Welcome home Alice

Alice was released from the hospital right on schedule. We are so excited to have her home and to be able to concentrate our time at home instead of trying to be several places at once. The last time they were both home together they were on the same schedule from the NICU and didn't eat a lot. Now they are on pretty different schedules and eat a lot more. i.e. much longer feedings. So last night was a little rough with Marc taking care of Alice and me taking Claire. We will figure it out. We just need to try and get them synced. It is really funny to look at them next to each other because Claire has gained a lot of weight and looks really healthy. With Alice not having eaten much in the last 2 1/2 weeks she has been surpassed in weight even though she was bigger at birth. She looks a little malnourished next to her sister, but is still adorable.

Happy Halloween!

Claire and Alice

Claire the athlete

A few days ago we were having "tummy time" with Claire and she rolled over. I thought it was a fluke so I put her back on her tummy and she did it again. I couldn't believe it. When she was doing it again this morning I needed documentation. She will only do it when she it calm. If she gets frustrated and upset she can't figure it out. I was so baffled that I had to look up when she should be doing this in my child development book. This task is usually accomplished around 15 weeks. Since she is a preemie we are supposed to gauge her development from her due date, which is Nov. 4th. This means developmentally she is -1 week. As she gets older it will be interesting to see how she develops.

Smiles

Both of the girls are so cute when they smile. Unfortunately, they only do this in their sleep, but we take it all the same. The lower one is Alice and the top one is of Claire 'laughing'. As you can imagine, the nurses could never get enough.

Alice

My grandparents came into town today from NYC for a funeral. We stopped by the hospital to visit Alice. She got off of her antibiotics yesterday and got to start eating again. At this point she will slowly work up her eating until she can take a few ounces. She started with about 1 tbsp and will gradually get more. We expect her to be released on Thursday.

Claire

Today after Claire's bath she was very awake and alert and so cute. Her cheeks seem to get bigger everyday. I guess she gets that from me. Alice is doing great. We expect her to get released next Saturday or Sunday. She will finish her antibiotics on Thursday and then will need a few days to reintroduce food and make sure she can tolerate that.

Improvement

Alice is doing much better. Today she got the tube removed from her throat which means they are seeing definite improvement. She also had a hip ultrasound done today which was scheduled for an outpatient procedure, but we might as well do it while we are here. This was done because she was breech and there is a history of hip problems in Marc's family. That was normal. Claire will still need one done, but at least Alice's is out of the way. Claire is doing great and taking care of only one baby has been like a vacation.

Back to the hospital

Yesterday morning at about 1:00 Alice threw up her entire bottle. It was a lot more than normal spit-up and really freaked her out. After that she was hungry, but refused the bottle so I breast fed her the rest of the night. Also about this time we noticed some blood in her diaper. Luckily we already had an appointment with the pediatrician scheduled for that morning. At the appointment both girls have surpassed their birth weight and are growing well. When we mentioned the blood in Alice's diaper the doctor was very concerned. So we got some blood work done and an X-ray. Unfortunately the X-ray was inconclusive and we were sent up to Primary Children's ER where they did more blood work and more X-rays. From these tests they determined that Alice has a bowel infection. These infections are not uncommon for preemie babies, can not be prevented and are not contagious. So Alice spent the night at Primary's to do a round of antibiotics and serial X-rays, a tube was also put down her throat to decompress her stomach. The last time she had eaten was at 7:00am and was not allowed to eat so her bowels could be cleared and the bacteria would lose their food source. She ended up looking so sad and after awhile just gave up. By the end she had been so poked and prodded. Her little heels are just hashed with all of the sticks. And since her feet cannot dorsal flex well it was obviously very painful every time they tried to squeeze blood out of her heels. Once they got IV fluids going she started looking better, but was still very lathargic and basically slept all day. Only one parent can stay in the hospital and we didn't want Claire to be exposed to any illness that was floating around so I went home and Marc stayed with Alice last night. As of this morning her X-rays have not changed and it looks like she will stay in the hospital for about 10 days to do an antibiotic series and for observation.

Twin Bond

As we were leaving the hospital the discharging nurse extolled all the virtues of co-bedding and convinced me that we should try it. We bought a Pack 'n Play with a bassinet. The bassinet is just the elevated mattress which means it is plenty big for the two of them. When I put them into the bassinet I put them a bit apart so they wouldn't smother each other, but they make their way over so they are not lonely. When I checked on them once they were just too cute that I had to get a picture of them snuggling.

Both girls love to stretch. I think they were so cramped that they are trying to take advantage of all the space they have now. This little video is mostly of Alice stretching. Marc bought these outfits yesterday and they are just too cute.

Bye Bye NICU

We are out of the NICU! Alice must have gotten lonely because she started eating really well as of Sunday. I do wonder if she ate better because I spent more time with her after Claire left. Both of them have  been on the same eating schedule with half regular feedings and half of the feedings with fortified breast milk. This way I was spending the days feeding Alice in the hospital and the night feeding Claire. When they were both in the NICU I felt like there was more of a time crunch and wanted to get done quicker, because of this I would stop feeding them as soon as they showed signs of being done. We were regularly spending 1.5 to 2 hours for each feeding. When we were doing this every 3 hours, there was not much time for anything else. When Claire went home I felt that I had a lot more time to make sure Alice was getting what she needed. The hardest part of splitting them up was that Marc was unable to see Alice for a while since he would watch Claire. We are glad to have them here and together. 

Another big moment today was our first family excursion. It was just to the pediatrician, but still, it was an event. The poor girls look so miserable in their car seats. They are just big enough to fit in the car seats and sure look tiny in them. It is obviously uncomfortable.

The pediatrician appointment went well. They were just weighed, measured and checked

 out. This was the first time meeting Dr. Baar since the girls came so early. We had our "prenatal appointment" scheduled with her last Tuesday and obviously couldn't make that. We really like her though and have heard only good things about her from those who know her. Our bishop is a doctor in the same building as her and my OBGYN takes her girls to her. That was good enough for me. I tried to feed the girls and change their diapers before hand so they would

behave at the appointment. It was all for naught. Claire needed to be changed and both needed a bottle while we were there. This is a picture of Marc feeding both simontaneiouly. Claire needed a blood test and she jumped when her heel was stuck, but didn't cry and hardly woke up before going back to sleep. I guess that is where the bottle comes in handy. Marc says that after that excursion he is not sure about having any more kids.

All in all we are settling in and are looking forward to finding a rhythm.

Just a quick update

We have been so busy these last few days that I have had no time to update my blog. Exciting news though, Claire was released today! She has been eating really well, her temperature has been normal for several days, and she finally started to gain instead of lose weight. I thought having both of them in the NICU was difficult, it is much more of a challenge splitting them up. The nice thing is that my parents were able to find us a furnished apartment about 2 blocks from the hospital that we are renting for 2 weeks. This way it is much easier to run between the girls. It has been such a blessing to have a place so close that I can go and nap and have privacy, but still be close. We will stay here for the full time we have rented this place just because it is nice to be close to stores and resteraunts while we are making this adjustment. At the cabin it is a huge ordeal to try and leave to get anything, even without babies. By the time we get home, hopefully we will be in a routine and have picked up all of those incidentals that you forget about.