it's difficult.....

...to post at midnight because a lot of the day's events are just sinking in and I always want to go into too much detail.

For the most part, today was a VERY productive day for me. I chose to stay home during the late morning to early afternoon visit so I could catch up on some household chores...and boy did I ever. I put together one crib and was making progress on the second when some of the predrilled holes didn't match up!!! HOW FRUSTRATING!!!! So now I have to call the manufacturer on Monday and wait for them to send out a replacement part. Yes I could just drill the holes myself but it's not that simple.


I also did some cleaning, organizing, much needed haircut, taxes, and....some more cleaning. Definitely very productive.

In the mean time, Lisa tried some double Kangaroo Care. I've been going through the pictures that Eileen took and having a hard time finding one that isn't too racy. Hmmmmm, how bout this one?




Then, tonight.....

We checked in and washed up at the front desk and Lisa and Eileen headed back to our nice corner lot only to find our girls were GONE!!! Panic set in as she went back to the front desk to find out what was going on. Apparently they moved the girls just an hour before we arrived out of the main part of the NICU into some overflow rooms they have set up down the hall. We tried to convince ourselves that it was a good thing and that it was another graduation but we don't like it. The rooms are small for one baby/family and they have two in one room. So there is another crib maybe six feet away. We were wondering how tight it was going to be when the other family showed up when we were there and we didn't have to wait long, she showed up while we were holding and it got REAL crowded.

There isn't much we can do about it, though. I talked to the charge nurse about it but don't know if we'll make the move back to the main NICU. We'll see. We don't know how we'll be able to do Kangaroo Care anymore because there's no way they can fit the big reclining chairs in that tiny room. Ug, growing pains.

The girls were FANTASTIC tonight, though. They both had on onesies and then another bigger outfit to keep them warm. Their isolette is open now so they have to learn to regulate their temperatures better. They had the two outfits on top of each other to help keep them warm.

So...as you can imagine, changing these girls in a cramped room with no space to maneuver and then 2 outfits to strip down, while maintaining their wires! and then keeping all 4 legs and arms out of the dirty diapers. That is no easy feat. It took us quite a while to figure it all out and left everyone sweating and a little flustered.

BUT after all that, we were able to swaddle them up and hold them for almost an hour while they ate. Lisa had Katy who seemed a little too tired to do any exploring around the uh...nipple but Alyssa kept turning her head into my chest so I grabbed her binkie and she sucked away. After a while, she started falling asleep but she got some good sucks on that binkie before she passed out. They are learning.

Tomorrow they are scheduled for a cranial ultrasound. This is a common test to look for bleeding in the brain or periventricular luekomalacia (PVL) which is when the tissue around the brain is damaged, possibly as a result from decreased blood flow to the brain before, during, or after delivery.

We just called up to see when the test is scheduled so we can be there but got the run around that it could be anytime from 4am to 4pm, it just depends on when a technician is available to do it. It sounds like to me they don't want the parents to be there to be in the way. Keep us in your prayers tomorrow.

We are also encountering some new challenges that I haven't mentioned tonight but...can be...well, challenging.

The girls don't seem to mind that their room is smaller.

Dad, on the other hand, is not so comfortable.