[Sorry for the long delay in posting—as you’ll see in the next few blog posts, a lot happened to us very quickly and I have not been able to find the time to update the blog, but I’ll try to get the info up here as soon as possible. –Ted.]
The boys are two weeks old today and doing better and better every day. Today, we decided to try to skew our schedules a little more so that when we go home, we’ll be able to spread out the feedings and care of the boys between us (when we no longer have the wonderful staff of NICU nurses to take the night-time feedings and changings). So, Barbara got up earlier and went for the 9:30/10:30 AM shift. When she went in, she got a pleasant surprise, which I also got when I came in around 11:00 AM. Spencer had been able to regulate his body temperature enough to move to a regular crib. It was such a joy to see both boys out of the incubators and into normal cribs. It is just one more sign that they are getting closer to being able to come home with us. In fact, one of the nurses figured that once they were both in cribs and out of the incubators, she had another surprise for us. She went to the Pediatrics department and brought over a large crib so that she could move the boys together and co-habitate them. It was so comforting to us to see our boys together in the same bed. Every day another step towards bringing them home. So, the boys have gotten to spend their last few days in the hospital NICU together. The best thing is that even when one is screaming bloody murder, it doesn’t seem to disturb the other one who sleeps through it.
Dexter had a few surprises in store for us. At the 6:30PM feeding, Dexter drank the full bottle (60 ml) and was still hungry and trying to drink. So we gave him another bottle and he drank another 9 ml, for a total of 69 ml. Wow! And then at 9:30 PM, he drank 67 ml. Especially considering how long it took for him to start, he’s been making up for lost time, this week. He followed that up with 76 at the 12:30 feeding. And he weighed 6 lbs, 5.6 oz, up 2.8 oz. He’s growing at a good rate and doing very well.
Spencer continues to make progress. He’s actually eating 46-52 ml most of the time. He’s also gained weight and now weighs 6 lbs, 7.2 oz (up 1.3 oz).
We got an interesting surprise. When we came to the NICU this morning, the head nurse informed us that she had scheduled our first well-baby checkup with our pediatrician for us for Friday. That was a surprise. It meant that we’d be home by Friday, something we were not sure of before this. After lunch, when the neonatologist came by, he had another surprise for us. He said that Dexter was doing well and was about ready to be discharged perhaps as early as the next day, Tuesday. Spencer had made great progress but might need an extra day or two since he wasn’t eating reliably enough to be discharged. The staff was very pleased with how stable his breathing and temperature regulation were, but just wanted to make sure that he was eating enough on his own. He still had a feeding tube in his nose, and he was taking at least part of his meals almost every time. But, he was making progress.
We were kind of hoping that Dexter was not being released on Tuesday because otherwise we’d have no place to stay locally and would have to take him further away from the hospital for the night, but at least we had provisioned ourselves on our quick trip home with supplies to take care of Dexter.
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