A Big Boy Bed Already?

Well, Jack has made big progress since my last post. He has now moved out of the isolette and into an open crib! One more step closer to home...

A quick explanation. Isolettes are little enclosed cribs that they use in the NICU. They are used to help babies keep and regulate an appropriate body temperature. The ideal temperature is between 97.9 and 98.9. The first step is to keep a sensor on the babies' skin to see what their skin temp is then adjust the isolette to make sure their body temp stays between those levels. They prefer for the babies to not wear clothes and just stay in a diaper. The next step is for the babies' to maintain their body temperature within the appropriate ranges and adjusting to the air temperature of the isolette. They can wear clothes during this stage. This requires that they do the work. The isolette is then basically turned off and they are monitored to see if they can keep their temps. Then...they make it into open cribs! Friday night both Jack and Lily were put into open cribs. So exciting! Jack is doing great. However, Lily has had a little difficulty keeping her temperature up and had to go back into the isolette yesterday. Not a big deal, she probably just needs to put on a little more weight and they will try it again. I heard today it will most likely be some time this week.

Updates, Updates...

The babies have been moved to a new room. We had our own private suite all week and were extremely spoiled. They had moved us into an isolation room last Monday. It was a tight squeeze, but we were the only ones in the room so it was pretty nice. No other crying babies, monitors going off, or loud noises. We also liked to keep the lights down... AND play soft music! Yesterday we were moved to room 2 which is a large open room with quite a few babies who are all working on feeding and growing. We all have been adjusting to the additional noise and craziness that goes on in there. Oh well, I just keep thinking that we are so close to home!

All of the babies have been gaining weight this last week. Ben is still the smallest, but he's on his way up. All had lost weight from birth, which is to be expected. Apparently life out in the big world is pretty hard. Jack is up to his birth weight finally, at 4 lbs 3 oz, Lily is around 3 lbs 12 oz and Ben is 3 lbs 10 oz. Both Ben and Jack's bilirubin levels have been down and neither have had to go under the "lights" again. Ben almost had to last week as his levels had climbed to 8.9, but he got a pass from the neonatologist that day and the next day it had started to drop...Way to go little guy! All of their IV's are out, so no more big padding on their hands or feet. Of course, this just leaves them with two working hands to pull feeding tubes out of their noses! Which is what happened in the pics below!

Little Bennie....

Mischievous Lily...can't you see it on her face???

Jumbo Jack....Grumpy face, huh?


Feeding is our BIG goal right now. Jack is a little ahead of the game...our little piglet. They are fed 8 times per day. He is up to oral feeds (bottle) every feed as of today. THEN...the tube comes out and he will probably we on his way home very soon. YEAH!!! I can't wait. Lily is being fed by bottle 2 out of three times per day. This means that she is fed by bottle two times in a row then by tube the third, then two times by bottle and one time by tube, and so on. Her next step will be feeds every time. Ben is up to being fed by bottle three times per day. He's still pretty inconsistent. Sometimes he takes his bottle like a champ, and sometimes he sleeps and won't suck at all. Life is hard being the little guy. Hopefully, she Lily will be less stressed back in the isolette and will gain weight faster. Then, out into the hard, cruel world again! Ben and Lily are having some problems with spitting up, but it's getting better... Here's a pic of Lily attempting to burp...
After one or all of the babies are ready to come home, they have to pass a car seat test. This is where they sit upright in a car seat for 90 minutes with no problems with heart rate or breathing. I don't think this will be an issue because none of them have had any problems so far with this. Then, Brian and I will be required to "room-in" overnight to take care of whoever is ready to go home. This is where they just sit back and let us do all of their care...I guess this is our big test as to our ability to be good parents! (On that note, I updated the prayer list.)

Unfortunately the chances are really high that we will not be taking all of the babies home together. Most likely Jack will be first, then Lily, then Ben. Then the real fun begins. Juggling babies at home and at the hospital. Oh well, we can do anything for a little while, and the end result is SO worth it. I can't believe we're getting so close. I long more than anything to have my family together at home...I'll be glad to say goodbye to hospital life as I'm fairly sick of it. On a really happy note, our fuzzy baby came home yesterday! After over a month Kita is back and happy as ever.

Other than that, life is rolling right along. I'm feeling so much better, almost human. I saw Dr. Tabor this week and he took me off the blood pressure meds I had been on. I'm also off of all of the pain meds, just the occasional tylenol or ibuprofen. I'm still suffering from being incredibly out of shape, but that gets better every day. Quite a change from being pregnant and each day getting more difficult. Not getting a whole lot of sleep, but not sure that will be getting any better. Pumping has taken over my life...especially in the wee hours of the morning. I never knew how soundly Brian slept at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. in the morning...he looks like a little angel... (Did you catch the sarcasm and jealousy???)

Funny story of the day....

I have officially been initiated into the world of being a novice Mom. Yesterday I went to change Jack's diaper while in a hurry and forgot to take certain precautions...I found that he had left me a "present" and was busy cleaning and scrubbing his bottom to get rid of the evidence. About halfway through the cleaning I feel something warm and wet hit my left hand...I looked up and there was a steady stream hitting Jack squarely in the face. Served him right, I guess...little stinker!

Immediately after that fiasco I go to change Lily's diaper. She had left no "presents" for me. She was however, tooting. So, I laughed and made a comment about our little "tooter". About that time a steady stream of extremely runny poop shot out of her bottom. It went halfway up my arm and even hit the end of the crib. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't has a hold of her legs she would have been jet propelled off the other end. I clean her off, go to put a diaper on her and get poop all over the new clean diaper from my hand. I actually had to call the nurse over to wipe all of the poop off of my hand. I then try another clean diaper and she pooped in that diaper as I was putting it on her. I am then laughing pretty hard...a real problem for someone who was just cut open via c-section. I then managed to get the last diaper on at a freakish speed...