Monday, March 30, 2009
Sleep over!
Also, babies make a lot of noise...
-tinny out
Sunday, March 29, 2009
What's Missing?
More faces of Ella
lookie what I have!
look how hast I wave it in your face to flaunt it!
I am done w/ you now...
-tinny out
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Twinslers' are Hulkamaniacs
Hulk was the biggest star of his day even though he was like 60 years old at the time. The way that he worked the crowd was amazing. He entrance was sweet, he'd come into the ring and rip off his t-shirt and then do this really weird thing were he would flex with one arm and point off into crowd w/ the other like this...
So, I came into the NICU yesterday over lunch to find Ava w/ her arms out of her tucked swaddling towel like this...
Then after work, I found Ella looking like this...
They are thier father's daughters.
-tinny out
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Update
-Tinny out
Monday, March 23, 2009
Holy Cow, Ava is Coming Home*
I know it sounds trite, but what an emotional roller coaster. Last weekend when they said that Ava could be coming home on Monday, I was a little freaked out b/c I didn't feel ready, but this past weekend when they said the same thing, I think that Rachel and I were now ready to take Ava home. It was so deflating to have to wait longer when we, in a matter of hours, had planned out the next days and weeks. These twins are really putting a damper on Rachel and I's planning tendencies:)
Oh well, keep our little Twinsler's in your prayers. I'd ask that you pray for Rachel and I that we can feel as confident as possible as we take these little ones home. Right now we are a little gun-shy when it come to feedings, so hopefully God will give us a couple steady days to help calm and pump up Rachel and I before we bring them home.
-tinny out
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Update
-tinny out
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Suck, Swallow & Breathe
This is harder than it appears for our girls. Little Ella has been progressing nicely, probably on par for how a normal 34 week preemie should do w/ the bottle. She is taken several full bottles, multiple partials (where she is fed the rest through her tube), and several times she has either choked, lost interest or just never started. She seems to get tired pretty easily, but this is understandable as they didn't have to work for their meals before this past Monday, so it can be expected that they are both very tired.
Ava, however, has been quite the little stinker. She had her episode (that Rachel blogged about) on Friday, and then had another while I was feeding her yesterday. Saturday's wasn't quite as bad, but she still stopped breathing, became very blue in her head, and was unable to finish her bottle. She (and her sister) are stressing their parents out! Just to play w/ us even more, today Ava took her 3:00pm bottle in 8 minutes-her fastest ever. Ugh, what a little drama queen! The up and down seems to be much more trying on the 'ol emotions as opposed to just being headed in a general direction, either up or down. Keep Rachel and I's sanity, as well as our girls in your prayers and thoughts.
On an unrelated note, tonight Rachel and I are headed to The Melting Pot to celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary, woo-who!
-tinny out
Bath Time
Rachel and I each take one of the girls and give them a bath, one at a time. I have had Ava for the past two times, but I am done w/ her for a while (I'll explain why later).
The actual bath is pretty short and simple. First we weigh the baby, which is not a big deal, but during bath time, we unhook all the monitors, which is both scary and liberating. Then we wrap the baby in a receiving blanket, and place them in the tub. The tub is literally a plastic storage container that you could buy at Target, w/ an angled mesh platform to elevate their head out of the water. They say that babies either love or hate the whole bath experience, and we are fortunate to have two girls that like the water. When you place the wrapped baby in the water, they immediately relax and their eyes roll back and you can almost hear them think "oh yeah baby".
You wash them one body part at a time, trying to keep them swaddled as much as possible to keep them warm. Start w/ the face and head and work your way down to their stinky feet and bottom. Because of one of their sensors on their foot, their feet smell horrible... like a rotten band-aid. Once you are done, you pick up the baby into your arms into a dry cloth. Its at this point that Ava, being oh-so-relaxed, has peed on me, twice.
-tinny out
Friday, March 13, 2009
Ava
Ava didn't take much of her 3:00 bottle either, and Ella only took 5 mls of her bottle, leading the nurse to think that both the girls are tired. It looks like they will rest tonight, and hopefully their parents can too.
-Rachel
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Slaves to the Monitor
When you first walk into the NICU, most people are surprised at how not-hospital it looks. It feels more like a uber-corporate cubical farm w/ each baby having their own little area separated from the other babies by small dividers and rows of cabinets. The second thing that you notice are the sounds. There are all sorts of beeps, buzzes and chimes going off at any time, and then you start to coordinate those sounds w/ how people react. Some alarms trigger urgent responses from nurses, while others just seem to go on and on and on w/ no one seeming to care. It is the NICU's own language, and as a means of survival, you need to quickly get up to speed, or you'll drive yourself crazy worrying about your kids.
