Nothing But Good News!

Towards the end of last week we had a few uneventful days, which is great!  We like stable, uneventful days.  Now, the past few days we've had nothing but good news!

On Friday in speaking with our favorite nurse, who we've had on the weekends since the night Anthony and Aryanna were born, we learned that things could have very easily gone the other way when Anthony's brain bleed started.  The brain bleed really affected his blood pressure and some babies don't recover from that.  After a grade 4 bleed some babies start to have seizures and end up on seizure meds and Anthony never had to cross that bridge either!  She then explained that his next big hurdle would be learning to eat.  It takes a lot of work to coordinate sucking, swallowing and breathing and the bleed could have affected his ability to coordinate all of that.  On Sunday morning the nurse gave him his first bottle to see how he would do and he took THE WHOLE THING!  He just keeps showing us what a fighter he is.  When we spoke with the doctor on Sunday he was very hopeful about Anthony's hydrocephalus (the swelling in his brain).  His head circumference hadn't increased much over the week and he's gone over a week without needing a tap.  He thought things were hitting a plateau and that hopefully we would start to see a decrease in the swelling.  Yesterday after his head scan we learned that he's showing improvement!  For several weeks it had been stable (no change), so we were thrilled to know things are moving in the right direction.  He was supposed to have a consult with the new neurosurgeon this week, but they even cancelled that!  Also, on Sunday he came off the Vapotherm and got switched to wall oxygen AND we've had about 4 nurses now tell us how much better his heart murmur sounds, too.  He is such a miracle and we can't thank you enough for all the prayers.  We're so proud of our little guy!  God is so faithful!

So what's Aryanna been up to?  She's been learning to eat and gaining weight.  She hit the 4 lb mark on Saturday!   She's also rocking the bottles and is starting to get the hang of nursing.  When they did her labs yesterday her alk phos levels were back down where they should be so she doesn't have to take calcium anymore.  She is such a miracle, too.  We're constantly amazed at how well she's doing despite being born so early.  God is good!

And that's not the end of the good news.  Because they're doing so well they told us yesterday that they might get to COME HOME next week as long as they keep eating well and gaining weight!!! They spoke with us yesterday about car seats.  We had to make sure ours would accommodate little 4 lb Aryanna (Anthony is nearing the 5 lb mark) and it does.  When they hit 36 weeks gestational age this Thursday they'll have to take a "room-air challenge" and try breathing without their oxygen.  It's looking like they'll both end up going home on oxygen, but they sure do like to surprise us so we'll see. We are sooooo excited and sooooo terrified all at the same time.  I guess it's time to finish up the nursery, huh?

Here's a picture of our sweet little miracles - more pictures to come soon!