Today I got to see my girls for as long as I wanted and got to hold their hands and interact with them! It was nothing short of amazing to hold my daughter's hands for the first time. Unfortunately, inte
raction needed to be limited since they both get overstimulated pretty easily and that can cause them to desaturate and have a decrease in their oxygen levels. The girls weren't as stable as we would've liked them to be, but all in all, they were doing well. It's so funny how finally getting to see them for the first time made me realize that everything I expected them to look like was so way off! Haha. I don't know why, but Mike and I both imagined them looking a lot like me - figuring that my dark hair would be dominant and in ultrasound pictures their noses look just as pointy as mine! :-) But we were wrong! I took one good look at them and said, "these kids look nothing like me!" - and in my second glance I said - "they have Marissa's nose!" - Marissa is Mike's sister and her nose is a dominant family gene we've come to realize. She just picks up her nose and puts it on babies! Haha. They have light hair like daddy and even all the nurses say how much they look like Mike. The first time my mother saw them she said that they have Kendall's nose (Kendall is Marissa's daughter - seriously, Marissa forces her nose upon children). ;-) It's a beautiful nose and I'm thrilled that my children look like Mike and Marissa, but seriously, after all I've been through, couldn't I at least have one feature of mine on these kids?? Haha. Madison needed another blood transfusion today. She remains on the ventilator with her oxygen requirement ranging from 25 to 35 percent (normal room air is 21% oxygen, so ideally, this is where we'd like her to be. She is still under the phototherapy light and her jaundice hasn't gone down much. She needed two doses of glucose today because she had low blood sugar. The doctors say that it's normal for premature babies to have highs and lows with their blood sugar, so it's nothing to worry about as far as a long term problem is concerned. She was give 2ml of formula through a feeding tube (a ml is approximately 20 drops, so this a
really tiny amount). The NICU nurses and doctors are basically stalking me about my breast milk already and I keep telling them that I'm trying - that is getting frustrating! At this point, introducing formula or milk isn't serving any nutritional value and isn't expected to be digested. It is introduced into the stomach in order to get the stomach prepared for real feedings. As expected, she didn't digest any of this 2ml, but tomorrow is another day. In the meantime, she's getting electrolytes and lipids intraveniously. She wasn't weighed today because in order to weigh her, she'd need to be taken off the ventilator, and it's just not worth it with her instability.Melia remains on the CPAP and is doing well on it, not requiring much oxygen at all, mostly staying in the 28%-30% range. She was put under the phototherapy light today because she has developed a bit of jaundice. She started getting electrolytes and lipids intraveniously today but was not fed any formula yet. At the end of the day she was weighed and was 2lbs 13oz, up one ounce from yesterday.
