a good day today

A loooong day, but a good one. It started early this morning on our first visit to the NICU after breakfast to see the girls were off the photolight therapy. Their "bili" count had gone down significantly from their previous blood work so the decision was made to take them off the lights. It may always creep back up in the next couple of days or week but for now, it's another problem that was resolved MUCH faster than we thought it would.

Second problem...last night before we went to bed the nurse told us that the day nurse had heard a heart murmur in both girls. The doctor came in and could only hear a murmur in Katy so a consult was ordered for Monday. Overnight the nurse didn't hear the murmur and then when the doctor came in again this morning, he couldn't hear it in either baby. SO the consult was called off.

The girls continued to make progress on their feeding schedule. The only setbacks occur when not all the food is digested and they have what they call, residuals. One of them, Alyssa I think, had minimal residuals but nothing to delay the twice daily increase in food.

Lisa continues to pump and up until this morning was still only getting colostrum. She is now beginning to receive some milk which is being frozen until another several days when their diet will change and the nurses will begin to incorporate Lisa's milk (I think that's how it's going to work). We bought a $330 (holy crap) pump today so we can begin pumping at home during the night.

My big adventure today was changing my first poopie diaper....IN MY LIFE!!! I am 100% positive I have never changed a poopie diaper. My siblings right now are probably asking themselves how that's possible. How did I manage to be the uncle of 2 nieces and 2 nephews but never have to deal with poop? Cause I'm good.

That streak ended today and now it's payback.

It actually went pretty well. I changed both girls and did pretty good. The challenge was not the contents of the diaper, but all the wires and having to reach into the incubator. It wasn't exactly ideal circumstances. ....alright, enough about poop.

Emotionally, we are doing better today...especially Lisa. I hope to have some time to dive into a lot of the things that happened and that we have been going through but after midnight is not the best time to start that blog. There were a few tears today, but not too many considering this will be our first night out of the hospital and away from our girls.

To all of you who called today and I think we missed every call...we love you and appreciate you calling to check on us. Just because we weren't here or didn't return your call, don't think that we didn't want to talk to everyone. Keep calling. Keep emailing. Keep praying. We need it all.

Here are a few shots from today. Tomorrow morning we are going to spend some time at home recuperating and coming up with a schedule for each day. Today was too exhausting.

Proof of my first diaper changer. Those are Eileens hands on the left. She assisted by keeping the girl not getting changed out of the way and helping maintain all the wires...again, not as easy as you would think.

More Kangaroo Care time starring Lisa and Kaitlyn