One Week Old

...and what a week it's been! This will be a catch up post, since both babies have made some great progress this week.

At 2 days old:

• Jake and Abby were moved in to the same room. This makes it much easier for us to visit with them, and for the same nurse to take care of them both whenever possible. Also, it's good to get them used to sharing things early! (Ang and I never really got the hang of it.)
• We officially have 2 independent breathers! They continue to do great breathing on their own.
• They are eating approximately two teaspoons every 3 hours each. Right now they are fed through a feeding tube (the thin tube you see attached to their face), which goes in through their nose and all the way to their stomach. It doesn't seem to bother them too much, although both of them sometimes tug on it to see if they can get it out. It will come out for good in a few weeks when they are old enough to try bottle feeding.
• They were "upgraded" to smaller beds. This is another sign of the lowering levels of support that they need to function. The next upgrade for them will be to open cribs, and that will come when they are able to maintain their own body temperature without warming from the isolette. The soonest they might have the ability to do this is when they are around 4 pounds. That will be an exciting milestone, because when they hit it they can start wearing all the cute teeny clothes I waited so long to buy!
• Rooming together + no breathing support = both babies can be out at the same time now = family photos! I was NOT happy with how I looked in these pictures, until I got the courage to post one on Facebook and everyone commented on how great I look. The best conclusion that I can draw from this is that no one even saw me because they were so busy looking at Jake and Abby, so from now on I will try not to censor pictures based on my appearance!
  

At 3 days old:

• My doctor took pity on me for my long hospital stay and let me go home a day early! (While technically not a "Jake and Abby" update, still very exciting). On the way home we stopped at Target, where I was passed by a very cute old lady with a walker and then needed assistance from another sweet old lady to close my car door, which was awesome. It is so nice to be home! And I was so excited to see the babies' room and our new guest room, which were painted by Jeff and both grandpas while I was in the hospital.
  
• Jake and Abby had another nurse request to be one of their primary nurses, meaning whenever she is on duty she will be assigned to them for consistency in their care. I was especially excited about this, because their nurse is a girl I went to high school with! What a wonderful place to run in to someone you already know and feel comfortable with. She is already taking such great care of our babies.
• Both babies are tolerating their feedings really well so every 12 hours they are getting a little bit more food. Right now Jake is fed every 3 hours at 3, 6, 9, and 12, and Aby is fed half an hour after him, so it's nice to time our visits with them so that we get there in time to hold them while they are "eating".

At 4 days old:

• Their nurse Kristin weighed them while we were there, and Jake gained so much that she weighed him twice just to make sure it was right. He was up 3oz, so he is now officially over his birth weight at 3lb 13oz! Abby is gaining back what she lost after she was born too, right now she is just below her birth weight at 3lb 3.5oz.
• Jeff changed another diaper, which I haven't been able to do yet since moving around is still a little challenging. His technique is improving from the first diaper change, when he used 10 wipes and basically just wrapped Abby's diaper around her legs, and his second diaper change where Jake peed all over everything in the area. Twice. I'm excited to start helping with this soon too! This is what happens when you wait for your kids to be born minute by minute - it sounds so, so amazing to be able to change their diapers. I'm sure the novelty will wear off quickly!
• Their feedings were increased again, and now they are getting all of their nutrition through the feeding tubes in their nose, where before some of it was going through their IVs. This means their IVs could potentially come out soon, although they both seem to enjoy the using the gauze support for the IVs in their arms as pillows while they sleep.
• We are dealing with a few very typical "preemie problems". Abby has some spells of apnea (where she forgets to breathe) and bradycardia (where her blood oxygen level drops as a result). She usually pulls herself out of it and the spells aren't "big" enough that anyone is worried about them, it's just something that she needs to outgrow. They might give her some help to do that by starting her on caffeine to help a little, but right now they are comfortable that she's managing it on her own. Very common, and nothing that the doctors are worried about at all.
  
