Day 36

The boys are doing great.

Reece is upto 1796 grams (3lbs 14oz) and taking 24 ccs. He is cyclying off the cpap, 4 hours on, 8 off and tomorrow they may try him without the cpap all day!!!

Matthew is at 1700 grams (3lbs 12oz) and taking 23 ccs. He is cycling off his cpap 4 hours on, 8 hours off and doing great!

Dug and I are thinking (hoping) that the boys will be transferred to a level 2 hospital closer to home (hopefully Credit valley) by next weekend!!!! Fingers crossed :)

1 Month!!

Day 31

Day 28

Both boys are doing great. Reece is up to 1495 grams (3.29 pounds) and is tolerating 20ccs every 2 hours. He is cycling 6 hours on and 6 hours off the cpap and doing great!!
Matthew is at 1425 grams (3.14 pounds) and tolerating 19ccs every 2 hours. They have started cycling him aswell and he is doing well with 4 hours off and 8 hours on the cpap.
They are both alert and active with their eyes open and moving around alot. They are also quite fiesty, both of them pulling out their feeding tubes, cpap masks and other monitoring devices at various times aswell as fighting off their nurses when it is time to put the cpap back on!!!

Day 25

Both boys are doing great and tolerating 18ccs of fortified breast milk and formula. Matthew finally has a regular cpap machine like the one Reece has which I had bugged the staff numerous times for because Matthew seemed to be struggling the bubble cpap. Niether of the boys had any major spells today so they will probably try cycling them off the cpap again for a couple of hours tomorrow. Both boys are gaininhg weight and to our surprise Reece has actually surpassed Matthew in weight. Matthew is now 1324 grams (2.918 lbs)and Reece is now 1351 grams (2.978 lbs). They're almost 3 pounds!!! :)

Day 20

Day 19

Matthew is up to 12ccs and tolerating it well. He is getting his feeds through slow blous over 1 hour and that seems to be halping him absorb. They are going to wait to he he stable at full feeds before they try to cycle him off the cpap.

Reece is at his full feeds at 16ccs and is also getting fed through slow bolus over 1 hour which seems to help with his dips that he gets at the end of feeds. They have been trying to cycle him off his cpap for 4 hours and has been doing okay. He still has some dips but he has dips on the cpap too. They tried to cycle him off the cpap for 6 hours once but he had aspartes and reflux. Poor little guy was just exhausted by the end of the 6 hours.

Day 16

Matthew was not absorbing his food so they dropped him down to 5ccs and changed his feeds to a 1 hour slow injection feed. This seems to be working better for him and he is now back up to 6ccs.

Reece developed an anal fissure (ouch). The nurse said it is common among preemies and there is nothing to be done. It will heal itself in time.

Day 15

Matthew finally got his picc line in...yay!! No more pokes for 2 weeks. He is at 7ccs but still not always absorbing all of it.

Reece is at full feeds at 15ccs, which will increase as he gets bigger. He is still having some dips on and off the cpap.

2nd Week!

I HATE pumping!!! I'm so tired. My life revolves around pumping and it is exhausting. I'm suppossed to pump 8 to 12 times a day, which is almost every 2 hours. I have to pump for 20 mintutes and then set up and clean up takes another 10 to 15 minutes. So by the time I finish pumping I have to pump again in an hour and half. And in the middle of the night my body automatically wakes up, even when I try to sleep through a pump. I know it would be more exhausting if the boys were home but at least then I'd get to hold them and feeding time would also be bonding time rather than me staring at the wall half asleep.

On a more positive note, I'm so impressed with how well Reece is doing. He's a superstar. Dug thought it would be funny to ask the nurse 'when is he going start talking already?' lol Matthew is progressing, but at a much slower pace which does worry me a bit. I'm frustrated with the mixed messages I'm getting from different nurses. Matthew is on a bubble cpap machine, which is old technology which they only take out when they run out of the newer cpap machines, like the one Reece is on. Because of this, many of the newer nurses are not familiar with this machine and I feel Matthew is not getting the best care he needs. Some nurses blame the type of cpcap he is on for his feed problems and others for his dips. I keep asking them to change his cpap machine or even switching Reece and Matthew's machine for a while since Reece is dong so well and Matthew seems to be struggling or lagging behind but the staff just keeps brushing me off and saying that the machine he is on is fine.... it's so frustrating!!

Day 14

I held Reece today. Reece is up to his full feeds, 15ccs every 2 hours. Now his feeds will increase as his weight increases. He is still having some dips but most are small and self recovered.

