Friday Cheers Take 5

This post should be another short one, as the changes from yesterday are minimum.  Hopefully I'll get this published earlier each night going forward, as I need to start going to bed earlier :)  I've enjoyed sleeping in (as late as Anna would let me) for the past several weeks!

On to the boys:  William and Aaron had more together time today, which they both seemed to enjoy.  Both have gone up in feeds, and both are having some reflux.  Extra vitamins have been added to William's milk, which stink and taste bad, and are probably contributing to his reflux and the several presents of spit up he gave me.  Aaron will get them as well once his reflux is a bit more under control.

Warning:  The following sentences have potential to be embarrassing to William in the future:  Our primary nurse has been keeping an eye on a spot on William that could be a hernia, at the top of his scrotum.  She seemed fairly confident the other day that it was just his testicles descending, but the doctor feels otherwise.  They will continue to watch it and should know within a week what it really is.  If it is a hernia, he will have surgery before discharge in order to correct it.  Hernias are very common with preemies, and it would have no future affect on him at all after the surgery.  Anesthesia poses more risk than the surgery itself.  If it is not a hernia, then I have mentioned his boy parts on the Internet with no good reason and he probably won't be happy with mommy :)

Here's another picture of the boys together.  William is now on the left, eyes open, and Aaron is sleeping on the right.

Keep 'em coming

The good days are on a roll.

We did not hold both boys at once today, but both had cozy cuddle time.  Stephen held William this morning, and I held Aaron in the afternoon.  Aaron actually had some milk right from mommy, which was awesome.  He can't nurse full time yet, but he'll get there.  (Actually, they won't be allowed to get to full time nursing for a while.  Both will have 2 bottles a day of special preemie formula for a few months).  I tried again later with William, but he was super sleepy and not 100% interested.

Physical therapy came by today to see both boys.  I had left the NICU for a few minutes and missed it, but it was a good visit for both.  Right now, the physical and occupational therapists basically do the same things with the boys.  Both were very alert with her and maintained stable sats the whole time she was checking them out, and responded well to touch.  Her assessment was positive and showed that they are behaving in the appropriate manner for their age.  Sometimes babies with the brain bleeds will be more jittery when they wake up, or have muscle tone outside of the normal range, so we're happy to see no effects yet.  We'll learn how to do infant massage within the next few days, which will be fun to do with the boys.

William's bed was moved to the other side of Aaron's.  He was in the closest spot to the doctor's area, which can get noisy and has too much traffic.  So now, William is on the left and Aaron is on the right, which threw us (and the nurses) off all day.  They are slowly working their way down toward the middle room, where the bigger, healthier babies stay. 

I believe that covers all of the updates for the day :)

Happy Birthday to Grammee!

Together at Last!

Weight Check

William - 3.04 lbs
Aaron - 2.96 lbs

Reunion

For the first time in over 5 weeks, William and Aaron were able to be right next to each other.  I'm positive that both knew his brother was next to him.  They checked each other out a bit, stretched out and punched each other a bit, and spit up all over each other :)  The fun begins!  Stephen was working today, but thankfully he had been transferred and had the flexibility to be at the hospital for the special moment.  I'm keeping this post short as it's really all about the boys being together...the pictures will say more than I ever could.

A Few Pics

Aaron is on the left, William is on the right