10 Weeks Old! (37+ weeks gestation)

Wow, we are really getting to the homestretch here. It's making me a little nervous! I know we have a ways to go with Madeline and Josephine, but Sofia is telling us she wants to come home! Now for the updates...

Sofia is about 5 lbs, 5 ounces already! I am so glad she made the minimum weight limit for our car seats! She's still off breathing assistance with fewer and fewer de-sats. She has a spell every once in awhile, though. Today, the doctor decided we would try to put the head of the bed flat (the heads of the beds have been up for all three girls because of reflux issues). If Sofia was to handle that, they were going to do a 12 hour scan on her tonight, meaning she would go home on FRIDAY if she passed. The scan would be monitoring and recording her oxygen and heart rate. The nurse would record what she was doing if she had a de-sat (it would be more understandable if she were eating or having cares done on her than than if she was just lying there). Well, we nixed doing the scan tonight because she wasn't really tolerating having the bed flat. That was kind of a relief! Friday feels way too soon and I can tell that she isn't ready yet. We did change her feeding schedule to be more liberal about the time. Instead of doing oral feeds only if she is awake at her fixed schedule time, we are waiting longer to see if she wakes up on her own. Before, we would just tube feed her if she was too sleepy, but now we are trying to make every feeding an oral one. We will see how that goes! She might get too wiped out but we never know!


Madeline is 4 lbs, 10 1/2 ounces. She isn't doing as well with her feeding as Sofia. She is showing she is still too immature to get the suck, swallow, and breathe pattern down. She is really eager to feed, but she will spell when she takes too much milk. The speech therapist has started working with her. The therapist decided which bottle would work the best for her, and she will work with Madeline once a day. If there are no improvements, she will have a suck/swallow study. If she doesn't do too well, we might have to thicken her milk. The great news is that she is still in room air with no assistance! She has her de-sats and even spells once in awhile, but is doing fine overall.


Josephine is 4 lbs, 13 1/2 ounces. Since Sunday, she has been on high-flow because she was having a lot more spells. The doctor and nurse practitioner weren't worried enough to do a blood work-up for infection, but they did think high-flow was necessary. She has had a lot less de-sats and spells since the switch. The doctor is planning to try her on low-flow again tomorrow. The neonatologist recruited a pulmonologist to start following her. The pulmonologist asked me a bunch of questions today about our family history (clean!) and our house environment. It looks like Odin could put little Josie (and the others, but especially Josephine) at risk, but if we vacuum very regularly we should be OK. Lets hope Josephine will excel on the low-flow! If we really can't get her on low-flow by term, we could be looking at a trache, but I really think 3 weeks will give her a lot of time to get stronger.


Talking with the pulmonologist was taking a dose of reality... we are dealing with preemies with chronic lung disease, and when they go home they won't have the lungs a regular newborn would have. We have to be really careful about colds/illnesses and keep our house spic and span. We were told that when we start having visitors, we have to tell everyone to wash hands frequently. If there is even a hint of a cold coming on, then they shouldn't even come in the house. I have to be one of those crazy protective moms (at least for the first year or two). I hope everyone will forgive me :)

All in One Room!

The crib order left to right is Josephine, Madeline, and Sofia. It's so fun having them in the same room! (Madeline is the one who had to move.) We also switched teams from IC (intensive care) to Convo (convolescent), which is the "going home team"! The doctor and nurse practitioner say the first ones could be going home in as little as two weeks (but it could be longer, we just never know). We are pretty certain Josephine will be a little behind the other two. Sofia and Madeline basically need to master feeding orally for every feeding. Yikes! Two weeks is not long at all! Scary...but exciting.

Josephine weighs 4 lbs and 7 ounces. She had been on high flow but she got switched back to low flow (one liter)! She had a bad day or two earlier this week where she was spelling a lot more. Her hemoglobin was low, so they gave her a blood transfusion. This seemed to do the trick since she is a lot better now. They will slowly wean her settings as long as she is stable. It will be another week until her swallow study. I wish I could feel more hopeful about her passing the next study but I just feel a little negative. If she failed she would get a G tube in her stomach and would probably be re-tested in 6 weeks. Grow stronger, Josephine! Last night, I helped give Josephine a bath! She liked having her head shampooed but otherwise was a little distraught!


