05-28-10

Tomorrow the Porky Princess and the Punky Princess will be 36 weeks (6 1/2 weeks) old. Everyday is a step closer to bringing them home. In 4 weeks, we will have a couple of full term babies on our hands!!!

Quinn is still porking up. Last night she weighed 4lbs 8 1/2oz. She is doing really good on her feedings. She is a burping and pooping machine. A couple of nights ago, she reminded us how loud her tush could truly be! This was prior to pooping for 3 minutes continuously. Yep, I watched it because I was in the middle of changing her when she decided to express her bowels even more than she already had done. She let out the loudest fart I had ever heard from a baby. All the nurses in the nursery turned to look at us. I had to quickly defend myself..."It was her...I promise." I had to calm down from laughing to change her diaper. I will say that along with the nasty smell, the poop was a pretty green color. This may sound absolutely disgusting but the color would have been gorgeous painted on a wall. I personally thought it was the sweetest fart, smell and color ever!!

Brooklyn had an amazing day yesterday. Just a reminder to a couple of posts ago, I was complaining about the nurse taking Brooklyn off the airflow cannula...cold turkey. Well, I had discussed with the night nurse, Nurse Judy, about why they didn't try to drop her down to 1/2 liter for a while and then take her off. She said that she would make a note in the chart to that suggestion. Apparently, it worked. Yesterday, Brooklyn was turned down to 1/2 liter. At 4:00pm, she was completely taken off the airflow cannula. She had not been fed by bottle without the cannula. They didn't want to stress her too much and let her get used to being without the cannula. WOW! What a thought...wish I had thought of it!!! Oh...wait...I did. I am all for teaching them to do all things on their own. But it is a learned process and not an instinct yet for premature babies. TEACH her to do it and not expect her to know. So last night I held her until 11:00pm and she did really well on her breathing. She only had a couple of D-sats and one Brady. We didn't try to feed her by bottle. I called this morning at about 3:30am and she was still off her cannula and doing well. Nurse Judy said that she took 9ml of her bottle without her cannula on. Again...a learning process. She started to stress and so they continued the feeding via tube. She will soon enough be able to take her whole bottle with out stressing. It took Quinn about a week to get to that point.

Also, Brooklyn will not have to wait til she is 4lbs to graduate from her insulet. She is gestationally old enough to be removed even though her size is not up to par. However, it is a balance between size and age in the NICU. She is considered an IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction) baby. So her low weight and gestational age has to be considered when making decisions in her care. Her body temperature is exceeding her environment temperature. Meaning that her body temperature is always more than the temp in her insulet. She doesn't need the heat in the insulet. When we have her out of the box, she is always warmer than her box temperature. Soon she will be graduating...probably in about 4 more ounces (roughly 4 more days). Last night, Miss Brooklyn topped the baby scales at 3lbs 3oz. It is so hard to imagine her at 1 lb. now. Everyday I look back on pictures and the pictures now and see how much they have changed.

Also, Last night I got to hold both of them at the same time for a picture. Even better, we took pictures of them side by side to see if they look alike. One of those pictures, they look exactly alike. Only difference is the extra gumball in Quinn's cheeks. Her face and head are bigger. But if you look at the pics without looking at size...exactly the same. I was happy to see the identical trait be a factor after all. They haven't looked alike to me and last night they proved me wrong. Already ganging up on me to prove me wrong.

I hope all of you have a Happy Memorial Day. Be safe! I would like to thank all the veterans for their love and support of this country. They are the backbone of this country and I love that we honor them every year.

I would like to especially give honor to my grandfather for his services in the US Marines, may he rest in peace. I Love You!