Another week gone by

Kim rolled up to the hospital this morning and gave me the daily report.

The kids have been doing good since we last saw them (8hrs ago).

Jenna weighed in at 3lb 15oz. One oz away from 4lb. Both of us wondered if perhaps she may have already cracked the 4lb mark, but that the new issolet's scale reads slightly less that her prev one. I don't remember if we mentioned it, but when she switched incubators, she lost 3oz, which is not really likely as she wasn't really undergoing any changes at the time. She only had one slight heart rate drop during the night, which is perfectly normal and not a cause for alarm.

Blake gained one oz and is now at 4lb 3oz. Yesterday, at shift change Dr. Su was himmin & hawin over whether he should just move Blake to canula, or drop his pressure to the lowest setting. Janice said he was going to make the move, then chickened out (Dr. Su's own words) and decided to drop his pressure to 7. Janice was Very disappointed because she's been missing all these great milestones he's been hitting. She missed him hitting 3 & 4lbs, and she wasn't there when he moved to the crib. Now that I'm thinking about it, she Has been there when he's had some difficulties. You may recall that Janice was watching him the night before he had his pulmonary hemorrhage & she could tell that something just wasn't right with him. At shift change she told the day nurse to keep a close eye on him because he "wasn't himself". Keep in mind that this was within the first 36hrs of life. That's how in tune some of their nurses are with them. Amazing! Then more recently, she was with him the night he had his odd blister pop up. Kinda a bummer that she hasn't been there to see some of the positive changes, but we are very thankful that she was the one to care for him while he was facing some challenges. We can't say enough about how our lil kids react positively to their favorite nurses.
He had one Brady during the night, so he's been handling the changes very well. Dr. Su said that he's sure one of the Dr's that are on this weekend will move him to canula. He also said that Blake has been handling the move to a crib Very well.

Dr. Su also mentioned how impressed he is with the twins considering the challenges they've faced. Coming from Dr. Su, that is a huge compliment. Now that the twins are getting much healthier & require much less attention, he doesn't get to see them & spend as much time with them as he'd like. We told him that we completely understand that there are other babies in the NICU that demand much more attention and we know that he gave them all the attention that they needed when they were younger and not as healthy.

During that conversation he told us that the Occupational Therapist had seen them the day before. The OT assessed their range of motion in their limbs, measured their reflexes, etc. He said that Blake was doing fantastic, and was on the high side of normal. Jenna was doing good too, however she was on the lower side of normal. To exaggerate things, Blake and Jenna are always compared to each other, so sometimes one aspect of their health may appear to be higher or lower in comparison to each other, especially when one is ahead of the curve. So, if they compared Jenna to a random 24weeker, Jenna would be slightly behind. They are not concerned at this point (this was the 1st assessment), however it is something they will keep an eye on. They are keeping an eye on this as this can be an indicator that her Ventricular Hemorrhage caused some damage to her brain.
Again, I want to stress that this initial evaluation does NOT indicate a disability as it's too early to tell; however they are going to keep an eye on her. On the bright side of that news, the OT said that Jenna was consistent across the board. Generally, if they are seeing a disability, they will see some areas noticeably stronger than others, while other areas of their testing will be weak.
Even though this doesn't indicate a problem, it's still bummed me out a bit. I guess we were riding sooo high after all the great progress they've made this week, that it was a farther fall (emotionally) when we got the so so news. But, we'll keep our chin up and drive toward the big changes that they've got comming up in the next couple weeks.

Sooo please keep our lil ones in your prayers. They are doing great, but they still have a long road ahead of them and can use all the prayers and thoughts they can get. They have helped tremendously up to this point. We truly believe that. While your at it, please include their new neighbors Trinity and Kensley, and their parents. They are two beautiful girls & we hope they grow big and healty as well.

Speaking of our new neighbors.... We've had the chance to meet and talk with Trina & Keith (parents of the new 24wk twins). They seem like a great couple and have their heads in the right place, considering all they've been through. We hope that perhaps we can give them some amount of comfort by helping in any way we can. If nothing else, we'll be able to go through this together.

Well, it's time to get some work done so I can scoot outa here and go see my wonderful babies.
Take care
-J