day 4.

Day 2 update

After a very blurry initial delivery day (Monday), Rachel and I got to hold our babies for the first time today. We were able to touch them yesterday, but it was pretty overwhelming approaching these little girls. They look so small and fragile, we didn't want to break them :) We held them during a process called "Kangarooing." This is a process where the babies are placed on your bare chest, and the you're both bundled up together. It is pretty much one of the coolest things that I have ever experienced. Here are pictures or Rachel w/ Ava and Ella in my "pouch". I think that I look 17 in the picture.