A micro update

Just a little bit of an update on the little ones.

They are doing really great!  Both are slowly gaining weight (roughly 5lbs each) which is allowing for their food intake to increase.  Oakley has been off caffeine for 2 weeks now and Kenzington was just taken off her dosage 2 days ago.  They say after 7 days of being off it and they don't have any issues then they will not be put back on, ever.

They each are able to nurse on average 10-15ml a sitting which is great!  On good days they'll get up to 25ml.  Their little cheeks get chubbier and chubbier I swear!  Reflux seems to still be a small problem but has gotten better in the past week, still NOT on medications for it.

It was so cute to walk into the nursery this morning and see that the night nurse put cute little outfits on them and had both their hair done into little fo-hawks with bows!  It made me think to myself that these are definitely our babes.  <3

The doctors are still saying they probably wont be home till around their due date.  I'm trying to be optimistic and say that they are little fighters and will be home sooner.  If not that's ok because then that's where they need to be.

A family friend is coming to give them a blessing tonight.  I simply felt that it would be good for them and it couldn't hurt.  =p Also will put my mind at ease I think.  I miss em bunches when I'm not there but am thankful that they are being so well cared for!

Lucky

  I know in about 15 years I'm going to have to remind our girls how lucky they are to have their father.  When I first met Austin and wanted to get to know him better I would have never imagined he would have such a caring and nurturing personality.   When I look back now I think I should have known, he has always been one to make sure you're happy and things are right.  Always willing to help out and learn new things that come his way.  

  As soon as his babies came into this world he started to show just how amazing he can be.  =)  I love him more than anything knowing I could not have made it through any of this without him by my side.  Honestly if you would have asked me 5 years ago, "Will you get married?  Have kids?", I would have told you flat out, "NO!".  I never saw myself settling down and thought there was no one out there for me.  Boy was I wrong!  I found one of the best men out there who I can trust and call my best friend.

It only adds to the cake when I hear him talk about how much he likes to hold his baby girls.  You can truly see it in his eyes how much he cares for these little ones and how he cannot wait to teach them all the cool things he knows.

I thank my lucky stars every night to be with him no matter the hard ships we have gone through, it's made us that much closer and stronger in the end.

Love you babe!

Sleep?

What's sleep!?  I've never heard of the word.  =p

I don't think I'll know what sleep is for a loooonnngg time!  It's what we live for right?

The past little while has been great.  Our little ones are slowly being taken down on their air flow through the cannulas.  They just bumped them down to 1/2 liter yesterday and seemed to be doing good, of course until we got there and both of them decided to have brady episodes at the SAME time!  Someone should have warned me about those I swear.  While I was pregnant I read up as much as I could about twins, preemies, babies in general and I do not remember every reading about things like that happening.  It's probably one of the biggest nerve racking things we see with them now.

Kenzington seems to be the only one I see cry and throw fits which in turn makes me think there is something wrong with her and not with Oakley.  =P  Now I sit there and watch her closely to make sure she's doing ok.  Everyone just says, "She's a baby.  Babies cry"!   Well, then she needs to see that Oakley doesn't like to scream in our faces! hehe, YET!

Being there for two feedings a day is great.  I get to see them more, but the lack of sleep and being away from your home pretty much all day every day is really wearing and by Saturday I'm ready to sleep for 24hrs straight.

Everything has pretty much been put on hold for now.  We have a family wedding coming up as well as a family reunion, oh and a baby shower!  =( I wont be able to make it to any which has bummed me out a bit.  I don't know what I'd do if I went a day without seeing them though......Go nuts maybe?  Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, Austin and I have pretty much been on autopilot that last couple weeks so I haven't had much to update.  I did get the cutest picture of him holding both the babies that I will have to put up ASAP.

So exciting I know!  Think of it this way, it's a dull before the storm....then once you pop you just can't stop..or something like that.

<3

Great job!

I'm so proud of both of my girls tonight!  We have been working on Nutritive nursing and they haven't been getting much milk.  After a few minutes of practice they are fed through their tubes about 45ml of milk.

Oakley was doing really good with her latching and Kenzington was have a little bit of a struggle.  The last couple days Kenzington has shown lots of improvement getting really good with her latching.  Tonight they both did great though, they both showed rooting signs and pretty quickly latched on.  We do test weights before they nurse to see how much they gain, if any, after they nurse.  Oakley did so well she got 27ml (while making some good farting noises in the process), while Kenzington got 4ml, not as much as her sister but she did amazing compared to how much she seemed to be struggling before.

Neither of them choked and seemed to have the suck, swallow, breath thing down tonight.  It's a really good sign and I hope it persists.  I've seen moms and babies around the nursery have on and off days with nursing which I'm prepared for.  =D It was just so great to see them do so well like a complete 180 from the nights before.

Even though I'm completely exhausted from no sleep and not being home all day, I cannot wait to work on it again in the morning. <3