Together..... for a Moment

The girls will be 4 weeks old tomorrow and I will post more pictures and information then.  

But a quick post on a great day today!

When I walked into the room this morning this is what I saw~

They have so many babies in the NICU right now that our girls had to "double bunk."  That means that we are sharing the room with another baby for the time being.  

While this might upset some parents to have to share a room with another baby/family I am quite excited about it.  

It means that our girls get to finally be together~ or at least close to each other!

Which also means that.........

I finally got to hold both babies together for the 1st time!!!!!!!!

Here they are laying side by side on my lap.  Naomi is asleep on the left and Colette is awake on the right.

It's a busy Saturday, so I will tell more about it in the next post.

3 Week Update and 1st Bath

The girls are continuing to do well.  A phrase that we hear a lot in the NICU is 

"They are acting developmentally appropriate for their age."

Basically, the are doing exactly what the doctors and nurses would expect 3 week old babies that were born at 32 weeks to do.  

Naomi is now 3 pounds 13 1/2 ounces.

She loves to nurse.

She is soooo..... close to not needing her extra oxygen.  She has been staying right around 22-25%.  

21% is room air.

She does well with her bottles most of the time.  But just inconsistent enough to keep her from progressing to the next feeding stage.

She is maintaining her own body temperature.  

They will not move her out of her isolette until she is more consistent with her bottle feedings 

because it actually will use up too many calories for her to be in an open crib.  And they want 

those calories going towards eating better.  

Isn't that crazy that just hearing more noise, feeling drafts, and being in room air would burn 

enough calories to be worried about?!?

I wish I had that problem :)

Colette is 3 pounds 12 ounces.

She also loves to nurse (although she is a little slower to get a full feed).

She is not quite as close as Naomi with her oxygen needs.  She is still up around 30% (which is developmentally appropriate for her age).

She doesn't like her bottle quite as much as Naomi, but she is gradually getting better.

She is maintaining her own body temperature.

She also has to do better with feedings before they will move her out of her isolette.

Overall, the girls are doing awesome!!!  Colette is just a half step behind Naomi in a couple of things, but both girls are healthy and growing!  

Onto fun stuff~ their first bath!!!

Naomi bundled up in her blanket in the "whale" tub.  They keep them wrapped up to help them feel more secure and to keep them warm.  

Again~ they don't want them wasting calories on arms flailing around, 

getting too cold, or crying too much.

The nurse was nice enough to take pictures, so I could do the bath.

She was pretty darn comfortable in there~ she was almost falling asleep!

Sweet girl!

Once Naomi was done with her bath, she got bundled up in 2 warm blankets.  

Nice and clean~ with a new pink bow in her hair!

Now for Colette's first bath!

Korby brought the kids up so that they could be there.  They really haven't been able to do anything to really bond with these girls yet.  So, it was nice to have them there to feel like they are a 

part of these girls lives.

The nurse wasn't able to get as many close up shots of Colette since the kids were all around the tub, but I'm still glad they were there.

You can hardly see Colette, but she is in the tub.

Colette getting her arm washed.  The nurse kept calling it their "Spa Day."  They got to soak in a jacuzzi, get a mini massage, be lathered up with lotion, and they got their hair done.

Sounds like a great day to me!   

Colette bundled up in her warm blankets.

Here is Colette after her bath, but before she got her new purple bow.  I will have to make sure to get a picture of that next time I go.

This was the first time that the kids have been able to touch their sister!  Crazy that after almost 3 weeks, they would have to ask a nurse if they could touch their sister's foot for the first time!

Maybe next time they come they will be able to touch Naomi.

*Notice the Elmer's glue on top of the isolette.  That is what they use in the NICU to keep 

bows in the girl's hair!  

A Little Info and a Lot of Pictures

Every single day I am amazed all over again at how well the girls are doing.

Every single day I think about how horribly things could have gone wrong, but didn't.

Every single day I thank my Heavenly Father for these two little miracles.

Naomi now weights 3 pounds 10 ounces and Colette weights 3 pounds 9 ounces. 

