The End is Near!!! (We Hope)

I apologize for the lack of updates over the past few weeks.  I made the huge but necessary mistake of putting a sprinkler system in my backyard, which pretty much ate up all my free time.  It is now done and if any of you ever need help putting in your own sprinkler system please feel free to never call me.  I don't want to ever have to do something like that again.  :-).

So on to the boys.  Let's start with William.

I honestly thought that today I would be writing a post about bringing William home.  Last night the homecare team came and brought us a portable oxygen tank to take him home with and we were rushing to get his nursery put together.  It had been 6.5 days since his last apnea episode and they only need to go 7 days without an episode before being discharged.  However this morning we received a call from one of our great Primary Nurses Katie with the news that William had an "episode" last night.  It was nothing serious, but unfortunately that starts his countdown at 7 days again.  While we are sad he isn't coming home yet, we aren't too disappointed because Winston probably has at least a week left here and it would be even harder to have one baby at home and one in the hospital.  Also we would much rather have him go through an episode at the hospital with his nurses than to freak us out at home.  William's episode was caused by his reflux.  He is having a much more difficult time with reflux than Winston, so they have started him on some prevacid, which has made a huge difference for him.  Hopefully he will be home in 7 days!

They also did an ultrasound on William's kidneys this week to see if there are any anatomical concerns related to the Urinary Tract Infection that he had.  The ultrasound is showing some reflux of urine into his kidneys.  They will confirm this at Primary Children's after he is discharged, but if that is positive then William will probably need to have a surgical procedure in 6-9 months to have the issue corrected.  There is a still a small chance that the test at Primary's will come back negative, but if not then I guess William will have to spend a few days in the hospital in Seattle.  There are much worse things to deal with so we will take it.

On to Winston.

Winston is still a champ with his breathing.  He hasn't had an apnea episode for weeks.  We just need to get him eating like his brother and he will be able to come home.  There are 4 stages of eating that premies have to pass before they can come home.  Winston has been stuck at stage 2 for over a week.  It will take him at least 3 days to go through the other stages once he figures it out.  We are hoping that by some miracle they are able to be discharged on the same day.

Winston also has a slight heart murmur that comes and goes.  Multiple doctors have looked at it and they all feel that it is something he will grow out of.

Both boys have now passed their eye and hearing tests.  They are getting huge (at least to us).   Winston is 5 lbs, 11 oz and William is at 5 lbs, 10 oz.  They are now 6 weeks and 3 days old and almost 37 weeks gestational age.

We are so excited to have them home optimistically in a week :-).

Here are a couple of pictures.  Both boys were held by their Grandparents for the first time this past week.

 Winston

 William