The Countdown Begins

Today at the NICU I went in to visit the girls and wound up chatting a while with the nurse practitioners. During our conversation they told me that if Reagan can gain some more weight and make progress with her feedings (taking all of them by mouth) then we could be rooming in at the hospital getting ready for her to come home as early as next weekend!!! Since I heard that news my mind has been racing! Right now the nurses are attempting to bottle feed all feeds unless I can be there. While she attempts, she does not yet take the full feed every time. Tonight she lost weight to 3 lbs. 10.5 oz. Her nurse and I were talking that we think it might be her temper...if she doesn't get fed right when she wants it then she throws major fits and as a result burns more calories. Also today when I was visiting, she was not super happy that I put her down and worked on feeding with Cameron (Cameron however, seemed to know that she had stolen Mommy from Reagan for a while and would look up at me and smile a very sheepish grin as she heard Reagan crying - I can only imagine how much more this will be the case once they come home!). It also doesn't help that Reagan is sick, no one feels great when they are sick and they can be more irritable - which may also lead to her weight loss. Reagan will also have a renal ultrasound and test as a precaution to follow up after her infection is cleared up.

Cameron is now 1500 grams! She is officially at the weight where she can come out of the isolette and they will begin to transition her from off of all the neonatal additives and begin to add formula as a supplement instead (to boost her caloric content). So both girls continue to make progress with their feeding and I believe that maybe they are working together to be sure that they either come home together or within a very short time of one another. In the next few weeks Cameron will have another newborn screen test to check her metabolic levels - which have come back abnormal previously. The doctors think that her TPN levels skewed the results previously so they will redo the test again at full term.

We are so thankful for the great progress the girls are making. Please keep the girls upcoming tests in your prayers. Their eyes will also be rechecked on Tuesday.