Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Times are a changin

It's been a Loooooong while since I've posted, or even read Kim's posts for that matter, so forgive me if some of this info is a repeat.

I've been working at the house to get things ready for the kids arrival and the baby shower, so I haven't been to the hospital nearly as much as I'd like. I've even skipped several days worth of visits. I hope someone appreciates all this stuff! ;)

Well, Jenna had her eye exam and Dr. Lockhart said that her eyes were regressing nicely and that he doesn't anticipate her having any eye trouble at all!!!! Talk about great news!
Both of them had their hearing checked and that was looking good too. Kim asked how they could possibly test a babies ears, and it's quite ingenious. They hook up leads to their heads to monitor brain wave activity, then place lil ear muffs over their ears. The babies have to be asleep so they can get a good baseline. Then they play different sounds and measure the reactionary brain wave activity. Pretty neat stuff.

Both Jenna & Blake came off the Theoflin meds. This is very similar to caffeine and helps give them a lil extra energy to keep up with breathing and all the other things they do as babies.
So far, Blake hasn't had any problems, but yesterday evening Jenna had one Apnea, then around 4am she started breathing a little heavier, so Janice decided to put her back on the canula airway to give her a rest. Today the Dr.'s will be deciding if they should put her back on Canula, or back on Theoflin or Caffeine. All in all it's not a big setback and was not too surprising. Babies can go home while on canula or caffeine, so that will not slow down her progress toward home.

Yesterday they gave orders for all Jenna's feeds to be by nipple, whether that be bottle or mom. That in itself is a HUGE milestone as that was one of the requirements that she needed to meet in order to go home.
Blake is on 3 nipple feeds a day, two of those can be mom feeds.

Last night, Jenna weighed in at 6lb 6oz.
Blake is rapidly working toward 7lb and hit 6lb 10oz.

It's crazy how things are moving soooo quickly now. It's hard to comprehend that in a matter of days now, we'll have two bundles of joy in our arms and everything will be up to us. Joyous and terrifying all at the same time.

-J

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The kiddos are doing great!! Except for their horrendous diapers of course!!!!

See yall soon,
Anna

OB said...

Even though we see you at the hospital for updates, it is great to read all about it here. Haven't commented in a bit but wanted you all to know that you are all an inspiration to the O'Briens. We will continue to pray for the strength and progress of Blake of Jenna. We are very happy to hear that Home is just around the corner...

Keith, Trena, Trinity, and Kinsley