Day 64

So, Avery is big enough and gaining enough weight that she has graduated from her incubator to a crib...you know, like a real-life, for-reals baby!

She is eating well and still on feeding tubes, but slowly improving on her oxygen needs. I got to hold her today and read to her.  I didn't have my normal book handy for her, but she did seem very excited to learn about Stuxnet and cyber warfare.  Riveting stuff.

The neurosurgeon evaluated her today and is starting to think she is fairly close to be able to have a shunt installed to manage her hydrocephalus.  From what I understand, he would install the shunt the same time as remove the reservoir from her head.  As a result, she would lose the giant bump that's always on her head, and would have a permanent system to hopefully work well in draining out her brain fluid adequately.

Wren is still in the incubator (isolette).  She has been pretty edematous lately, meaning that she is still retaining too much water and this ends up resulting in some extra fluid on the lining of her lungs which somewhat inhibits her breathing.  To counteract this, she is on diuretics which help her kidneys to work hard and create more urine to get rid of excessive water.  This in turn means she ends up being low on Sodium and Potassium, so she now gets NaCl + K additions to her food.

I got to give her a bath today, which was my first time, though Shannon's done it a few times.

She did really well and didn't have to be bumped up on her oxygen (60%) as much as she usually does for cares.  (~80%)

I talked to the doctors about what they think about when they babies can get discharged, and at this point there best estimate is "at least their due date or later".  That would set a marker for about mid November, since their due date was originally the 11th.  When they were one baby instead of two trouble-making babies.

So, all of our kids at home have met the twins...except our youngest.  She has not been able to come in to the hospital and see them, and I've been wondering if meeting them is going to flip her world upside down.  She does love babies in general, and is almost constantly packing around a doll of some kind, and caring for it, calling it her "bebby".  In fact, the latest thing she's been packing around is this premie-sized pajama for the twins that Shannon picked up last week, but I still wonder how she'll do when she meets a new non-inanimate baby that lives in our house.

Our kids are all close in age, and with having six under our roof aged 7 and younger, I foresee a lot of fun adventures in our future.  And less sleep.  Meh, who needs that stuff anyhow?