They are both closer to 4 pounds than 3 pounds!

They have both moved up to Stage 2 with their feedings.  This means that they are now working on taking 4 of their 8 feedings in a 24 hour period orally~ either by breast feeding or bottle.

Naomi is doing great with both.  

Colette is doing okay.  She is a very pokey eater, so it sometimes takes her too long to finish an oral feeding, which means they have to give the rest through her NG tube.  They don't want them to spend more than 30 minutes on a feeding because it uses up too many calories to make the feeding worth it.  

They are both still on supplemental oxygen.  

Naomi is using a little less than Colette, but they are both steadily working their way off of it.

They are both starting be awake for longer periods of time.  It is most noticeable that they are staying awake after a feeding.  It used to wear them out so much to nurse that they would immediately conk out, but they are starting to be able to stay awake after now.

I am going up 6 mornings a week and 6 evenings a week.  I have already figured out that I need a break from the NICU.  I would never get tired of spending time with my girls, but it is very draining to spend so much time in the NICU.  

Korby goes up about every other day~ either on his lunch break or in the evenings if we have a baby sitter. 

I did a little calculating this afternoon.  Between all the times that Korby came to see me during my hospital stay and now between the 2 of us coming up to see the girls~ we have driven to the hospital 71 times as of this morning!

Thank goodness we are only 15 minutes away!

Ok, enough info~ here are the pictures!

Naomi

Colette in newborn jammies.  I don't know how well you can see from the picture, but she was swimming in them!

Colette holding mom's finger

Naomi

Naomi letting mom know she is ready to eat!

Colette letting mom know she is ready to eat!

Since the girls are so small, they are not eating as much as a normal full term baby.  However, my body didn't get the memo and I am accumulating quite a stock pile of milk.  This is the freezer in the NICU.  Most babies have 1 bin~ as you can see we have 4!  The nurses have told me I will not need to bring in any more milk for quite a while~ which is now causing our freezer at home to become quite full of milk also!

Naomi sleeping so sweetly

Naomi~ I put her to bed all snuggled up and within a couple of minutes she had wiggled her foot out

And talk about wiggling out~ this is what she looked like later that night.  She had completely wiggled half her body out of her blanket and her jammies!

The nurses were all calling Naomi Houdini this night because after wiggling out of her blanket and jammies, she also somehow managed to wiggle her way over to her port hole and was sticking her arm out of it!

***Disclaimer: The port hole was only opened while the nurse and I were standing right by her isolette.  
They are normally closed.  

Sideways picture of Colette

Colette getting ready to go to sleep

Naomi

My absolute FAVORITE way for babies to sleep~ bum up!  And it is extra cute when there is a big heart on the bum, too! (Colette)

And for my sister Mary, and for myself~ here are some pictures of the NICU in general.  

Naomi's half of the room.  If you expand the picture you can see her little head in there somewhere :)

Colette's half of the room.  You can also see her, but you have to look close.

What the room looks like when you walk in the door.  

The "Scrub In" station.  My arms are starting to get really sensitive to all the scrubbing.  I have to do it pretty gentle or my arms get really red and irritated.

Sorry~ sideways!  Here is the sign for entering the NICU with the call button to get in.  I also need to get a picture of Korby and I wearing our NICU parent badges. 

Names

People have been asking about the girl's names, how we came up with them and how we decided which one was which.  So, here it is.

For starters, this pregnancy was so very different from all our other pregnancies for quite a number of reasons.  With such a high mortality rate I had a hard time letting myself get too attached to the girls while I was still pregnant.  People asked me constantly if we had names picked out and even though we had a pretty good idea of the names we would use I couldn't really allow myself to commit to them.  I didn't want to personalize the girls too much as a way to protect myself emotionally if we lost them.  

I thank my Heavenly Father a hundred times a day that we didn't lose them!

Korby and I usually have a very difficult time coming up with names that we both like.  And now we would have to double it?!?

It actually worked out quite easily~ which was a pleasant surprise.

Neither of us are quite sure of where we picked up the names, but I fell in love with the name Colette and Korby really liked the name Naomi.  

