Is it possible?

Could it be true? Are we really bringing our babies home? That the plan! The big day is supposed to be Monday. The feeding tubes are out and both girls are eating everything on their own. Evelyn passed her car seat test today. Jessica is supposed to be having her test sometime in the next 24 hours. The nurses have taught us how to give them their medicine. (Don't worry--nothing too scary, just multi-vitamins and Zantac.) We have shown competency in changing diapers, feeding, taking temperatures, swaddling, holding, and giving baths.

Their room is just about ready. We just need to put some finishing touches on it. We're waiting on our glider to come in. It should be here in a couple of weeks, so until then we'll just have to make do. It doesn't really matter though, because we're so excited that we finally get to be a family at home!

Jason and I will never be able to express our gratitude for everything you have done for us over the past several months. To our medical team, thank you for the safe delivery and special care of our precious daughters. To our friends and family, thank you for all the support you've given us. The meals, hugs, words of encouragement, and gifts have all been wonderful. To all of our readers, those we know and those we don't, thank you most of all for all of the prayers that have been offered up on behalf of our girls. We know that they have played the biggest part in helping us get our girls home.

Evelyn (top) and Jessica (bottom) without feeding tubes. They finally look like regular babies without anything on their faces!

Settling In to Wake Med

Evelyn and Jessica are continuing to work on bottle feeding at every meal. They are taking their whole bottles more often and are increasing the amount of milk they are taking when they only eat partial bottles. Jessica has finally caught up with her sister--they are both now 4.5 lbs! If all continues to go well, we should have the girls home in a couple of weeks!

Both girls enjoyed a visit from Nonna, Grandpa, and Grandmama (their great-grandmother). Grandpa was too busy taking pictures to get in any himself, but maybe we'll catch him next time.

Jessica with Nonna.

Evelyn with Grandmama.

All the ladies...4 generations.

Moving Day

Today the girls will be 10 weeks old. We thought that it would be just another day in the TCN at Duke. Boy were we wrong. This turns out to be our last day at Duke Hospital...

Around 1pm this afternoon, I got the call that Wake Med in Raleigh had several open beds and that our girls would be transferred today to Wake Med. This is good in a way, because Wake is only about 10 minutes from our house. It's a much shorter drive in the evening than driving from Durham.

But transferring the girls takes a bit of work. Here's what their first ride out of the hospital looked like...


They were transferred to Wake Med at about 4pm this afternoon. I got a call from the nurse at Wake Med around 5:30 pm that they were all snug in their new bed and that they were doing well. They were a bit angry that they missed their afternoon meal, but soon forgot about it when dinner arrived.

Cynthia and I went by after shift change and stayed with them most of the evening. There are rules and procedures that we have to learn, but for the most part it's not much different than being at Duke. We have a bit more privacy in our area of the ICN. We didn't get much of a chance this evening to talk with the doctors or nurses, so I'm sure that we will learn more over the next several days.

The girls were real snug when we left them for the evening...


We know that moving them from Duke to Wake Med is a step closer to the girls coming home for good. We really owe a lot to the doctors and nurse practitioners that treated our girls. Words cannot express our gratitude to the nurses that watched over our princesses day and night, and treated them like their very own. The saddest part of today is that we didn't get a chance to let their primary team of nurses say goodbye. Without them, I don't think Cynthia and I would have kept our sanity over the past 10 weeks.

They are all heroes in the truest sense of the word.

Mid-week Update

We don't really have any huge news for this update, but we know some of you get worried when we don't post and we don't want to be the cause for anyone's anxeity! Don't worry, everything is still going well.

Evelyn is now up to 4 lbs 6 ozs. She has been increased to feeding by bottle every other feed. So far she has been taking about half her volume. But, tonight's nurse just reported that she took all but 2 mLs at her 9:00 feeding! She's working hard to catch up with her little sister.

Jessica is 4 lbs 3 ozs. Jessica is now being allowed to bottle feed every meal, if she's up to it. Right now she's taking about half of her volume for most feeds, occasionally taking the entire feed or needing to rest and being fed via the feeding tube. It takes a little while for babies to increase their stamina to take their entire feed every time. Hopefully she'll be eating everything by bottle soon...then we'll be that much closer to bringing her home!

Busy Weekend

Evelyn and Jessica had a big, busy weekend. They spent most of the weekend being visited by their Nana and Pa Pa and by their Uncle Mark and Aunt Ashley. Aunt LeAnne stopped in as well on Saturday.

Our big news is that we now have two 4 pound babies! Evelyn is 4 lbs 3 oz and Jessica is 4 lbs. Woo hoo!!!! They are getting so big...which is so funny to say since they're still so small.

We are working with both girls on feeding. Jessica is now eating every other meal from the bottle. She is taking close to her entire volume, if not all, each time. Evelyn is taking one bottle per shift (sometimes two if the nurse is ambitious). She is taking about half of her volume from the bottle and is getting the rest of the meal through her feeding tube. We're also working with both girls on nursing, but neither one has quite gotten the hang of it yet. We'll get there eventually.

Today was bath day. We put Evelyn and Jessica in the same tub and had some fun play time. Aren't they cute? Evelyn is on the left and Jessica on the right.









And one of Jessica and Mommy.

Two Months Old!!!

It is hard to believe, but the girls are two months old today. It's amazing how much they've grown over the past two months, especially in the past two weeks.

To celebrate, the nurses got the girls some presents!!



That's right, the girls have moved out of the isolets and into bassinets! Jessica is on the left or top (depending on your browser's window size). We keep them bundled up good just to help them maintain their temperatures, and to keep them from moving around the bed.

Jessica had a even bigger day. Overnight, she ate one of her entire feedings, 32 ml, from a bottle! That's a little over 1 oz. This afternoon, her and mom had their first breastfeeding session. Jessica has the technique down, but wasn't getting much out today. They'll try again tomorrow. She now weighs about 3lbs 9 oz.

Evelyn is inching closer to 4 lbs. Tonight she is at 3 lbs 12.5 ozs. She lost a little today, but has been having big gains over the past week. We expect her to hit 4 lbs any day now. She's having a little problem with her hematocrit that we are having to keep watch on. Hopefully, she'll be able to fix this one on her own. If not, she'll need to get a transfusion sometime later this week, or into the weekend.

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)