What a Day

I don't even know where to begin. Today was an exciting but very overwhelming day.  I feel like our prayers were heard and may even be answered!  Just as they described, Andrew's "light" turned on last night and he started taking all of his feeds.  As of now, he has not used the NG tube in 24 hours and it will come out tomorrow morning if he continues with this progress!  He definitely still has a weaker suck and tires frequently, but he's doing it all on his own. He also maintained his temperature all day in his OPEN CRIB! I cannot tell you how proud we are of him. 

Andrew and his big boy bed!

Their NICU Room with 2 cribs!

It's almost as if he heard all of our talk about Paige going home and decided he needed to catch up! The team thinks that if he continues at this rate, he will also be ready to go home very soon.  So soon that they are going to try to keep Paige until he is ready, too.  That means we will all get to come home TOGETHER!  We aren't counting on this, but our goal is sometime over the weekend!

We continued in our frantic race today to get everything done for discharge.  They got their repeat head ultrasounds, which were normal.  They also passed their hearing screens and did very well in their developmental exams.  Their car seat fitting was quite amusing, as they are SO small and look ridiculous in their seats (I'll take some pics later)!  Both of their event studies were completed tonight and reviewed, as well.  Paige had a significant number of episodes where she stopped breathing for more than 15 seconds and had associated drops in her heart rate.  For this reason, she will require a monitor at home.  Our little guy did great though and escaped the extra baggage.  This evening, we also did our family infant CPR training.  It was a very LONG day...

While all of this is so very exciting, we are sufficiently overwhelmed.  Their feeding sessions at the hospital with help right now are taking about 1.5 hours for both, plus 25 minutes for me to pump and clean up.  On top of this crazy schedule we will have at home, they have already scheduled us for a bunch of f/u appointments.  We will see the pediatrician VERY frequently, the nutritionist and developmental specialist.  They will also need to be seen in the eye clinic in 2 weeks and Paige will need to head to the apnea clinic (to manage her apnea and monitor).  We are sorting out their meds and types of fortifier now and Jack and I are very busy sterilizing everything at home and getting everything prepped now that we know what they are using.

One recommendation the team gave today, which was a surprise, is that both Paige and Andrew should sleep in our room for the time being.  We were definitely not planning on this and they have beautiful, BIG cribs all ready for them in their very own room.  I now have to go out tomorrow morning and try to find some smaller bassinets that will fit next to our bed.  As annoying as this is to plan for, I agree with them and don't know if I could leave them down the hall at this point. Their nursery is ready though and we will use it for naps during the day when I am close by.  We are so happy with how it turned out!

Andrew's side

And Paige's

All ready for their arrival!

Their closet - look how spoiled they are already!

Its hard to believe that in just a few short nights, they may be home with us and this nursery won't be so empty anymore!