Then Korby suggested using Lynn as a middle name (which is my middle name) and I suggested using Ann (which is my mom's middle name).  

And that is how we came up with the names Naomi Lynn and Colette Anna (we liked the extra syllable with Anna instead of just Ann).

How did we figure out which one was which?

While I was pregnant and the girls were on the monitors, one of the babies (Baby A)stayed pretty much in the same spot for at least the last month of the pregnancy.  The other baby (Baby B) moved all over the place.  They would sometimes have to use an ultrasound machine multiple times an hour to find where she had moved to.  In my mind I thought that of the 2 names, Colette sounded like the feistier of the two.  So, I thought that Baby B would be Colette.

When they were born, they were passed through the window into their NICU room.  While the doctors were finishing up with me, we could occasionally hear one of the babies crying through the closed window.  The doctors told us that the baby must be crying pretty loud, since they can't usually hear them through the window.  I knew immediately that the crying baby was Colette.  And it turns out she was Baby B.

It also turns out that we have had multiple nurses (who didn't know about the above story) have used the exact word "feisty" to describe Colette!

We have been asked if we can tell the girls apart yet and the answer is~ No.  The main reason (aside from being identical)  is that we have not been able to see the girls together yet.  They are in separate beds on opposite sides of the room.  As of right now, the girls are not allowed to be by each other because of the risk of transferring an infection or other illness.   The only way I can tell them apart right now is that Naomi has a pink bow in her hair and Colette has a purple bow in hers and that they stay on their own sides of the room.  

Hopefully we can come up with a more permanent way to tell them apart before bringing them home!

The Cord

While I was still pregnant all the doctors and nurses kept telling me to make sure Korby got a picture of the girls umbilical cords.  I even had my nurse offer to take the pictures for me during the operation. 

After the girls were both out, Korby had a chance to take a picture of the cord, but the doctor was holding it up over my open and exposed abdomen.  He didn't quite have the stomach to take a picture of that, and he figured he would have a chance to take a picture of it later.  

Well, that didn't happen.  They started untangling it right away and as they started my doctor made this comment:

"I'm really disappointed with your cords Jennifer."

Apparently it was very unimpressive!  

For how much worry and stress these babies caused us on the monitors, their cords were not the tangled mess that everyone assumed they would be.  They were short and twisted up, but there were no big knots and they weren't wrapped around any part of the babies.  

Sooooo...

No picture of the cord.  

Not a very impressive story.  

Sometimes disappointing is a good thing!    

1 Week Update (a little late)

I know I am a little late for a 1 week update, especially since they are almost 2 weeks old, but just pretend that I am posting this 5 days ago....

The girls are doing GREAT!  And they are certainly acting like identical twins.  The doctors and nurses keep joking about how easy the girls are making their jobs since they are doing everything together.  Here are some of the things that they have done together (without physically being together):

~they both needed a dose of surfactant at the same time (helps stimulate lung development)

~both of their supplemental oxygen levels have gone down from 8 to only 1/2 a liter

~they both came off the CPAP on the same day to a high flow nasal canula

~a couple of days later they both went from the high flow nasal canula to a normal canula

~they both needed to go under the "lights" the same day for the same amount of time (only 24 hours)

~they are both on full feeds (all nutrients coming from fortified breast milk)

~because of the one above, they both got rid of their IV's on the same day

~they both weaned themselves off of the temperature probe at the same rate

~they both started breast feeding on the same day

~they even usually poop at the same time

.  It truly is making it easier for me to keep track of everything.  I am having a hard enough time keeping track of who is who in all the pictures :)  

Speaking of pictures.....

Naomi under the "tanning lights" to help with jaundice.  The nurses called her a sun worshiper this day~ she was loving it!  

Colette extra comfortable while she is getting a full tummy from her feeding tube (in the bottom left hand corner).

Naomi's leg.  If you enlarge the picture you can see how wrinkled her skin is on her thigh.  

Colette's leg~ it is the same width as my thumb!  As you can tell from the picture above, their thighs aren't much bigger.  

