Monday, June 16, 2008

Wearing clothes!!!

Making more progress.........the girls are wearing clothes!! They are working on weaning them off the temperature controlled isolette. The temperature sensors are gone from their bodies and now they set the isolette at a certain temperature and let the girls maintain their own temperature. The goal is for them to maintain their body temp when the isolette is set at 28C. Right now both girls are at 31C and working their way down. Since the girls have to work to keep their temp, they get to wear clothes since that's the more "normal" environment they'll be in. Much harder than I thought to find preemie clothes. We took the onesies we were able to find to the hospital and on Saturday morning the girls were dressed!! I took a look at the preemie onesies I was taking and thought they would fit the girls pretty well..........ha - take a look at the pics below - they're still huge!!

Sofia: Now weighing in at a hefty 2lb 15.4oz - she's packing on the weight! She gained over an ounce from Saturday and is closing in on her sister!! They re-started compression feeding with her on Saturday and she's now down to feeding over an hour and a half and is doing well. I think she just needed some more time to get her belly ready for the larger volume. She's starting to take a pacifier to practice the suck/swallow reflex while continuing to breathe and they try to give it to her during her feed so she can associate that reflex with getting full. Her A&B episodes continue but not nearly at the rate they were and most of the time she's able to bring herself back up without stimulation so she doesn't even get "written up" for them. Also like her sister, she's found her fingers and loves to put them in her mouth.

Olivia: THREE POUNDS, baby!!!! 3lb 0.7oz to be exact, thank you very much! She hit 3lbs 0.1oz on Saturday night and I was expecting her to drop back to the high 2's on Sunday -- that's typically the pattern with weight gain - yo-yo weight gain which is perfectly normal and especially now that they're working harder to keep the body temp, but she had packed on a few more grams yesterday. She's feeding over 30 minutes which is the goal before starting bottle feeds. They'll keep her over 30 mins for the next 24 hours or so and then we'll try her very first bottle. They have given her a pacifier that is the same as the bottle she'll get and she loves it. The nurse said she can hear Olivia squealing and when she gives Olivia the pacifier, they can hear her sucking away even with the isolette closed and covered. She seems to be ready to try a bottle!!

Progress, progress and D and I are so proud of both of our girls for how well they're doing. They're on their way to an open crib once they prove they can maintain body temp and they're on their way to NICU 2, or the step-down unit, once they can maintain their temp and take all their feedings from bottles. I think they're going to give both girls a bath tonight and D and I will be there to help with that. The nurses are fantastic when it comes to us being hands on - they encourage us to help as much as we can - taking temperatures, diaper changes, bed and position changes, etc. and we're getting more confident handling our little ones (very little ones!). D's quite the pro, much better than I am. We'll be getting ready to hold them and while I'm waiting for the nurse to help me get one of the girls from their isolettes, D will have the other one out, wrapped in blankets, and is already sitting and talking to her - haha. Hey - in my defense, it's still hard for me to sit and stand...............okay, okay - so I'm still a little nervous when handling them, but I'm getting better!!

Here are a few pics:
(1) Olivia - first time in clothes
(2) Sofia - first time in clothes
(3) Olivia
(4) Sofia



















1 comment:

durga said...

We love our miracle babies! Here’s a $5 off coupon from My Miracle Baby.com to celebrate! $5 off your purchase of $30 or

more. Use coupon code: SAVING05


Preemie clothes for girls