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The nurses talk about how you can really see their individual personality. Well, when they are awake that is. It is true they each do these little things, that in my opinion are adorable. Loen loves to open her eyes and look around. While my son is a little lazy. He will raise his eyebrows (without even opening his eyes), then he must figure it is just too much work to open his eyelids. I mean how heavy are they?? Andy said Derby probably thinks “Hey, I’m not supposed to even be here right now. So I’m just going to relax for awhile.” The nurses love to comment on how Loen is so feisty. You should see her when her diaper needs to be changed. God forbid she is forced to lie in a wet diaper for long. She will drop her oxygen levels and set her alarms off. Derby has been so mellow lately. Tadd likes to say that Loen is like him and Derby likes to sleep in like his mother.

UPDATES

• Loen: Her umbilical stump fell off on Friday. Now both of the kids have bare belly buttons! (Until Loen decides she wants to pierce hers. I’m hoping we have years to go before we have to deal with that one). She has been somewhat stable. We are still dealing with respiratory issues. Her oxygen requirements have been higher lately and they have needed to suction secretions from her breathing tube a little more frequently than usual. They sent a sample of the secretions down to the lab to be sure she doesn’t have an infection. She has been tolerating her feeds just fine. Dr. Barkley says she eats like she is being paid by the ounce. She weighs a little over 2 pounds 1 ounce and is 14 inches long.

• Derby: A couple of days ago the surgeon decided to go ahead and do the upper GI study. They were going to pour contrast down the tube that goes to his stomach then take x-rays at intervals. That would show if he had any narrowing or other problems with his intestines. If everything looked fine they were going to start feeding him breast milk again (he has been on IV nutrition all this time). Thank goodness for his nurse Anne. She was checking the tube and thought something seemed wrong. She alerted the doctor and they took an x-ray. Nothing looked out of the ordinary but she still thought something seemed wrong. So they took the old tube out that he has had for 2 weeks and put in a new one. Again she thought something seemed wrong with the tube. They took more x-rays. The radiologist, doctor and the surgeon looked at them. They decided to put in a smaller tube and took another x-ray. That is when they notice he a had a small hole at the bottom of his esophagus right above his stomach. For the past 2 weeks the tube that was supposed to keep his stomach free from air and bile while his intestines were healing was not in the right place. The tube had punctured through and was sitting just behind the stomach, that is why in the x-rays it looked like it was in the right place. The surgeon decided to pull out the tube and let him heal. He said it was such a small hole it would close up in a couple of days and he would put a new tube down to his stomach next week. If all goes well he might get started on breast milk then. Dr. Barkley said Derby drives him nuts because he will have things wrong with him but there are no signs that he is having trouble. Other babies would be having labs that were off or they would be very fussy, but he just hangs out like nothing is wrong. It must be that Viking blood my grandpa talks about. Derby weighs in at 2 pounds 12 ounces (Derby looks like a moo cow compared to Loen). No length on Derby at this time as he was getting a little ticked off when they were assessing him, they decided to let him rest and measure him later.

So I started this post on Saturday and Derby decided to make me look bad by opening BOTH of his eyes when we came in today. It is his way of saying “I can do this if I have to“. Loen was being a wiggle worm today. Seems like lots of things were bugging her. It is times like those that are hard for me. As a parent you want to comfort your child but with micro-preemies it feels like the nurses have to protect them from the blundering parent. I felt like whatever I was doing (moving her blanket and caused the light to bother her, to talking too loudly and causing her heat rate to go up) was the wrong thing. I didn’t even get a chance to touch her or Derby. It is hard not to feel useless in the NICU sometimes.

There is a new video of Derby posted in the video section.

Souther came to visit this weekend. Uncle Guy was amazed at how much they have grown.

Souther called this her “Talk to the hand” pose

Derby proving he can open both eyes at once

Loen then had to show Derby up by keeping her eyes open for much longer and much wider

Derby yawning in a very cute way