9 weeks

First, I apologize this post took so long to come out.  We had a weekend of family, fiascoes, and fun.  Trish's sister was in town from LA and we celebrated our family Christmas.  Our ceiling over the bathroom sprung a leak but I believe I fixed it.  The best part is that I had to remove a brand new closet system that I had installed the day before to investigate the leak's source.  The fun parts were seeing our babies, family, installing that closet system (twice), assembling the cribs and putting them in place.  We have a few more things we want to accomplish in the nursery before we take pictures but we promise we will share it with you!

So the cribs...  This feels awful to admit to the public, but if someone else is going through a similar situation I want them to know they are not alone if they feel this way.  We have had the cribs for about 3 months now.  The weekend I planned on setting them up in the nursery was the weekend Trish went into labor.  From that point on, I was terrified to move them.  As much as I hoped, prayed, and believed our kids were coming home some day, I wasn't willing to bet on it.  I didn't want Trish to look in a room with 2 cribs if we didn't have 2 babies, and I didn't want to have to deal with the emotion while I tried to figure out how to get rid of one or both.  At 25 weeks gestation there is a 75% mortality rate.  If I did my math right (no guarantee there!) that meant we had a 56.25% chance of bringing them both home....

With that said, I am pleased to announce that I am no longer worried about that!!!  The NICU nurses won't confirm that we are "out of the woods" but they have definitely changed their optimism.  We can hear it in their language, "Now when you are home..." and "We use this/do it this way, but when you get home you..." We can also see it in their faces.  There are no guarantees and preemies can backtrack, especially if they catch a virus.  But today they are 35 weeks and are looking very healthy.  At this point, the most obvious issues are respiratory.  Grayson tried nasal cannuala on New Year's Eve and made it 23 hours.  Today they decided he will try it for 3 hours, then cycle back to CPAP for 9 hours and go back and forth.  If this goes well, they will probably cycle him in 6 hour intervals and work towards getting him off CPAP.

Scarlett is doing pretty well on nasal cannula and today they decided to move her from a flow of 4.0 to a flow of 3.0,  They can take bottles and/or breastfeed on the cannula and Scarlett has impressed everyone.  She has probably taken a full bottle about half the time.  Here is what she will be working on to go home:

Checklist to go home:

1. Off oxygen OR have a nasal cannula with a flow of 0.1
2. 5 consecutive days without a spell (heart-rate accelerating or decelerating) that needs intervention
3. Taking full bottles 100% of the time
4. Able to sit in their car seat without desatting.  We will bring it into the NICU (Yikes!  I didn't think about that, but we better get ours soon, haha!) so they can set our baby in it for a while and see how they do.

Things that DON'T impact them coming home:

1. Weight.  Scarlett is at 5 pounds 1.5 ounces and Grayson is about half an ounce behind her.
2. Time.  On February 9th they will be 40 weeks gestational age, which is the ideal time for them to be born.  Under those optimal conditions in the uterus, they have fully developed and are ready to see the world.  Outside the womb, it is just harder for them to grow.  Obviously kids are born a couple weeks all the time without any negative consequence.  Likewise, it is possible they could come home sooner, but it is also very likely that we add Valentine's day to the list of holidays spent with our babies in the NICU.  There is no "age limit" in the NICU, but depending on the barrier, they may send us downtown to Children's main campus to see specialists.
3. Space.  Because Riverside is a surgical hospital they try to maintain an empty bedspot in the NICU.  They can hold 36 total babies, but if they get close to capacity, we have "earned" our tenure.  They won't send our kids home prematurely because they run out of space.

So we are hopeful that it isn't too far away, and are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We have made friends with other NICU parents who have been there for weeks waiting for their child(ren) to do these things.  We are extremely thankful that we are now at this point.  Look how far these miracles have come!!!  I write this with tears in my eye and a heart that yearns to see how God uses them!

But now, for the important part: