Redefining date night!

Update from Shelly -

Micah and I are redefining date night! We now have Tuesday night date nights which includes dinner & NICU parent support group. Last night we really went a little crazy and added a trip to Costco. As odd as it sounds we actually enjoyed our Costco trip (yes, even Micah!) because it felt like a little slice of normalcy. After our Costco run and a bite to eat at Tutta Bella we headed back to Evergreen for our meeting only to discover that they had canceled the meeting. Oh well, it just gave us a little extra time with the twins and we got to meet one of the "new to us" doctors. Apparently, the neonatologists are on a rotation between here and other NICU's like Swedish so now we have a new group of doctors to meet and get to know. Dr. Beckstrom is really nice and we are glad to have him on board.

In the morning, Sky had two ultra sounds one looking at his kidneys and the other looking at his brain. Now Sky is NOT a fan of being handled so this did not start his day off on the right foot. He's on a ventilator which constantly vibrates making it really hard for the ultra sound tech to get what she needed so both ultra sounds took way longer than they should have. The longer it took the more upset Sky was, the more upset Sky was, the less helpful he was, and the less helpful he was, the longer it took. Nasty little cycle. Finally the nurse took him off the vent and hand bagged his air so the ultra sounds could be completed. He spent the rest of the day upset that he had been messed with so much. Skyler has been on two sedatives morphine & ativan that they had started to wean him off of, but after his rough day they upped his dose of ativan a little to help him calm down. Thankfully, he wasn't having any major swings when I left to meet Micah for our "date". When we got back to the hospital Dr. Beckstrom was able to give us the results of the ultra sounds which were both good. There still is no change with the blood in his brain which is a good sign. They are expecting for his body to take care of  the blood over the next couple of weeks, but they will still keep an eye on it. Due to his decreased urine output they wanted to get an ultra sound of his kidneys to make sure there weren't any blood clots. Praise God, there weren't! A highlight for both of us (I like to think it was as much of a gift to Sky as it was to me) was that Sky held my finger for the first time.

Keller had a morning chest x-ray which showed that he wasn't ready for the CPAP machine again and needed more time on the vent. They decided to give him a round of steroids to help his lungs mature. The Dr. is guessing that he needs another 48-72 hours on the vent before he's ready to make the transition. I got to spend a little close time with Kell again. He smells deliciously like a newborn and I was soaking it up while giving him kisses on the top of his head. As always he was still very responsive to me and his little eyes pop open to say hello when I talk to him and just like Sky he held my finger for the first time yesterday afternoon. Dr. Beckstrom shared that he was pleasantly surprised at how well Keller has been doing given that he was the larger twin. Typically, the bigger twin that was receiving all of the extra blood is a lot sicker so that in itself is another blessing to count.

A high and low for us last night was that both boys were comfortably sleeping during Micah's visit. We were thrilled that both boys were resting but that meant that Micah didn't get to see alert Kell in all of his glory. 

Lots of Love,

Shelly