6 Weeks!

The babies are 6 weeks old today! They are doing great. Violet was a little jealous of her brother, so she is also in a crib now! Violet is completely off ALL oxygen and is doing amazingly. We are so proud of her. Cameron is still on 2 liters of oxygen, but he’s doing well and they are weaning him slowly. We have learned that Cameron definitely works on his own time. He gets things done when he wants to get things done.

In less than two weeks they are most likely going to start trying bottle feeding with the twins (as long as Cameron is off the high flow oxygen). I’ve heard that oftentimes this is the most frustrating part. The babies will be just 34 weeks gestation, but will need to get the coordination of sucking, swallowing and breathing to be able to take their bottles. This is a requirement to be able to go home. They want to make sure that they consistently take their bottles for at least 48 hours. During this time the babies will also start to be weaned off of the caffeine. They are on caffeine because it works as a stimulant and kind of reminds them to breathe. The nurse from yesterday said that they also start to wean themselves off of the caffeine simply because they gain weight and the dose does not go up at all.

The subject of coming home now comes up every day and with each nurse. The fact is that we have no idea still. In a perfect world, they would catch on to bottle feeding, be weaned off of the caffeine and be able to do everything on their own by the end of the year. We all know we don’t live in a perfect world, so I have to be realistic. It’s so hard having no idea when they are coming home or if one will be home before the other. Everyone keeps asking me when they are coming home and each time I have to say I don’t know.

I think a lot of people think that being a premature baby just means that you are born small. My babies were born at 26 weeks gestation… 14 weeks before a complete pregnancy. Every single part of them was underdeveloped. My babies were very sick… especially Cameron. So, when people were telling me to enjoy my time at the hospital and to relax because everything would be fine, it was very difficult to deal with. At this point, the babies aren’t nearly as sick as they were 6 weeks ago or 5 weeks ago or 2 days ago for that matter. But, they would still only be 32 weeks gestation. They still have developing to do and there are still a lot of hurdles to get over. I know most people are just trying to help, but people have to remember that being a preemie isn’t just about size.

I’m starting to wake up throughout the night just thinking about them. It’s not a bad thing, but it just makes me wish I could go peek at them or smell them or hold them or hear them breathing. I woke up at 4am the other day and was wide awake. I couldn’t get these words out of my head. Then I put the words to a tune. Before I knew it, it was 4:15 and I was pulling out my phone to jot down all of these words. Then, since I didn’t want to lose the tune, I downloaded a voice recording app and recorded myself singing the tune. Sooooooooo between 4 and 5 am the other day, I wrote a song. You might be thinking, “hey, I didn’t know Betsy wrote songs”. Well, I don’t. What a weirdo. But, I could not get this tune or these lyrics out of my head. It’s about the babies and being in the NICU. I guess I wrote it because when I was thinking of songs to put on their dvds, I was trying to find some about being in the NICU or similar themes. The only ones I found were depressing or creepy. So, I just wrote my own.

Anyway, I’m going to finish getting ready to go see my little sweeties. Hopefully, we all have a great day today!