We're Getting Close!

I think it's finally starting to "click" with the girls! We're so proud of how hard they're trying and how far they've come. Pretty much over night they've both gotten interested in eating and actually want to take a bottle. In the last couple of days, they've both been pulling out their feeding tubes. Presley actually had to wear mittens because she's pulled hers out 3 times...but that didn't stop her from getting it out one last time! Last night, the nurse finally just left it out. Paige got her feeding tube out tonight as well. The Dr. is letting them both try eating all their feedings through bottles instead of alternating between bottles and the tube. So far they've sucked every single bottle dry!

Paige pulled out her feeding tube and was playing with it

Presley finally tube-less!

Everyday Paige gets a trial off of her oxygen to see if she doesn't need it anymore. She usually only lasts a couple minutes and then her oxygen sats decrease very low. Yesterday she lasted over an hour! She probably could've lasted longer but I put her oxygen back on while she was eating because her levels were starting to get low. That's a great sign that she might be getting close to not needing it at all! Paige has definitely been making us get our money's worth out of the neonatologists and pulmonologists here at Cook's. Over the weekend, her oxygen levels started to decrease and they did a chest X-ray to see what was going on. She had a lot of fluid on her lungs so she got a her a diuretic to help get rid of it. The next day they checked some labs and a blood gas and it came back with very unusual results....so unusual that the Dr. didn't believe it and had it repeated. The repeated results were the exact same (pretty extreme metabolic alkalosis for those of you that are medical). That brought on many more lab tests to see if she had some type of metabolic disorder, but all those came back normal. We were afraid she had some kind of heart defect so she got a echocardiogram. It was normal as well. She kept the Dr. up late thinking and finally she just attributed it to the Lasix and the change they made to fortify my breastmilk. It's already starting to improve with another diuretic.

Paige enjoying her bath

Sleeping beauty

Last night the nurse let me put them in the same crib for a little while. (They won't let them sleep together in the same crib because it's against the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations.) It was their first time to cuddle in bed since the plane ride here! They had just eaten an hour before the picture was taken, but Presley was starving! She was trying to eat Paige! I hope they're going through a growth spurt!

I just love Presley's expressions. They're hilarious!

They were the talk of the unit in these outfits! Thanks David and Tracy!

The Dr. said we're getting really close to going home! She likes them to take all 8 bottles a day for at least 72 hrs to see if they continue to gain weight appropriately. We'll definitely be here a little longer than that because they're still pretty tiny. Paige is 5lb even and Presley is 3lb. 15.5oz...so close to 4lb!! Once they put on a little bit more weight hopefully we'll finally get to go home!