December 11, 2009

They are both doing great. I will try and tell you a little about what is going on with each one since we got here and how they are doing now. Medical spelling is not my strong point but I’ll try.

Suprise, surprise, surprise, we had them at home as things moved so quickly. I had my concerns as they were so early but we were also having a very bad snow storm and by the time I figured out were weren’t going to make it I figured it was much better they be born in the controlled environment of home then in the car in a snowstorm. Thankfully they both did great until we could get to the hospital.

He had issues breathing from the get go. When we got here his oxygen stats were down to 68% and CO was over 50% They tried oxygen on him and that did nothing so they put him on a C-PAP. Because of his early arrival his lungs were not fully mature. Luckly they were mature enough that they did not need to put him on a ventalator and give stuff to mature them. He did great on the CPAP. The CPAP uses some pressure to help get the oxygen into the lungs and to keep them from collapsing. He was on room air with the cpak still within about 12 hours of us being here. 24 hours later they put him on just a cannula in his nose still with a little pressure. We are hoping with as well as he is doing to have him off all breathing helps with in the next 24 hours. He is off antibiotics as his cultures came back fine. They with held feeding by mouth since preemies are more prone to and issue with the digestive track as it is paper thin. They can get gang green and die. Luckily we are now using breastmilk only to feed them so the chance that that will happen is 10x less then if they were getting formula only and 4x less then if they were getting formula and breastmilk. He is receiving his feedings by tube. His appeared to not have a suck for the first fews maybe because of being early or maybe because he is tired. The suck reflex is one of the last things to develop on a baby before birth. I was able to put him to the breast yesterday and he did open up and latch all three times and by the time of the last feeding we even has some sucking motions! He did suck on my finger for several minutes last night as well and his tongue movement is what it should be. It will still be a little bit before we will be able to full feeding though as he gets tired very easy. Billirubin of course is elevated to be expected so I’m guessing they will put him on a light today. All in all he is doing awesome.

I will update you on her as soon as I can get back on.