Who am I?
Here is Analia and the boys in our luxurious parent room!
At rounds this morning I got a bit of a revised outlook on discharge. Since the rascals had lost a little weight over the last two days, it is as we suspected and discharge will be delayed slightly. They are looking for a couple days of solid weight gain, but they are hoping still for this week.
Lucas has been started on the same medication as Sebi for reflux. The poor little guys often get pretty uncomfortable after a big feed and spit up. The medication is basically an antacid, like tums, to help reduce the acidity in their bellies.
Sebastian’s dose has actually been increased to see if that helps him more. In addition we’ve been prescribed some wedges for their crib. These just help elevate heir heads and reduce the discomfort after feeds. Safety restrictions are pretty strict so you actually need a doc’s prescription in order to buy these 7″ wedges.
It’s been an adjustment—to say the least—getting used to waking through the night to take care of these guys. They do require 2 feeds to be fortified with extra calories a day, which means they need to be bottle fed. We’re trying to schedule those for 5 pm and 5 am to give us a break for dinner and a break for sleep.
One of the nurses here is the Car Seat Guru, so today she gave us a full rundown on car seat safety. We brought in our seats and went over them thoroughly—and as you can see in the above picture—even tested it out with Lucas. We were all surprised at how well he fits, and he looked ready for a road trip.
Things are moving along. We were finally given a parent room so we can sleep at the hospital with the boys in the same room. The goal being waking and feeding the boys much like we will when we’re home. At this point, the boys are being fed on demand. That means the boys are waking anywhere between 2 to 4 hour to feed. Learning to read their feeding cues and distinguishing them from gas pains or diaper change needs has been our biggest challenge. We’ll catch on quickly though!
The point of all this is to ready all four of us for the fast approaching day of discharge. There is talk of Monday or Tuesday of next week, though that all depends on how well the guys make out with feeding and gaining weight.
So far so good. It’s a nice gentle transition since we still have the nurses to call on if things get overwhelming or we have questions. Lucas and Sebi are doing great with the transition and Mami and Daddy are slowly finding a nice groove of passing the 2 boys between each other for diaper changes, burps, and feeds. At first the process was taking about 1.5 hour last night we got it down to 1 hour. Wahoo!
We can’t wait to get home, though we’ll miss the wonderful nurses here at the NICU.
I just wanted to send an update on how the boys are doing medically. Everything has been going so smoothly lately! The boys continue to grow and gain weight. They are slowly moving away from their prem grunts and developing newborn cries. This is all great news. As you may have read Sebastian recently came off his monitors and now it is Lucas’ turn. He will be taken off them tonight. The nurses noticed Lucas turning a bit yellow so he may be developing some jaundice. They’ll be checking his bilirubin on Monday. His hemoglobin also came back a bit lower than they’d like so they will re check on Monday and decide if he will require another blood transfusion or iron supplement 2x daily. They have both been getting their eyes checked and they seem to be fine. They keep re checking. Lucas might have a mild case of stage 1 ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) but they say that should correct itself by the next eye check. The nurses and doctors are throwing around a Monday or Tuesday discharge date. But if you have experienced any time in the NICU you know that that doesn’t actually mean we’ll be home then. They might start preparing us for the transition and getting all the paperwork done.
So, the boys and Chris and I have been working hard this past week to be prepared in case they do want to send us home soon. Our primary nurses have been wonderful fighting for the Lowe’s and a parent room. A parent room would allow the 4 of us to sleep together so we start getting used to the boys noises while sleeping and waking for breast feeding during the night. Also, after a difficult weekend of bottles, gavaging, and breast feeding we have written a feeding plan. Some nurses rose to the occassion and showed me how important it was to advocate for myself and what Chris and I wanted regarding feeding. So the boys are now breast feeding for every feed (ever 3 hours) and topping them up through their NG tubes depending on how long they feed. We started yesterday with only 1 feed that they didnt get top up and today we’re working on 2 feeds no top up. We’re fading out the NG tube slowly cause that’s the only thing keeping them here. No bottles for these guys yet so we need to become strong breast feeders. They are doing wonderfully and mami and daddy are so proud of them! They even gained weight last night after a full day of breast feeding. Go boys!!! So soon enough we’ll actually be ready to transition home…..
AND THAT’S WHEN THE MADNESS WILL BEGIN. HAHA!
So the boys are over 7 weeks old, or 36 weeks gestation. Sebi is 2545 grams (5.6 lbs) and Lucas broke 2000, weighing in at 2035 (4.5 lbs). Those 510 g don’t seem like a lot but in this side by side shot the differences are a bit more obvious.
Apparently Lucas finds his chubby brother to be funny.
A good sign the boys will never go hungry!
One of our primary nurses is a hoarder of the cute NICU baby clothes and blankets. She had some fun dressing Sebi and matching his bed. Green looks good on him.
We’ve had a big couple of days actually. Abeulo Alfonso arrived yesterday and got to meet his grandsons for the first time. As if that wasn’t enough Lucas was moved to a cot tonight and Sebi has been disconnected from the monitors!
We’re awfully proud of our boys, everyday they amaze us.
