Thursday, October 13th

I am going to try to do regular updates through the blog while the kids are in the NICU.

Today has been a good day so far. We went over to the NICU at 5am to feed Ben and check on Ainsley. Ben is doing very well with his feedings so far and they are starting to increase them. They started at 10ml every 3 hours and are going to increase by 5ml every 12 hours assuming he tolerates it. I'm not sure what his goal is right now though it will increase as his weight increases. He is likely getting his IV out today and can get rid of his pulse oximeter so that is two less wires! He is hard to get dressed and undressed anyway because as soon as you unswaddle him he starts flailing like crazy but with all his wires it is even harder. We'll be glad to see those go completely! Ben also got a "big boy crib" last night. He is maintaining his temperature so he didn't need the warmer anymore.

Ben likes to keep a good grip on that paci

Mom and Ben

Ainlsey is doing pretty well also. They had to turn up her oxygen on her CPAP again last night which was a little disappointing. However when we went over this morning she was doing SO well. Her respirations are down from 90-100/minute to 30-50/minute (based on what I see on her monitors when I'm in there). She is working WAY less hard to breath. It was so hard to watch her breath before because it was so fast and labored. It wore me out just to watch! When her doctor came in around 11:30am he was not happy with how long it was taking her to get off the CPAP and he just thought she should be getting better faster. Because of this they decided to give her some surfactant. To do this they had to put her on a ventilator, get the surfactant into the lungs, and then try to get her back on the CPAP. They have to give some sedating medicine to get her on the ventilator so then it can sometimes be a little hard to get babies back off, so they warned us that she could be on a ventilator for awhile. However, this wasn't the case with her - she did awesome! She went right back on the CPAP and they have steadily been decreasing it since the procedure. Right now she is on room air through the CPAP. Hopefully later she'll be able to try breathing without the CPAP though they said she will need some oxygen - I'm assuming just through a nasal cannula. Once we get off the CPAP, it is my understanding that the umbilical line can come out and then we can hold her. She can also start eating at that point. Right now she is getting her nutrition through her IV.

Miss Ainsley

Here are some pictures of Ben with our visitors. We are trying to be patient while we wait for Ainsley to be able to be held so we can get some more pictures with her!

Aunt Liasa and Ben

Grandma Barb and Ben

Grandma Kelley and Grandpa Terry with Ben