Lots of good news - 57 Days until due date

It has been a lot of good news this week.  We officially crossed the 1 week mark in the NICU which I think will always be a blur in our minds.  Both of us said that yesterday felt like the first semi-normal day for us since they were born so that is good.

The boys have both been doing so well this week.  We keep bracing ourselves for a down day, but so far we couldn't be happier.  We are so glad that they didn't have any major setbacks in this first critical week.  Both boys are off of their antibiotics and up to full feeds through their feeding tubes.  That means that both of their IV's were able to be removed.  This is great for them because it greatly reduces their chances of infection while in the hospital.  All of their blood cultures have come back normal which means the antibiotics did their job.  Whatever was keeping William's white blood cell count low seems to be gone.

Both of the boys have been consistently gaining weight every day now.  It's not much but they are adding about 10 grams per day.  Winston is only .5 ounces away from reaching his birth weight.  William is stil about 3 ounces away.  The next milestone with their weight is to get them to 1800 grams (about 4 pounds) which will allow them to be taken out of their isolets (incubators) so they can start attempting to maintain their own body temperature.  With William at 1470 grams and Winston at 1520 grams and them currently only gaining 10-20 grams per day it is going to take some time to get to that point.

They are also both breathing really well.  In fact today Winston got taken off of all oxygen support completely!!  William is only a couple of days behind his older brother.  It's amazing to see them go from being fully intubated to off oxygen in only 10 days.  They may need some oxygen support when they start oral feedings as it is a big workout for them to learn how to eat, swallow, and breath all at once.

William's billyrubin levels have also dropped on their own without the lights, so hopefully he won't have to sit under the lights anymore.

We love our visits with the boys and I am already having dreams about taking them home.  Last night I had a dream that the mailman delivered Winston to us wrapped in paper.  He came to the door and had me sign for him.  I was so excited to get him and the whole process seemed completely normal.  I then was panicked because we haven't even bought a crib for them yet.  I guess I better start working on that :-).

 William all swaddled up

 Winston free of his oxygen

Winston asleep on his tummy