What a sight

Well, the anticipation was just way too much for me, so I decided to break out of work and hit the hospital for Blake's 1st bottle feed. I was greeted with an amazing sight that brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Kim was sitting in a rocking chair & Blake was laying on her leg, peacefully feeding from the bottle.
The speech therapist started a bit early, so I only caught the last few min of Blake feeding, but I'm glad I got to be there. He would suck suck suck, swallow, breathe, then look around as though he was trying to figure out exactly what he was doing. Then he would look up at mom as if asking for reassurance. It was an awesome sight to behold.

As Blake was finishing up, Anna & Kim began filling me in on the whole feeding situation. They were both quite giddy from all the days excitement. haha
Both of them did fantastic. Jenna was Soooo ready to hit the nipple, that she got a lil overzealous. She would just go crazy on the bottle and would forget to breathe. To help teach her the technique, Kim was told to withdraw the nipple and stimulate her by rubbing her chest. This should teach her to stop, swallow, take a breath, then she can continue again. Kim told me that when she'd remove the nipple, Jenna would continue to suck for a few seconds, then open her mouth wide and search for the nipple again. She REALLY enjoys feeding from nipple vs. a feeding tube down to her stomach. I can't really blame her. But, all things considered, she did great her first time.
Blake was completely different. He started off very cautiously. Kim said that when he first hit the nipple some milk came out, he swallowed, then got this puzzled look on his face. This nipple, wasn't behaving like the passie he's been practicing on. He gave it another try, got some more milk out, thought about things for a sec, looked around, then decided he was liking this new development and continued nursing from the bottle. He had the suck, swallow, breathe technique down on the first try.
Both of then did great keeping their O2 saturation up while they learned to nurse from a bottle. Neither of them had any Apnea's or Bradies. Soooo they passed this important test with flying colors.
Kim and Anna took tons of pics and video, which we'll be putting up very soon.
After feeding we just hung out and got some relax time with the kids.
At the NICU shift change we went home to eat dinner, then head back up after a short break. Tonight was also bath time!!!!

We got back to the hospital and Janice was just getting everything ready for us to give them a bath. She's awesome about saving neat things for us to experience.
When we got there, Blake had been working up a Big stinky. Mom said she was up for the challenge, so she changed a horrendous diaper. After he was all naked and more or less clean, we weighed him and dropped him in the tub for his bath. lol He rang up at 4lb 15.7 oz. I joked that if he had saved that massive diaper for a few more min, he certainly would have broke into 5lb territory. :) The bath went great. Blake didn't really seem to mind and didn't cry at all. Dried him all off, then let mom get him all dressed and snuggled in. I can't say I'm really a big fan of dressing and all that. Guess I didn't play with enough dolls as a lil boy (not a bad thing).

Then it was Jenna's turn. Mom was going to give her a bath, but since she changed Blake's diaper, she said I could handle Jenna's. I got lucky and she had a pretty clean diaper. After getting her undressed and clean, I dropped her on the scale. She weighed in at 4lb 13.2 oz. After the weigh in, I just proceeded to bathe her, completely forgetting that it was Kim's turn. Once I realized (about 1/2 way through) I offered to let Kim take over, but she was happy to watch and take pics/video. Oops, sorry mom.

Got both of them cleaned up, dressed in fresh clothes, and snuggled down for some well deserved rest. After that we just hung out, talked to Janice, and gazed at two lil darlings sleeping peacefully.

A wonderful day indeed. One to remember for a long long time.
-J