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!!