3 weeks old

Just when I think I can't handle the stress any longer, somehow another week passes. The babies are 3 weeks old today (or 31 gestational weeks). Here's how they did this week:

Alivia has had a pretty good week. Two times this week they switched her to nasal prongs because she was on room air on her cpap. But for some reason, once she is on the prongs she starts needing more oxygen so they have to switch her back to the cpap. I think she likes the light feeling of her head with the cpap off because she kept turning her head and laying on her face. Silly baby. The cpap makes her face really swollen so any pics we got with her oxygen on makes her eyes look swollen. They've been able to increase her feeds so she got her IV out which was giving her additional nutrients. They did an echocardiogram and the valve in her heart is now closed!

Alivia is a silly little monkey. She loves to lay in her incubator with her eyes open. I hate leaving when she is looking around and tell her, "Close your eyes and go to sleep so mommy can leave." She loves laying on her back with her legs up in the air. She doesn't really like her tummy... probably because then she can't look around. She loves to snuggle but after about an hour and 15 minutes she is definitely done. She starts to pull away and get really restless. The nurse said I might be able to give her a bath this week.

Adalyn has had a harder week. Her cpap oxygen levels are swinging all over the place. The goal is to get the percent of oxygen to 21 but the lowest she can get to is 25, the highest is in the upper 30s. Her alarms go off all day long and they have to keep adjusting the numbers. It does a number on my nerves. They did an xray of her lungs and found some fluid so they decided to give her a round of lasix. Her body seemed to handle it pretty well. She has been doing really well on her feeds but wasn't gaining weight so they increased the supplements in her milk. Her IV was taken out a while ago. She has now gained some more weight... I think she is around 3 lbs 8 oz. Yesterday she started to struggle. Her oxygen dropped off about 10 times during the day so the doctors think there could be some sort of infection. They did a lumbar puncture, some blood work and took a urine sample. The LP fluid came back negative for meningitis but the results from the blood work will take 48 hours to come back. They put in an IV and started her on antibiotics. We are hoping and praying for a better week for her.

Adalyn loves, loves, loves to be on her belly. She gets upset when she is on her back. She can be on her stomach for another 4 weeks and then they'll have to wean her onto her back. She is very sensitive to touch and sound. The nurses think it is because she isn't feeling well. Her eyelids flutter when I talk to her so I know she recognizes my voice. Yesterday Aden was visiting with Alivia and he looked over to Adalyn's incubator. Her eyes were open and she was looking at Aden and she had her arm outstretched towards him. He said he felt so bad and hurried over to hold her hand.

The big excitement of the week is that the girls are now in the same area of the NICU. They moved Adalyn right across from Alivia. Then by the next day they had moved Adalyn right next to Alivia. Apparently the NICU is above capacity so some babies have to double up in some areas. We are ok with that because the girls' incubators are about a foot apart. There was another baby moved to the space across from the girls. He is 9 1/2 pounds and looks HUGE. I call him the man child. I thought my girls looked big compared to some of the tiny preemies but the man child makes our babies look TINY.

My sister kept telling us to get a stuffed animal for the babies. We got some pink bears. Then she kept telling us to get pictures of the bears with the babies. We can't put anything in the incubators so we took a picture with the bears on top.

I know I say this every blog post but thank you for your prayers. Pray for Adalyn this week!