Reasons to Celebrate

Our little bundles of joy have given us many reasons to celebrate the past few days.  We’ve found it’s so important to celebrate even the small milestones (like poopy diapers!) because some days it feels like you take 2 steps forward and then have to take one step back.

Anthony

Anthony is down to one bili light for jaundice—he’s decided he would like to keep those sunglasses a little while longer.  Because of his brain bleed, they’ve been measuring his head circumference every day and it has stayed the same, which means no swelling – hallelujah!  Our weekend nurse also told us that how a baby reacts during the brain bleed tells them a lot about the future.  Anthony has remained very stable.  He hasn’t had any seizure-like activity, he’s moving around, he’s tolerating his feedings, and they haven’t had to increase his ventilator support, so those are all very good signs.  While we still have to take the “wait and see” approach, this news definitely gave us hope and comfort. Speaking of Anthony’s ventilator, they decreased his support today from 45 breaths per minute to 40 breaths per minute.  At noon his blood gases were good so he’s tolerating the change well. He still has the heart murmur and thankfully he’s not showing any symptoms from that, but keep praying that the PDA would close so he doesn’t have to have surgery and so that he can grow stronger faster.  Today they also increased his feedings from 2 ml every 6 hours to 2 ml every 3 hours.  And that food is moving through him—he had a big poopy diaper for mommy today.  Never thought I’d be so excited about a poopy diaper, but when the poor baby had only had a couple of small poopy diapers since he’d been born, you have to assume he was uncomfortable.  Anthony also got to kangaroo with daddy for the first time on Saturday night.  We’ve settled into a routine now and after their evening feeding and diaper change we each do kangaroo care and switch babies every other night. 

Love all that hair, especially the upper left-hand picture where it's spiky like daddy's!
(Click on the image for a larger view)

Aryanna

Aryanna is off the bili lights so we get to see all the silly little faces she makes now.  She was such a ham today!  She had a big poopy diaper for daddy on Saturday and he was so busy trying to keep her hands and feet out of it that he stuck his finger in it!  Welcome to fatherhood, Jose!  They’ve been increasing her feedings almost every day and she is now up to 8 ml every 3 hours—I think she’s trying to catch up to her brother.  Today my sister and I arrived at the hospital to find that Aryanna was off the CPAP and on the next lower level of breathing support, Vapotherm.  This stays on her face a lot better (the little stinker liked to pull the CPAP off) and it allows her to have a smaller feeding tube thru her nose instead of thru her mouth.  She started the day off at level 5 and after her noon blood gases they turned it down to 4.

What an expressive little girl we have!
(Click on the image for a larger view)

Another reason we have to celebrate is the amazing support system we have.  Both our families have been there for us every step of the way, we’ve had wonderful nurses that take the time to explain everything to us, our church family has lined up people to be at the chapel here at Mercy to be praying for us every day and many friends and family (here in the U.S. and all around the world), and even strangers have written us encouraging e-mails, notes and cards.  You all are such a blessing and we look forward to the day we get to tell Anthony and Aryanna how many people love them!