Naomi's foot with her IV in.  They had to change their IV just about every single day :(  

Naomi's leg with her ID tag.  They are too small for bracelets, so they have a piece of paper taped to their leg with their ID number on them.  It also identifies them as BabyA and BabyB.  We might be keeping these on for a while after they come home to help us not get them mixed up :)

Colette snuggling with a rolled up blanket.  She loves to sleep all tucked in.    

Naomi, unlike Colette, loves to sleep with at least 1 limb sticking out most of the time.  

Naomi's arm~ the same size as my index finger.  

As of Sunday Naomi was 3.1 pounds and 16.1 inches and Colette was 2.15 pounds and 16.5 inches.  They both dropped weight (which is normal for any baby) but are now gaining again.

As of today (Friday) Naomi is at 3.5 pounds and Colette is at 3.2 pounds.  Both girls are starting to get the hang of breastfeeding.  That may be the only way I can tell them apart at the moment.  Naomi will nurse very slow and steady while Colette will nurse in quick strong bursts. 

They have progressed so much in the last week (almost 2 weeks).  Korby and I are so thankful that they are doing as wonderfully as they are.  However, with every improvement or step in the positive direction Korby gets more and more nervous about them coming home too soon.  

We are pretty much past any of the scary or major problems with preemies, but we still have quite a ways to go before these little girls are ready to come home with us.  I have to keep reassuring Korby of this.  It will be crazy busy when they do finally come home, but it will be so wonderful to finally be together as a whole family.  Since Vivian can't come into the NICU, we haven't been all together as a family since the babies have been born~ one of these days...... just not too soon for Korby's piece of mind ;)

Gaining Some Perspective

I have learned so many different things from everything we have experienced so far with the pregnancy and I am continuing to learn during this new phase of life with babies in the NICU.

One thing that I am learning is perspective.  Yes, being in the hospital for almost 7 weeks was a very long time, but when compared to how long I will get to hold, love and treasure these little girls it wasn't very long at all.  It just depends your perspective.  Every day in the hospital, especially the time I was on full bed rest, I would wake up in the morning and tell myself~

 "I can do this for one more day.  It will be good for the babies.  Today will be one less day that we will have to spend in the NICU."

It would have been so easy to mope and groan about being there (which I did do quite a bit), but overall I tried to have a semi-good attitude about the situation and look at things in the right perspective.  

That being said~ it has been hard to convey in pictures just how small and delicate these little girls are.  So, some advice we got from other NICU parents is to take "Perspective Pictures" (which is how I got on a roll of talking about perspective).  Anyway, here are pictures of the girls that will hopefully give you a better perspective of their size.  

And please don't make fun or laugh~ one of these days I will upgrade my 6 year old phone and get something cooler :)  BTW~ my phone is smaller than an i-phone.

Naomi

Colette

Have I mentioned how in love I am with these girls?!?  I will say it again~ I absolutely love and adore these two sweet beautiful girls! (who are doing wonderfully I might add!)

It Was All Worth It

Yesterday was a WONDERFUL day!

I was able to hold my girls for almost an hour each!

They did great!

I was in heaven!!!!

Here I am holding Naomi.  They call it "Kangaroo Care" which is holding the baby skin to skin.  As soon as Naomi was placed on my chest she let out a big sigh and then she didn't move again for the entire hour.  Her breathing has been continuously faster than normal since she was born, but while I was holding her it was the calmest she has ever been.  She just needed some "mommy time."

Later that night I was able to hold Colette.  She stayed awake for a little bit while I was holding her and she had her eyes opened.  Then she settled in~ she and mom both took a little nap together :) 

They can only stay out of their isolette (covered, temp controlled bed) as long as all their stats are stable.  The nurses were surprised that both girls did so well out of their beds for that long.  It was such a special, humbling experience to hold each of these little miracles.  They are sooo..... tiny!  But they are mine!  And being able to hold them made it feel just that much more real that these two little girls are here.  

Here is Colette with her eyes opened.   

Here is Naomi with her eyes opened.  She is holding onto my finger with her left hand :)