Big Week!

There are a lot of things happening this week, so I will break it down by baby :)

Alexander:
I am almost afraid to type this for fear that the "plan" will change, but Alexander is scheduled to come home on Thursday! We are supposed to room in on Wednesday night and provided everything goes well, we will be taking him home. This week is filled with tests. He has a head ultrasound tomorrow which is a routine procedure. They do not expect to find any bleeding since he didn't have it before. He is also having an echo cardiogram done to look at a heart murmur. Alexander has had this since birth and it has not created a problem, but they want to see how it has progressed. I am told he should grow out of it. On Wednesday a second eye exam will be done to check for retinopathy (also routine). One nagging problem is a small amount of blood in his stool. He was started on a 22 calorie formula to add to his breast milk for when we go home. The medical team is unsure if the bleeding is caused by the formula or if it is caused by something else. He is currently not being supplemented. This means he is getting less calories per ounce, so we pray that he will continue to gain weight without the added calories. If he loses, I'm not sure what the plan is. His weight today is 6 lbs 9 oz.

Isabel:
Isabel is also struggling with possible poor tolerance of the formula added to her milk. She is on straight breast milk for now as well. Isabel will also have the same tests that Alexander is having but she will also undergo a swallow study in the morning. She has been choking on her milk and been unable to recover as quickly as we would like. She has turned blue on us several times. Isabel will have barium added to her milk and a video xray will be able to tell the speech therapist how Isabel is handling the milk. We don't want it to go in her lungs. Until the study tomorrow, we decided it was best to feed her only through the tube to avoid milk ending up in her lungs. Our hope is that it's just prematurity which she will outgrow and eventually begin to pace herself better. Isabel is not going home this week :( We hope she is not more than a week or so behind her brother. Her weight today was 5 lbs 10 oz.

We pray that all tests will turn out positively for our sweet babies. They have been through so much and we are excited to finally be getting them home, but only if they are healthy and ready!

Please pray for a positive week and also for Greg and I as we bring Alexander home. We are not used to doing this baby stuff without the nurses there to back us up!

Love,

Susan