May 2

We have had an awesome past three days. The girls seem to have turned some kind of corner and are doing so well. They both seem very relaxed, and have periods of being really alert throughout the day. They are both still on cycled CPAP, but are on the very lowest settings. Its funny that they are on the very same settings and are being weaned at the same pace :) They have had very minimal bradys in the past 48 hours, and usually are able to bring themselves back up with no stimulation. This is a huge step!

Yesterday they were both on 23-25% oxygen. Today they turned their CPAP rate down to 15 and they have needed a little bit more oxygen as they adjust to that. But both look awesome and are growing a ton!

Mary especially seems more relaxed. Her heart rate since birth has been in the 170's-180's, but the past few days she has been in the 150's-160's like Vivian's, and I think its because she has grown more lung tissue and doesn't have to struggle so hard to breathe.

I was able to hold them both at them same time last evening which was so amazing! It had been 26 days since the three of us had been able to be together :) They seemed to LOVE it. At first they both had their eyes open and were looking at each other. It was precious. All of the pictures posted are of last night, and Vivian is on the left and Mary is on the right.

Then Norah and Kyle came up to see them too, and the girls got a bit overstimulated ;) It is amazing how they are able to communicate what they are ready for and what they aren't ready for even though they can't talk. About 7 minutes after Norah go there and started talking they both had bradys and needed to be stimulated, and their oxygenation went down as well. A little bit of Norah goes a long way, as we all know ;) She was SO excited though and kept touching their hair and saying "these are my babies," and "I'm petting them like Java." Hahaha. We took a bunch of pictures and a video so that was fun.

Then it was time for Norah to go, and as soon as she left and we turned the lights off again they settled right back in and I held them for another hour and a half. They are just too little for much Norah time yet!

It is very encouraging to see them like this, but if I have learned anything so far from being in the NICU its don't have too high of expectations. The girls will do what they do on their own time and there is nothing that I can do about that! All the nurses joke about how the babies are completely in charge of what happens, not the doctors or anybody else. I'm hoping though that they will just continue to grow stronger from this point on and will just need to learn how to eat and gain weight. Speaking of weight, Vivian is now 3 pounds 3 ounces! Such a big girl! And Mary is 2 pound 15 ounces, but it was about a 4 ounce increase in one day, so they are thinking maybe she just had to poop or something when they weighed her ;) We will see how much she weighs tonight and if it was a fluke or not. But still, they are gaining and that is great!

I spent the day with Norah yesterday, and we had such a good time together. Just like the old days! Poor little baby, she said to me that morning "mommy, I'm so glad you're here!" And the night before when I came home she said, "mommy, I love you so much ever." Obviously she was needing some one on one time with me. We cleaned the house together, and ran a bunch of errands and did some shopping. Then in the afternoon we watched a movie and ate cookies and drank coffee together. Yes, she did have some sips. I don't understand how she even likes the taste of it but she seems to love it! Possibly I drank too much while breastfeeding??  Oops ;)

So all in all its been a great week and they will be 32 weeks tomorrow and a whole month old! The time has gone both fast and slow, but I feel like 32 weeks is a big milestone. Hopefully soonish we can start practicing breastfeeding and learning how to eat by mouth. One step closer to going home!