Two By Two

Yesterday was a big day around here... Ember came home :)





This morning she had a doctors appointment with the pediatrician just for a check up. She's perfect. Tiny but perfect. According to their scale for her 2 weeks weight she was 5 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches long! They want to see her back in a week for another weight check. Hopefully Kaeda will be home by then so we can get them in at the same time.

So I have meant to update but it's just been so chaotic..

The girls are almost 2 weeks old now (although technically they are only at 36 weeks gestation). They are both still in NICU currently but are getting stronger every day.

Ember is at 5 lbs 3 oz as of last night which is only 1 oz below her birth weight. She is off of the NG tube and IV and is taking all of her feeds by mouth now. And so far has been taking all of the feeds completely which is GREAT. It's the last major hurdle she has to overcome before she can come home. (Minus the coming home tests.. i.e the carseat test).

Kaeda is at 4 lbs 5 oz as of last night. Which is a whopping 8 oz above her birth weight!! She is on every other feed by mouth currently and is still having trouble getting all the feed down. She just gets so tired. Which is common for preemies. She also has been having trouble with brady episodes. Her heart rate drops way down into the 60s and she requires help to get it back up again (rubbing her chest, shaking her a bit etc). Every time she does this the "clock" resets back to 5 days. She must be brady free for 5 days of observation before she can go home when all else is looking good. Not that she's at that point yet. We are at about a day and a half with out an episode now. They are fortifying her breast milk bottles with a calorie fortifier to help her gain weight and obviously it seems to be working. She's still in the isolette but mostly because of her size than anything else. Hopefully soon she'll come out of there so we can start putting her with her sister for some snuggle time.

Both girls are amazingly calm. Neither one is much of a crier and both seem very laid back. We can only hope it lasts. They each are developing their own little personalities and I LOVE it. The more they grow and the more weight they gain they more alike they look. It's amazing.

Here are a few pictures for you...

Ember Rayne arrived 2 minutes later at 8:36am
Weighing 5 lbs 4 oz and measuring 17.75 inches long


Both girls needed a little assistance breathing at first and were on CPAP machines for help for the first 12 hours of life or so but have since both been weaned completely off of any oxygen assistance. They are currently both a little jaundice and are under the lights for treatment. Both are having issues getting their calcium levels high enough and Ember is having some issues slowing her respirations down. From what they say, these are all very typical behaviors for 34 weekers.

I am 33 weeks pregnant today. Hoping to make it another 35 days but I don't know if I actually will. We shall see.

River is very excited about the girls coming. He asks all the time about "my babies" and when they are coming. It's been such a joy to see his expression when he gets to feel them move or kick.



While doing my picture today for my "weekly" pictures I decided to see if I could do a comparison. This was the first picture I took back when I found out I was pregnant and actually starting to show. I was 9 weeks. The 2nd is the same outfit today at 33 weeks



I'm too tired for much more of an update than that but I will update soon.

We took Journey to the GI doctor today.

He's been having these weird bouts of throwing up for no apparent reason.

The first episode was in June. He woke up at 2:30am and proceeded to throw up for 7 hours basically every 15 minutes until there was nothing left to throw up at which point he dry heaved a bit and then was FINE. No other symptoms. Figured it was a bug. Doctor said probably a bug.

2nd episode was the first week of July. Same thing. He woke up at about 2:30am and threw up for 5 hours until he was just dry heaving and then he fell asleep and woke up and was fine. No other symptoms. Took him back to the pedi and again we were told it was a bug.. ummm I don't think so. no one else gets it and it's gone in a matter of hours.

3rd episode was about 2 weeks ago. He woke up at 4:30am, threw up a dozen times and then was fine. No other symptoms. Took him back to the pediatrician and demanded a referral back to GI for evaluation.

So he went to GI today and I told the GI doctor what was happening and he asked if either of us have migraines. I do. He said he's nearly positive that it's something called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Basically an abnormal type of migraine. Adults get awful headaches.. Kids get this weird nausea/vomiting. Because he isn't throwing up often (about one day out of every 3-4 weeks) he doesn't want to give him any medication for it. If it becomes more frequent or starts to really cause issues, such as dehydration, we can look at doing something about it. He said he's pretty confident that this is what we're looking at but if want to rule out anything more serious we can take him for a sonogram, blood work, urinalysis, and stool culture.. ummm yeah right on that. So yet another diagnosis to add to his growing repertoire of crap.

His stats today..
13.4kg (29 1/2 lbs)-- 45th percentile
84.5 cm (33.75 inches)-- at the 4th percentile or right at the 50th percentile for NS kids.