Another late night post to close another day. Good news surrounded us as April heals and our little ones struggle to mature and grow. April is doing significantly better every day and is now getting around on her own pretty well for short distances. Here’s a picture of her checking out of the hospital late last night with our “three deliveries:”
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/Alright, now for a brief update on the little fighters:
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/Brinlee – Our little girl broke a whopping 3 lbs today! She continues to do very well, is having her feeding increased daily as she is handling it well, and has enjoyed being held by mom and dad the last few days (kangaroo style). They increased her feeding “strength” today, which basically means that they are giving her the same amount of food but making it more calorically dense. Tomorrow she is having a head x-ray which is given to all preemies to determine if their is any bleeding in the brain. This would be due to the fact that the brain has not yet fully formed so we’ll be looking to hear about that in the morning.
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/April’s favorite picture of her and Brinlee as Brinlee is staring at April and holding her finger.
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/Sawyer – He continues to fight his way through the complications he has had. Late tonight during our visit we met with the respiratory therapist who said that the lung issue seems to be fully of close to fully resolved. They will do another chest x-ray in the morning and we are praying that he can have the chest tube removed. It obviously causes him great discomfort (as it would any of us). They have kept him on pain medication (currently morphine) to keep him comfortable and resting but he is also a little doped up. He did open his eyes for his mom and dad this afternoon, but gave us a few scares by having three bouts of apnea (where the body forgets to breathe) during our evening visit. They decided to put him back on the C-PAP (he had been moved to the high-flow cannula earlier today). He is breathing better than he has been, just he is probably exhausted from all the stress he has had this week. The blood transfusion seemed to really help him. We are proud of the fight he is making.
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/Sawyer enjoying storytime with Mom.
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/Kimball – Kimball made another huge milestone today with the removal of his IV. This was possible as he is now taking enough food through his stomach that he doesn’t need food through his IV. This made holding him much easier although he still has a lot of monitoring devices attached to him. He gained an ounce, which should put him at about 2 lbs. 14 oz, just smaller than his sister. We call him the little old man as his skin is very wrinkley. The doctors noted that he is still having some apnea, but it has been very mild. (Note: Apnea is caused by an immature nervous system. Our nervous systems tell our brain to breathe when they detect a build-up of carbon dioxide in our bodies. For premature babies, this signal may not happen always as the nervous system is still developing.)
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/This is a shirt from Adam’s mom that says: I may be small, but I’m still the MAN, perfect for the smallest one of our family who has turned out to be quite strong. Brinlee’s shirts from grandma were: My finger may be small, but I can still wrap my daddy around it and Party in my crib, 3 am. Sawyer’s shirt says: My goal is to be as cool as my dad (good son he is!). Oh, and in case you are wondering, both Kimball and Brinlee are very successful in pulling their feedings tubes from their mouths (they go down all the way to the stomach). So the nurses put them down the nose, which was sure to stop this. Well, it didn’t. The kids still get them out all the time.
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/Tomorrow they will become one week old. They have had a difficult first week in this world but have shown great strength and the ability to fight. They have also shown a bond with their parents from the beginning.
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