thetadpoles.com

Today was my dad’s birthday, his first as a Grandpa. To celebrate we went to dinner at a bbq place in SB that recently opened with Tamie, Tracie, and Glenda, who had all planned on being in SB this weekend before the drama started. The twins were kind enough to pose for some cute pictures so we could frame them for him. Jimbo is lucky – he got the first card

as well as the first pictures from the twins:

UPDATES

• Loen: She is up to 3 cc’s of breast milk every 3 hours and tolerating it well. We are so happy about that. She has been looking so content and opening her eyes more. Tonight she had them open for a few minutes. She looks like a little turtle when she slowly opens her eyes and closes them. It is so cute. The doctors main concern is her lungs. She continues to drop her oxygen level periodically. Her lungs are pretty premature, it will be a wait and see when it comes to how well they will develop.

• Derby: He is off of his dopamine and insulin which is good news. They had to stop his feeds because his abdomen was distended this morning, but his abdominal xray didn’t show an obstruction. He is just going to need a little more time to adjust to it. The doctor said today that he is lagging behind Loen by 72 hours. He will look at her chart from a few days ago and it is very close as to where Derby is now. He also said that one advantage Loen has over Derby is the fact that her bag ruptured and she had an infection in utero. That forced her body to mature more quickly. He called Derby “the innocent bystander who had to go along for the ride”. Which is the reason he isn’t doing as well. He is retaining a lot of fluid. He looks bloated, like a fat Elvis! He is in the same boat as Loen when it comes to the problem of lungs. Last night he got all worked up and his respiratory rate was hitting 150, which was stressing Tadd and I out. He was still upset when we left for the night. Later we called and he finally calmed down. The twins respond so well to Tadd’s voice, he was telling Derby to calm down and take it easy and we could see on the monitors he would calm a bit. The respiratory therapist said Tadd would have to stay all night to keep him settled. Tonight Derby was lying on his tummy, hold his tubes and sucking his thumb! They said he likes to hold onto his tubes even with his wrapped hand. Thank goodness everything is securely fastened.

Derby sucking his thumb:

Fat Elvis:

Derby eyes open:

Loen:

Loen, they ran out of the micro preemie diapers so she is wearing the regular preemie size. I think it makes her look like a weeble people:

Tamie made hats in 2 sizes. Teeny and teenier. I cant wait to get pictures of them wearing these:

I am thinking we need to invest in a deep freezer for all this breast milk, it is crowding my It’s-It. (Since this picture was taken yesterday the bottom shelf is now more than 1/2 way full and there is some stuffed in the main compartment also!)