Belated Update

Sorry it's been so long since our last post, but things have been busy. Our girls have made lots of progress over the past few days.

Evelyn has gained several ounces since Wednesday. She is now 3 lbs 10.5 oz! We started "Lick and Learn" with her on Thursday. Remember when the lactation consultant said that Jessica did better than any baby she had seen on their first try? Well, believe it or not, Evelyn did better than Jessica! I don't think we're going to have any problems getting these girls to eat!

The occupational and speech therapists are going to begin working with Evelyn on a bottle tomorrow. If the bottle feedings go well over the next few days she'll probably be moving out of the isolet and into a bassinet. It will be nice to see her without a plastic shell between us!

Jessica has been gaining weight too. She is 3 lbs 7.5 oz. Jessica has been working on eating from a bottle this week. Saturday morning she took 15 mLs from the bottle, which is about half of her feed! She gets to eat from the bottle once per shift for 20 minutes. Anything she doesn't eat she gets through her feeding tube. As she grows and her stamina increases she'll be able to eat from the bottle more often. This is a BIG step towards getting her home.

Now for the crummy news...Jessica's hematocrit has been low this week. She wasn't showing any signs of being anemic, other than just being a little tired, so the doctors decided to see if her body was ready to produce her own red blood cells. She did really well until last night. When the night nurse tried to bottle feed her, she wouldn't take any of her food. Since Jessica always lets us know when she's hungry, this wasn't a good sign. They checked her hematocrit level again and it was even lower than before. So she got a blood transfusion this afternoon, which meant she didn't get fed for 12 hours. She was doing much better when we left this evening--she had a lot more energy, but was VERY hungry. Hopefully she'll be able to pick back up on her feeds and continue working on bottle feeding without any problems.

Jessica (left) and Evelyn (right)