A Night with the Nurses

The day before the girls came home was very busy! We had to get their medications called into the pharmacy and somehow get medicaid to cover the flavoring of their electrolytes. We had to get their formula (which was covered by medicaid because its was a prescription) and their oxygen and monitors all set up for them. I met Kraig, our contact man at Norco, our medical supply company, at the hospital so he could teach me how to change the oxygen tanks, and learn the monitors and change the probes, and get set up to have the oxygen at home.
I met him there, learned about the O2, then Laura, our discharge nurse, and I set up the girl's in their car seats for their car seat test. This test is designed to test how the girls will do when they are no longer in a crib and secured in a blanket. They have to keep their stats up for 1 1/2 hours to make sure we can make it home without them crashing. They passed that with flying colors. I however, failed because I couldn't figure out how to change the buckles on the car seat. I had to ask multiple nurses and Norco guys to help. (Oh, and they passed their hearing exams with ease.) Toby got off work early and met me at the hospital for our overnight ability test. The nurses had a hard time finding us a room close by because the hospital was pretty full. There were no rooms downstairs in the Women's Center and the courdinator wanted to put us up in the Pediatric Unit. The NICU nurses were pretty adamently against it, because they wouldn't be able to get to us very quickly if something happened. We finally got a room in Day Surgery, which was about 20 seconds down the hall. The nurses on Day Surgery apparently weren't told what was going on.. its was kind of funny. About 9 o'clock we finally wheeled the girl's crib down the hall and into our room.

Addison is at the top
Peyton is on the bottom

Our obsessive night nurse, Dennis, didn't think that the girls were ready to go home. I could see it in his mannerisms and the way he talked to us. He was really surprised when he walked into work and found out the girls were going home the next day. All night long, while WE were supposed to be taking care of the girl, he would call and check on them all the time, and come it at every feeding, offering to take a feeding "so that we could sleep". It was actually very annoying, because he would come in and stay for like 20 minutes so it made it hard to nurse the girls when he was right there. We had to get up and feed them every 3 hours, so it made it hard to sleep when we knew we needed to get up in another 45 minutes. It was really frustrating because the girls were really sleepy and didn't want to nurse. Plus we had to feed them their bottles so it took forever and we didn't get much sleep. The next day was Going Home day, ill tall you about it later!!

He said WHAT??

Addison

So, in my last post i said that the Dr.'s require that the girls eat all their food, and keep up their stats in order to come home. Basically, whenever the girls had an apnea or bradycardia spells (a's and b's), they earned themselves another 7 days in the NICU. However, Wednesday, May 19, I was in Rounds with Dr. Jenkins when he told me that the girls were well enough to go home. His only concern was their spells. Then he turned to me and said, "Do you want to take them home tomorrow?" I was shocked. DUH! He stated that I could wait another 7 days or i could take the girls home the next day but they would have to go home on monitors. I DON'T CARE!! I didn't even have to think about it, those girls were coming HOME!!!
It took all day to get thinks in order for them to come home. We rushed home to get the house ready, cleaned like crazy, i had to run to the store and get some velcro to finish the car seat covers, and get things packed for our overnight stay.
The hospital NICU staff likes to have the parents of the preemies stay the night in the hospital for an overnight visit to take care of their babies with nurse supervision. It helps with the transition so the parents know exactly how to take cares, figure out hiccups, and give the babies their meds. Its not a bad system. Only thing is, I'm gonna miss all the nurses. They've become great role models and friends. Many of them have had preemies themselves.

Look how cute my babies are!!

Addison

Peyton

The last few weeks that the girls were in the hospital were pure torture. The only requirements left for them to complete was to take all their feedings by bottle. First, Peyton would do AMAZINGLY well, then Addie would. They would take turns ALMOST doing 100% on their feedings, then they would have a bad day. It was really hard seeing them get so close to coming home, then squash my dreams.
Another thing was the fact that they were still having bradycardia and apnea spells. They weren't allowed to go home unless they could keep their stats up. Like i said, pure torture!

Turns out...

Both girls ended up needing the Laser eye surgery. Addie had hers about 4 weeks after Peyton. She did very well and was moved back up to be with her sister after a few days because the CCN was too full. Every few weeks, the girls got their eyes checked and all fours eyes were/are progressing well. Here is Peyton:

And here is Addie:

I know, I know

Ok, so i'm really bad about posting and everyone keeps telling me that I have a good excuse, but really I don't. So, here goes the updates, K?