• Jake is being monitored for jaundice every day - he has a little bit of a golden tinge, so he looks like Aunt Angela fresh from a spray tan - but so far it hasn't reached a level high enough that it requires treatment. If it goes up more, they have special lights that they will put him under to treat it. Again - very common, and nothing that the doctors are worried about at all.

At 5 days old:

• My friend Jessica (who is also expecting another little one in November!) came to bring us lunch, and also brought us the most beautiful baby books that she made herself for Jake and Abby. Each has their own book with scrapbook pages for every month of their first year and each of their first holidays. Great motivation for us to make sure we are keeping up with our picture taking!
• We had a long visit with the babies in the afternoon. Nothing new to report, which is great because it means things are continuing in the positive direction they have been going. I held Jake for two hours, he was basically fully supported by a pillow the whole time, and I was STILL exhausted afterwards!
• Grandpa George came to visit us in the hospital! Grandma Lucrecia was in Washington D.C. and I'm sure VERY jealous that she had to miss out on the time that he spent there. He got to get a good look at the babies' faces for the first time, since last time he saw them Jake was on the ventilator and Abby on CPAP. Abby cried while he was there and it was interesting to see the variety of reactions - Grandpa was worried something was wrong with her, Jeff looked at the monitors to make sure nothing was wrong with her, and I laughed because crying means she's breathing which can never be a bad thing, right?!
  
• Recovery from bedrest has been much tougher than recovery from delivery. I hit a wall on Thursday and wasn't able to go see the babies that night because I was worried I had a fever. Turns out I was probably just overdoing it, so I stayed home and rested and Jeff popped by to see them quickly (everyone doing great!) then came home to make me mac and cheese (a staple in our house this summer!).

At 6 days old:

• Both babies are now at the maximum feeding for their weights! This is great because it means they are able to digest as many calories as they can for their body weight, so they should continue to gain weight and have their feedings increased appropriately. Right now Jake has 30cc's every 3 hours, and Abby has 28cc's every 3 hours.
  
• Abby is free from her IVs! She still has a heplock in, so they can connect her quickly if she needs to get anything intravenously, but she isn't attached to as many wires before so it's a little easier to move her around. The nurse asked if I wanted to pick her up out of her isolette by myself, and I panicked! Maybe tomorrow, I need to prepare for this because like I'm sure many parents do, I am worried that I am going to somehow break her by not picking her up the correct way.
  
• The doctors have been continuing to watch Abby's "A's and B's", and we're happy to report that the number of episodes she is having is going down every day. One of the requirements for going home is to be able to go 5 days in a row with no spells, and although that count won't start for awhile, it's great to know that she is moving in the right direction.
• Jake's level of jaundice continues to go down. He looks less like a spray tanned Aunt Angela, AND he is so far avoiding the "tanning bed" lights that are the treatment for jaundice. Another step in the right direction!
  
• Jake and Abby had their first visitor outside of our immediate family. Our friend Britt came to meet the babies, and she got to hold Jake for an hour. He loved her (of course) and she reported that he enjoys stretching and also making funny faces.
  
• Jeff and I signed up for an infant CPR class at the end of the month, which is offered through our hospital and available to anyone that might be watching the babies without us at some point. It will be nice for me to finally go to a "baby class". I missed the twin class at our hospital because I was on bedrest a few floors up from it, so Jeff went to represent us and was the only "single dad" there!
  

The babies have a big one week birthday planned. Jeff and I are going to visit them in the morning, and introduce them to our good friends, newlyweds Matt and Lauren Parsons, who aren't requiring any proof that we had a great reason to miss their wedding in Jamaica in May, but we are providing it anyway :). Then tonight Jeff is going to another friend's wedding (congratulations Andy Pickell and Jenny Goodstein-soon-to-be-Pickell!), and I am going back to visit the babies again with Grandpa George and Grandma Lucrecia, and also Fran and Cheryl, my aunt and uncle. Tomorrow we are going to sleeeeeeeeeeeep...and maybe go to Babies R Us.