Happy Mother's Day!

We are coming up on our first week! Still can't believe that the boys are here. They both continue to do so well in different ways.

Winston has made probably the biggest strides the past few days. His breathing continues to strengthen and get better each day. In fact they have taken him entirely off of the high-flow breathing machine. That is the machine that pushes air into his lungs so that he doesn't have to work so hard. He still has a little bit of oxygen being pushed in but currently it is only at .5 Liters per minute instead of the 3.0 liters that he had been on and it is a world of difference from when he was intubated the first day and a half. Winston has also been doing great at gaining weight. He bottomed out at 3 pounds but has gained steadily ever since and probably will hit or surpass his birth weight when they weigh him tonight. I think that the biggest reason he is gaining weight better than his brother is that he sleeps almost constantly while William seems to be awake a lot.

Winston Spooning his Blanket

Holding Winston for the first time

William continue to be super active. It is so fun to be with him because he always has his eyes open and is moving around a lot. In the womb Winston seemed to take up all of the space and in our ultrasounds William was always crowded into a corner. This is why he has less muscle mass and also why Alex and I think that he is constantly stretching and moving around. He is just making up for 7 months of being cramped into a corner by his brother. William has had a little bit of trouble gaining weight. He has sat around 3 pounds for a couple of days. They do think he was fighting a small case of pneumonia, but they gave him a chest X-ray yesterday and the small amount of fluid in his lungs is gone. Hopefully that was what was taking his energy and we will start to see some weight gain. William is also being much more stubborn about weening off his oxygen support. He has been at 3.0 liters per minute of support for the past several days and every time they try lowering it a little bit he isn't happy. We're hoping that today he starts making some progress there.

William loves his pacifier. If only he had the strength to hold it in himself I think he would always have it in his mouth.

William has been suntanning the past few days to help him control his Jaundice. His billyrubin count has been a little too high so this helps him break it down until his Liver functions a little better.

The boys are now at a point where we can hold each of them once per day for up to 3 hours. It is our favorite time of day as you can imagine. Both of us are getting much better and more comfortable in helping to their cares every three hours (changing diapers, cleaning out their mouths, taking their temperature, scalp treatments witha toothbrush). As we get more comfortable they don't seem to be as small or fragile to us which I guess is good because eventually we will have to do these things on our own at home.

Finally I just wanted to let those of you reading this know that they boys are having one of their most important tests today. They will be taking an ultrasound of their heads to see the extent of bleeding in the brain when they were born. Bleeding in the brain can affect their brain development. It is at 32 weeks gestation when babies in the womb begin to form a protective tissue over the blood vessels in their head to protect the brain from bleeding. Because the boys were born prior to that they undoubtedly had some bleeding. This test will show us the extent of that bleeding. However their risk is more limited because they have not had any problems with high blood pressure and they didn't have any complications with their birth.

There are 4 grades of bleeding with 1 being the best to have and 4 being the worst. Our families are all praying today that they was very limited bleeding if any. I will update you on the results when we get them. Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers they really are felt.