Progress

First off, I apologize for not updating the blog yesterday. Occasionally the NICU experience becomes so difficult that it is completely overwhelming. Yesterday was one of those days. Today, however, was the complete opposite. We had so much good news that we want to shout it from the rooftops!

Yesterday, we learned that Drake had had an abnormal EKG. His nurse practitioner told us that it was something he would outgrow, but it was difficult for us to believe her. He's been hooked up to heart rate monitors almost continuously since birth. We were thinking that since this is a problem that reared its head 5.5 weeks after his birth, how could it possibly be something he would outgrow? Well, sometime last night, his heart stopped beating in the erratic pattern, and it hasn't returned. Thank goodness!

Leo also had a brain ultrasound yesterday, to re-check for IVH. The nurse practitioner ordered the ultrasound because she thought the proportions of his little head were a bit off, and she wanted to make sure that there was nothing wrong. Thankfully, we learned the results from the scan this evening, and everything is all clear. The little guy's head is big for his body, but that is because he was nutrition-starved en utero, and his little body preferentially channeled growth and development towards his brain over his body. Leo is taking off like a weed now, and it won't be long before his little body catches up!

We learned today that Drake is very close to coming home. There are a few things he must accomplish before he is discharged:

• He must take all of his feedings by bottle, and he has to learn to cry when his tummy signals that he is hungry.
• He will be moved into his own crib, where he must maintain his body temperature without his little furnace of a brother keeping him warm, and he must also learn to sleep on his back.
• He has to pass the "car seat test", where he'll sit in his car seat for 2 hours attached to monitors, and he cannot have any oxygen desaturations or brady spells.
  

The most daunting of the 3 goals is the bottle feeding. He is still difficult to feed by bottle because he sucks in a lot of air, and it takes quite awhile to burp it back out of him. His feeding schedule was changed today. He was being fed every 3 hours, regardless of how hungry he was. Now he's on an on-demand schedule, where he'll be fed when he's hungry (i.e. when he cries), but the nurses will make sure he eats at least every 4 hours. His nurse today thinks that if he goes longer between feedings, he'll be more eager with the bottle and he won't let a little air bubble in his stomach get in the way of finishing his bottles. If the on-demand feeding schedule goes well, Drake will be home within a couple of days. Drake now weighs 5lb 2.9 oz.

Leo is also doing well. The nurse practitioner increased the oxygen content and flow in his nasal cannula, with the hope that it would give him more strength to bottle feed. It worked! Leo has been taking several feedings a day by bottle for the last 3 days, and he has had several large weight gain days in a row. Little Leo has finally hit his brother's birth weight! He weighed 3 lb 10 oz last night. It really seems that little Leo is turning the corner. The nurse practitioner told us today that she expects him to come off the nasal cannula when he hits 1800 grams. He should hit that in about a week. Since little Leo is already a pro at drinking milk from a bottle, we won't have to wait for him to learn how to nipple when he's big and strong enough to get off the oxygen, like we've been waiting for Drake to learn how to nipple. Finally, we can see the end of the NICU journey for little Leo. He won't be coming home for several more weeks, but there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and it is great to see it.

In this picture, little Leo is worn out from drinking down a bottle, but desperately trying to keep his eyes open so he can take in what's going on in the world around him:


Here is a picture of Drake, conked out after drinking down his first bottle of the morning:

And a picture of the two boys, with full bellies, sleeping and growing: