The Checklist

3 months

13 weeks

91 days

I believe we are more than halfway through our rendition of Groundhog Day.  It's hard to imagine what it will be like when we are home.  Our poor dog won't know what to do with himself.  He loves small people already, and won't spend as much time wondering if we abandoned him. 

 

We have a new checklist for the twins to accomplish.  It is similar to the old one, but different.

 

1) Be on Nasal Cannula.

• Scarlett is staying strong!
• Grayson moved to it today!!

2) Have their oxygen on a flow of 0.1 or 0.2.

• They will allow babies to be on a higher flow based on their weight.  Our weights allow them to be on a flow of 0.3 but that flow needs to come down before they will send them home.

3) Be off their Lasix treatment.

• They have been on this diuretic since their birth, or very near it.  Theoretically, removing excess fluid may help their PDAs to close.  (Grayson's is closed but Scarlett's is still open).  The extra fluid also makes their bodies work harder to do things they weren't supposed to be responsible for yet, like breathing.
• When we arrived at the BPD unit, they were getting Lasix every other day, but twice/day.  In the BPD unit, they primarily give that level of dosage once/day every day.  They feel it accomplishes the same goal but takes the variables out.  If a condition shows up or gets better/worse they don't have to decide if the fact they were on or off Lasix that day made a difference.  Especially with growth, but I will touch on that later.
• Scarlett will not have a dose tomorrow.  The earliest Grayson will come off is Thursday, per our request (we want him to have the best chance on Cannula so we don't want him working too hard.)

4) Feed by mouth, every time.

• This may look differently when its all said and done, but theoretically, both kids will:
• Cue every 3 hours.  When they are getting messed with for diaper changes and vitals, they will wake up (if they were asleep) and look interested in eating.
• Stay awake and feed by bottle (eat the whole bottle) or by breast (actively suck for the time determined by the medical team (right now it is 15 minutes for Scarlett).
• Do this while keeping their heart rate in normal range and oxygen levels up.
• Right now Scarlett is feeding about once/day and then she sleeps through her next care time.  Grayson will be allowed to try eating on Thursday after he has had a couple days to acclimate to the cannula.

5) Gain weight, everyday, for at least a week.  They will be working hard to accomplish the items listed above, but if they are burning more calories than they are taking in, it means they aren't ready.

 

Saturday:

On Saturday we put the twins together and took Grayson's CPAP mask off for the photo shoot.   

Nana was in town for a visit.  The OSU alumni shirts were not planned, but if you know either of them, this combo was highly probably.

Sleeping Beauty!  (Scarlett) 

Sunday:

Can you tell she is feeding by mouth by the fact that she is passed out in EVERY picture??? 

 Our Super Bowl party!

 

I think she is dreaming of eating and making sure we know where the food goes.

So technically these were a day late, but we decided to retake them with his nasal cannula on!

OMG!