At the end of our first week in the NICU, we had one of the nurses walk us through every part of the monitor (screen seen above). The Right hand column shows the baby's statistics that the monitor is directly hooked up to. The left column is another baby of the nurses choice. The whole NICU is networked so that a nurse can keep an eye on another baby that is not w/i eye or earsight. The green row show's the baby's heartrate. Babies have (or should have) a higher heartrate than us old folks. We like to see btw 120 & 160 for this number. The yellow line is the babies breathing rate per minute. This fluctuates in a huge way, sometime dipping into the teens or single digest, the spiking up in the 100's. They sometimes forget to breath, and as I understand it, that is really the crux of SIDS, kids just forgetting to start breathing again. The blue row is the blood oxygen saturation level, and that number is a percentage of 100. We all "sat" 100 most all the time, but preemie babies vary btw dangerously low (<75) and the high 90's. The first two lines, heart rate & breathing rate, directly effect the oxygen saturation, and this saturation is what will affect the health of the baby later. Example, the babies breathing and heart rate can be really bad for a certain length of time, but as long as all the organs are still getting oxygen, we're OK.
The white line is the last blood pressure reading taken. This is taken twice a day. and the little red fine print is a log of all the most recent times that the baby gone out of their "zone". Apnea, brady cardias, low sats, all things we do not want to see here. So when you initially com into the NICU, you immediately look up to the monitor and look for the red... how has she been doing? Each baby has allowable range for each of these readings, and depending on how far out of the zone they are, an alarm sounds. One beep for this and two beeps for that. Every device has its own alarm and "voice".
So, for the last 5 weeks, Rachel and I have become slaves to the monitors. Now they are telling us to watch the baby, not the monitor. This is way easier said than done, but we are trying. Yesterday during baths, we had them completely disconnected. It felt like I was unplugging Neo from the Matrix! All went well, but it is quite a transition.
I'll post some pics of the baths soon, that was a good time.
-tinny out
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Ava's hitting the bottle!
Here is Ava going to town in our primary nurse's hands. Good Sam NICU has some of the best nurses ever, by the way.
Ava took the whole bottle in 17 minutes! She was a machine! Here is a picture of the aftermath. I am going to have this picture blown up soon so that it is ready for her high school graduation party.The real kicker is that 3 hours later, Ava started showing all the signs that she was hungry again. She should be hungry, b/c they are on a 3 hour schedule, but she was rooting and biting on her hands (all signs that she is ready for a bottle). So, Rachel and the nurse decided to give a second bottle a try. This is very unusual b/c taking a bottle is a lot of work, so they usually start them out on one bottle every 12 hours. Ava took down here second bottle like it was nothing! What an over achiever.
Rachel and I are trying to not get too ahead of ourselves, but some things are really setting in on us. The first is that Ava could come home first, leaving Ella in the NICU. We really do not want this b/c of the craziness that it would cause. The second thing is that Ava could optimistically be coming home in less than a week. Very cool, but this creates quite a sense of urgency to get the house in order. Please pray that God works out all these details while gifting Rachel and I some sense of sanity. Thanks!
-tinny out
Ella's First Bottle
Here is Ella trying to figure out what all the fuss is about w/ her developmental therapist. They allow 20 min for the feeding, and whatever is left, they feed through the gavage (feeding) tube. When it was all said and done, Ella took 13 mls on her first shot at the suck, swallow, breath routine. Afterwords, our nurse said they would have been happy w/ 10 mls... Ella you rock!We learned this AM that during one of her feedings during the night that Ella took here whole bottle from the nipple... She definitely gets her love for food from her Dad.
-tinny out
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Big Week Ahead!!
-Rachel
Friday, March 6, 2009
Just how big are they?
Here is an approximation of what how Ava compaired to a burrito during her first week of life.
Now in the second picture, we see Ella eying up her first real meal dirung thier 5th week of life.Rachel and I are both really luck to have such great twins and access to such great burritos.
Chipotle, you out there? How about a little corporate sponsorship for this blog, just think, it could be "the Twinsler's presented by Chipolte."
Seriously, looking over the pitures from a month ago really brings it all into perspective as to how far they come... God is good.
-tinny out
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Steady
We have great friends and family, and we are truly humbled by all the love and support that we are feeling from you all. Thanks
-tinny out
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
What A Day!!
Needless to say she is still requiring oxygen. By the end of the day thankfully she was doing much better. This behavior is a little unusual for her, so we are praying it doesn't continue.
On a happier note, our other beautiful daughter, Ava was taken off oxygen today and tolerating it so far. She spent some good time in mommy and daddy's arms. Here is picture of Ava receiving a boogerectomy. This is a pretty regular occurrence where they use a high powered suction device to clean out the nasal passages and mouth... It's pretty much like hooking a Dyson up to your nose, and it usually works.
-Rachel (w/ Nick's help for the boogerectomy)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Happy 1 Month Birthday!
Today, as the card implies, is the girls' one month birthday. In some aspects, this has been a realy long month, and in some ways, it has flown by. The girls are still dancing around w/ their oxygen, but they are continuing to grow and improve. Personally, I think they are becoming a lot more baby, and a lot less science experiement - Thank God for that!
-tiiny out
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Weekend Update
The other night, I asked the girls "How much are foot-longs going for these days at Subway?" They both rolled their eyes as I snapped these pictures...
Finally, Mom and Dad are doing well too...
-tinny out