Matthew had a few dips today so they did not try cycling him off his cpap. He was up to 7ccs but it was not all absorbing so they brought him back down to 6ccs. His iv from 2 days ago is still good so they have decided to keep it in rather than poking him again. They are hoping to get him upto 3/4 of his full feed, 16ccs, so that he doesn't need the iv anymore. The night nurse changed the nose prongs to a smaller size and added a chin strap to keep his mouth closed so that the pressure on the bubble cpap remains constant.

Day 13

Reece is taking 14ccs of breast milk every two hours and has finally surpassed his birth weight, now at 1106 grams!! They cycled him off the cpap for 4 hours today and he did very well. Only a few dips, which he also has on the cpap. The nurses are noticing a pattern though, he tends to have shallow breathing and bradys at the end of a feeding.


Matthew is now 1225 grams and is tolerating 6ccs of breast milk, still increasing 1cc every 12 hours. He was cycled off his cpap for 4 hours and did great!! His iv from yesterday was still okay so he got a break from being poked today :) I held Matthew again today and he just fell asleep. So cute!!

Day 12

Matthew pulled out his iv today and it took the nurses 4 attempts to get another one in. Poor little guy has so many bruises from the constant poking. He is up to 4ccs of breast milk which a nice step forward but he needs to be absorbing so much more.

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Reece had his umbilical cord iv removed today because he doesn't need it anymore. Yay!! He is taking 11ccs of breast milk every 2 hours and still increasing by 1cc every 12 hours. He still isn't back up to his birth weight but if he keeps eating like this he will surpass it in no time. I held Reece again today. He was a bit fussy at times but slept most of the time. In addition to just being so nice to hold Reece, after I hold him I pump so much more milk which is an added bonus. :)

Day 11

Reece is up to 10cc of breast milk and tolerating it well. A few more ccs and he will be able to have his umbilical cord iv removed. He had a few spells today but they were self correcting which is great. His weight is now 1059 grams, which is still below his birth weight but he should surpass that weight by tomorrow. Best of all Dug got to hold Reece for the first time!

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A third attempt at putting a picc line in for Matthew was again unsuccessful but his current iv is holding well and may last another day. The doctors are thinking of sending him to sick kids to get the line put in under ultrasound. He is up to 3ccs of breast milk and he is past his birth weight, now at 1215 grams.

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Dug finished putting the cribs together tonight that his friend Monica, who had triplets a few years ago, graciously lent us. Thank you so much Monica :)

Day 10

I got to hold Matthew for the first time today. He opened his eyes while in my arms for a little bit and then fell asleep. They tried to put in the picc line for Matthew again but it was unsuccessful. He has beentollerating his 1cc of food so they are increasing it to 2ccs.

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Reece is still having some dips but also still increasing his food by 1cc every 12 hours and is up to 8cc every 2 hours. His poops have been irregular so they gave him a suppository.

Day 9

Reece is doing great. I was able to hold him for the first time today. He lay on my chest for an hour and fell asleep. It was so amazing. They are increasing his breast milk intake by 1cc every 12 hours. He is still having some dips of Bradycardia (heart rate drops) put mostly it happens when he pulls out his cpap machine.

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Matthew's iv got puffy so they wanted to put in a picc, a long term intravenous catheter which goes all the way up the arm to reach one of the larger veins located near the heart, so that they don't have to keep moving his iv. Unfortunately the procedure was unsucessful and had to be removed so another iv was put in. He is also having some problems absorbing his food so they reduced his breast milk back to 1cc every two hours.

Day 8

The night shift nurses had a little fun with the nicu babies for halloween last night. They took pictures of all the babies and drew funny faces on the print outs.

Earlier in the week one of the nurses made name tags for all the babies. Dug and I have been adding a sticker everyday to their stars! Today they are 8 days old!

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Matthew is peeing and pooping more regularly now. He is being increased to 2ccs of breast milk with an increase on 1cc every 12 hours. His umbilical cord fell out which sucks because now he has to have an iv which needs to be changed every 48hours (ouchy!) They tried to cycle him off the cpap today for 2 hours but he had multiple spells of apnea so they have decided that it still too early for him. The nurses say he is very fussy when he is handled but Dug and I have yet to see this side of him. All he ever does when we are around is sleep.

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Reece is still having spells after his time off the cpap. He is being increased to 4ccs of breast milk with an increase of 1cc every 12 hours. Oh boy, I better get pumping!! I changed his diaper today and he had a huge poopy but at least he did not poop while I was changing him.