Friday's Happenings

Yay! I finally got to talk to Kristen just a little bit ago, as opposed to the phone tag we played yesterday. I tired to get as many details as possible so we all felt a little more "in tune" with what's going on.

Kristen: Come to find out, they were only giving her a single pill of Tylenol 3 every 4-6 hours! No wonder the poor girl was in so much pain. Her blessing of a nurse last night (a 3-time section veteran herself) discovered this and ordered more pains meds. Kris is now on 2 tabs of Tylenol 3 and ibuprofen as needed. Thanks to this increase in meds she's feeling much better today. She's trying to nurse the girls before each scheduled feeding (every 3 hours) during the day and pump in between feedings. They plan on keeping her in the hospital until Sunday unless the girls aren't ready to go home by that time. The doctors like to keep mom in the hospital until babies go home in a case like this -- especially since the NICU stay will be fairly short.

Abby: She's still being a stinker in terms of eating. She's getting the colostrum Kris is pumping from a syringe because she's not nursing well at all. Her rooting instinct is there but she's got a poor sucking reflex. Based on her weight, they'd like to see her take 37cc's of formula from a bottle but they're only getting her to take 15-25cc's at a time. Abby won't be released from the NICU until she's eating better -- hopefully by Sunday and then she'll be able to come directly home with Kristen. An ultrasound was done on her head earlier to look at the cerebellum lobes and everything looks fine.

Gracie: She's eating like a champ! She's nursing and getting what colostrum Kristen has. After nursing she'll take 45-46cc's of formula. Based on body weight, they want to see her take 47cc's so she's right about where she needs to be. An ultrasound was done to check on her sole kidney and everything looks great in terms of size and function. She was supposed to be released from the NICU after her ultrasound but her temp dropped by almost a full degree so they're still monitoring her. Right now they're saying that maybe she'll be rooming-in with Kristen by tomorrow.

So that's the scoop this afternoon! The girls' blood sugar levels are no longer being tested. Right now the biggest concern is getting Abby to eat better. Both girls are scheduled to have their hips looked at today as well -- one has a hip "click" and the other because of being breech (I can't remember which, but I think it was Abby that was breech).

Also, Kristen wanted to thank everyone for all the e-greetings! They actually delivered them to the NICU this morning. She said when they got there the nurse said she had a bunch of emails and Kristen was surprised because she didn't know about the e-greetings through the website. She couldn't figure out how they'd gotten her e-mail! LOL Turns out she had quite a stack of them to read! I thank you all too, I know that it made her to day to know so many people are thinking of them right now.

I told her I wouldn't bug her anymore today, so I'll update again after I hear from her tomorrow. Hope that everyone is having a great Friday.