Aiden and Evan – 7/28

Janel came home today! We were discharged and left the hospital at 2:30 today, although we will still be here enough that Seton will seem like a second home. We are both really looking forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight!

Janel has continued to increase in her milk production. She was able to get a full 2oz this afternoon at one of her pumpings. We’ve rented a breast pump to use at home and Janel will have to use it every three hours or so around the clock.

The boys continue to do well. They are both still off of the high speed oscillating ventilators and have not shown any signs of significant apnea – a very positive step in the right direction. I talked with one of the respiratory specialists and got a better understanding of what the differences are between the ventilators and how our boys lungs are developing. As I understand it, the boys lungs are already developed. However, when in the womb the lungs are full of fluid which comes out at birth. At 25 weeks, the lungs do not yet have a lubricating coating to prevent them from sticking to themselves. To correct this, the doctors gave the boys surfactants, which give their lungs a thin coating of lubrication allowing them to expand easier.

The ventilators that they are now on apply a continuous amount of positive pressure into nasal passage (the previous machines had tubes all the way to the lungs) to help keep them expanded. Also, the new ventilators give longer, shallower breaths at the rate of twenty times a minute that help keep their blood saturation levels higher. However, both Aiden and Evan are breathing on their own at their own rates so in that respect they really are breathing on their own.

The most exciting thing to report today is that Janel and I heard Aiden cry for the first time! I’ve never heard a baby’s cry sound so good. The nurses also mentioned that they have also heard Evan make crying sounds.

Other notes from the day:
- Aiden has had his first bowel movement. Still waiting on Evan to get going here. Apparently it is normal for it to take several days for this to start going.

- Aiden got his PICC placed into this arm (no, I don’t know what PICC stands for or if it is even really an acronym). This is essentially an IV that goes into an artery near the heart. They tried getting Evan’s PICC placed twice today but failed to do so. They will try again tomorrow.

- Both Aiden and Evan are having some issues with bile coming up from their intestines into their stomach. They have tried giving they boys some of Janel’s milk and when they pull back on the feeding syringe to see if they have taken the milk they got green stuff. This is apparently normal in babies at this age and given a little time, their digestive systems should start going the right way.