thetadpoles.com

107 days. We have been in the NICU for 107 days now. Babies have been admitted and discharged and we have watched them from the sidelines. Day in and day out Tadd and I drive on autopilot to the hospital. Sometimes on the way to work I will push the 3rd floor button on the elevator for the NICU rather than the 5th floor where I should be going.

Loen is now “On Demand”, yes she sounds like a cable channel. That means she can eat when she is hungry and take as much as she wants (as long as it isn’t too little). She pulled out her feeding tube last night and since she has been doing well with her feedings that haven’t put it back in. Then for the big shocker, Dr. Donnely said that theoretically Loen could go home in a day or two. Now I know she used the word theoretically so I take that to mean not to get my hopes up but that is the first time a doctor has given us a time frame. I called Tadd right away and then had a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach. A baby coming home?? How will we do it? Will she be okay? I feel like I wont sleep for the first month because I will be so worried that they wont be breathing or eating enough. We brought the car seat in for her “car seat challenge”. The baby has to prove they can sit in a car seat for over an hour and not have any A’s & B’s while in that position. Tadd brought it in while I was at work. Lets just say Loen doesn’t like the car seat. Did I mention she is now 5 pounds 11 ounces?

Derby is starting to slowly recover from his surgery. We are so happy to finally have it over but it definitely was a setback for Derby. He got an infection, then an ileus (a temporary paralysis of the bowels) so he was unable to eat anything. They put him back on TPN (IV nutrition) and took x-rays to see what was going on. Things are slowly moving down there now. Derby was getting morphine for pain which made it hard to get him off the ventilator since it made him so sedated. Unfortunately for my little man they cold turkey’d him and switched him to baby tylenol. Now I’m not saying my son is a junkie but that is a big step down. I was afraid he would start cruising to other cribs. “Pssst…hey you…..what kind of drugs do you got in your crib? Crap! Vitamins do nothing for me…..” Lets just say he had a very crabby day, but now his pain seems to be under control. Now he is crabby for new reasons like only getting tiny amounts of breast milk at a time. He is getting it slowly to allow his body to get used to it again and to be sure his gut can handle processing food. He didnt tolerate it in the beginning but seems to be doing better now. He has been pooping tiny amounts everyday so things are starting to work down there. The nurses said he doesnt like pooping. It is probably such a weird feeling for him because he never really pooped before he had to have the surgery when he was 2 weeks old, then he had the osotmy. So all kinds of new things for my little man. He is also back to being the chubby twin at 6 pounds 3 ounces. I attribute some of that to being on TPN and not having to burn calories with feeding himself. All of the adorable preemie clothes that I bought from Janie and Jack, the ones I just couldnt wait for them to finally be big enough to wear, will soon be too small. I washed them all and brought them to the NICU and told the nurses we need to dress them up in a new outfit everyday!