More Milestones

Owen and Liam are getting bigger and bigger. They both have their feeding tubes in their noses now and continue to breathe on their own. It’s neat to see their mouths free of any tubes and I’m sure they’re thankful for that feeling too! They are both on the high-flow nasal canulas, but their rates have been weaned down a bit in the last week. Martina got to give Owen his first tub bath on Tuesday during the day (I was unable to be there to take pictures because I was at work) which was really cool because they take all the leads off (heart rate and respiratory rate sensors) so she got to see him truly naked for the very first time ever - no wires or lines or diapers! Last Saturday Martina got to give Liam his very first bath as well – albeit a sponge bath – he enjoyed it once it got going and he especially liked having his hair washed. I missed that as well but Martina said he was smiling the whole time she rubbed his scalp with the baby shampoo and that he really liked that part. We are both consistently kangarooing both boys nightly (we alternate nights with each boy) and Martina usually gets to hold one of them on her day visits. Liam continues to lead the way with his weight – he’s up to 1,682 grams last night (3 lb, 11 oz) - and he still continues to have a little edema but I think that he will struggle with that (not a big deal) while he has that stoma, but they are getting more and more like full term babies, staying awake more, and crying now, and smiling. Liam’s feeding has also steadily increased from 1 cc every 12 hours to 1 every 6 hours, then 1 every 4 hours, then 1 every 3 hours and now he’s on continuous feed of 1.5 cc’s every hour. It infuses very slowly but is continuous 24/7 in hopes that it will stimulate his digestive system to continue to wake up and digest the food more and more and to stimulate the peristaltic activity (squeezing of the intestines from top to bottom in sequential order to push food from the stomach all way to his rectum) that lay dormant for the first 6 weeks of his life. Owen weighed in last night at about 1,580 grams if I remember correctly (3 lb, 8 oz) but he is getting really tall (he’s about two inches longer than Liam even though he weighs 100 grams or so less). We want him to slow down on his length and get a little fatter, but he is eating like a champ at almost 1 ounce every 3 hours (he gets 27 cc’s of 26-calorie-per-ounce fortified breast milk) so he's doing well. (Breast milk is naturally 20 calories per ounce so they fortify it with calorie enhancers to bulk up preemies so he slowly gets titrated up on his calorie enhancer and he’s up to 26 calories per ounce now.) It’s hard to catch anything on camera but them sleeping but we’ll keep trying!

That’s all for now.

love,

Eric