12/25/09

What a wonderful Christmas!! We had a great first Christmas with Aiden and Evan. They were so excited about their gifts that they slept through opening presents. They were finally able to meet their great-Papa and great aunt Della this week. My (Janel's) Papa and Aunt Della came all the way from New Mexico. David's parents came in on December 23 to celebrate Christmas with the boys. My parents got stuck in the Oklahoma blizzard, but will hopefully get to come soon! We are so blessed this year!

The best presents ever!

Happy Evan

What a wonderful Papa!!

Santa's Little Helpers

12/18

Little Cowboys

The boys are doing great!! We absolutely love having them home. We had doctors' appointments yesterday. Aiden is now at 9 pounds 3 ounces and Evan is up to 9 pounds 1 ounce. They are getting so big. Evan had his cardiology appointment yesterday, and everything in there (his heart) looks good. The cardiologist also said we could stop his oxygen. That is good because he has not been on it in about 2 weeks. The sneaky guy got really good about taking it off of himself. They are both getting more interactive each day. Aiden really likes to smile now and is starting to making "cooing" noises. Evan is in love with the ceiling fan. He'll watch it for a long time. The biggest obstacle now is getting them through the winter without getting sick.

Here are a couple of pictures of the boys.

Evan

Aiden

Our first walk.

They never knew we left the house!

AE pics 11/24

My oh my how the boys have grown! They are doing well and getting bigger every day. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Aiden and Evan - 11/6 with pictures

Evan made it home on Monday as planned and the boys are adjusting well to their new home. Here's a few pictures from this last week:

Evan about to be loaded into the car for his ride home.

Evan in his car seat with the sun in his face.

Aiden and Evan together in their pack-n-play.

The family at home together at last.

Evan and Aiden

Molly having a look at her new brothers.

10/31 with Pictures

Happy Halloween!! We have big treats to report… David is at HOME with Aiden right now, and I am in the NICU with Evan, who is planned to go home on Monday. We found out this past Monday that the boys would most likely be ready for discharge by Friday. We “roomed in” Tuesday night and Wednesday night and brought little Aiden home on Thursday. Evan had an episode of apnea on Monday afternoon, so that pushed his discharge back to this Monday. We are really looking forward to bringing Evan home! What a great week! So, the boys are spending this Halloween apart. Luckily, we got pictures of them in their costumes before Aiden was discharged.

Happy Halloween!!

Mr. Aiden Fireman & Mr. Evan Policeman

Mom, Dad, and Aiden on our way home

Aiden on his way home.

Aiden and Evan 10/25 - with pictures

Sorry for not posting an update in a while. This one is long overdue.

The boys are really doing well. The eye doctor has been pleased with the progress of both boys and says the ROP is regressing. Evan gets his two weeks post surgery check up tomorrow so hopefully that will go well.

Evan seems to have done better recovering from the eye surgery and has been able to take a 5 oz weight lead over his brother Aiden. Evan currently weighs 5 lbs 15 oz and Aiden is at 5 lb 10 oz.

Aiden was weaned off his nasal canula on Tuesday of last week and has been able to keep it off so far. They tried Evan last week but he only made it about 10 minutes before his blood oxygen saturation started to fall off. He is now on a low flow (0.04 liter per minute) oxygen canula and has done well on it for the last week. If needed they can send him home on this amount of oxygen support but hopefully he will be able to shed his canula next time they try this week.
Both boys have started to take a bottle really well now. Evan was a natural from the beginning but Aiden took a while to get use to sucking, swallowing, and breathing. In the last few days however both boys have been able to feed exclusively from a bottle and no longer have feeding tubes down their noses. The boys have also been getting some practice nursing from mom and usually do pretty well.

Evan in his elephant shoes.

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Evan smilling with milk drool.

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Aiden taking a look around.

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Evan and Aiden on momm'a lap.

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Evan all bundled up.

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Evan and Aiden back on momma's lap.

Aiden and Evan - 10/13

A quick update on the boys.

This last Sunday the eye doctor decided Evan needed preventive eye surgery just like Aiden did the week before. So yesterday we repeated everything we went through with Aiden, this time with Evan. Fortunately both boys made it through their eye surgeries without any problems and were able to get back of the ventilators the following morning after their surgery.

I came down with the flu last Tuesday and by Saturday had given it to Janel as well. As a result neither one of us could be with Evan or Aiden this weekend. It was hard to not be able to be with Evan for his surgery. April, one of the boys’ primary nurses, came in on her day off to hold the boys for us and comfort Evan before his surgery. I can’t express how thankful we are. We pray for God to send angels to be with the boys and comfort them and He does.

Aiden and Evan - 10/5 with pictures

The eye doctor did another check on the boys yesterday and gave us some bad news. Both of Aiden's eyes are showing signs of worsening retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and the doctor wants to do laser surgery on Aiden to try to help prevent retinal detachment. According to the eye doctor, if left untreated Aiden would have a 50-50 chance of retinal detachment, which would mean total blindness. With laser surgery the chances of Aiden keeping his sight increase by at least 15%. They are planning on doing the surgery this afternoon and it will be several weeks before we know the final result with regards to Aiden's vision. At best Aiden will probably lose some peripheral vision and be near sighted.

Evan's eyes are also showing some signs of ROP but not as severe yet. The boys are getting eye exams every five days or so to check the severity of the ROP. Hopefully Evan's will not progress as far as Aiden's has.

Otherwise the boys are really doing well. Now that they are out of their incubators and on cannulas we can really interact with them and do many of the normal baby care activities without having to have a nurse help us.

They continue to grow! They are both around 4lb, 4 oz.

Here are some pictures that we are long overdue on posting here.

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Evan's foot next to his foot print taken when a week old. You can tell that the boys have already grown so much!

Evan in clothes for one of the first times.

Aiden in clothes for one of the first times.

Aiden and Evan in matching outfits.

One happy family.

Aiden looking cute.

The boys close together for the first time since birth.

Evan and Aiden together.

Aiden making funny faces.

Janel holding Evan.

Evan knows what it is all about...

And he likes it!

Aiden in his elephant shoes.