Madeline is doing quite well! She weighs 4 lbs and 5 ounces (we can't believe Josie passed her up) and has no breathing assistance at all anymore. She did get a couple rounds of steroids, so the next couple days will tell us if she can still handle being in room air (the steroids stay in your system that long). She has been working on bottling and breast-feeding and is still the front-runner in that department. Dan gave Madeline a bath last night and she had the same feeling as Josephine.


Sofia weighs 4 lbs and 14 ounces- only a couple ounces from 5 lbs!! She was switched off low-flow again over the weekend and is handling it just fine. I hope this switch is for good because she's been off and on a lot. Both Madeline and Sofia are not getting caffeine or amenophylline (which help thwart off spells), which is great! Sofia is working on bottling and breastfeeding as well. I can't believe this is our last major obstacle. They are growing up! Don't these girls look huge in all of these pics!? Those cheeks! :)


I bet everyone's excited for the weekend...the weeks have been going by quickly for me. We need to get the house ready for them because they'll be home before we know it! Until later...

Please Grow Stronger, Little Josephine

The weekend! I hope everyone had a great work week. With all of these great days lately, we were due for a downer. Nothing too major, it's just that Josephine didn't pass her swallow study test today. I was so confident she would pass, but when I called this morning, the nurse practitioner gave me the sad news. One of the vocal cords is paralyzed but the other compensates. Right now it doesn't compensate enough to protect her airways while swallowing. What this means for us is that she cannot get any food orally as of now. She will get a repeat test in two weeks and we were told that she could pass because she will get so much stronger and bigger from now until then. Besides the swallow study, Josephine has been having a good week. She is on low-flow and is growing every day! She had another eye exam this past which showed that her eyes are still immature but with no ROP. Josie will get another exam in a couple of weeks.


Sofia is doing fine, and is on low-flow (where before she had no breathing assistance). She is currently the biggest. I have been working on nursing with her, and she'll do a couple minutes. She'll either spell (forgets to breathe, resulting in low heart rate and oxygen de-sat) or forget what she's doing. She's coming along, though. Sofia's eye exam wasn't as positive as Josephine. She is the same maturity, but is showing Stage 1 of ROP. This stage is very minimal of ROP and odds are it will resolve on its own. The doctor will check her again in two weeks and hopefully it will be resolved!


Madeline is on low-flow, too. She is ahead of Sofia when it comes to nursing! She is super interested and showing all of the rooting signs during most of her feeding times. She has even received a bottle when I wasn't there and did pretty well. She sometimes forgets to pace herself. If she doesn't pause to breathe in-between sucks and swallows, she de-sats. Because she is so interested, she may master nursing/feeding from a bottle first. Her eye exam showed the same result as Sofia's; Stage 1 of ROP. It would be really sad if their disease gets worse and they'll need surgery, so say a little prayer for them. Surgery is necessary at Stage 4 or 5.

Yesterday, the lactation consultant took a sample of my milk to find out the calorie content. I was so proud that there are 27 calories in every ounce! They say the typical calorie content for a woman's milk is 20 calories! No wonder these babes are growing so fast! :)

Dan's mom, Debbie, and Dan's brother, Pete were able to hold the babies! My parents couldn't this week because my mom was sick and my dad could have been carrying the germs too. The first picture is Deb with Sofia and the second is Pete with Madeline. How cute! I hope everyone has a great weekend and please keep Josephine in your thoughts!

Happy 35 Weeks Gestation!

35 Weeks already! Tomorrow they will be 8 weeks old! Today, Madeline weighed just under 4 lbs, so she lost a couple ounces. It was probably just water weight so we aren't worried. Sofia weighs 4 lbs 6 oz , and Josephine weighs 3 lbs 14 oz. Today I get to learn how to give an infant massage to Sofia! I am so excited!
Here is the correct order in the picture below: Josephine, Madeline, and Sofia. Good job to those who got that right- it was tricky!

Girls Together Again!

Yesterday was an absolute blast! Madeline took a little field trip to Sofia and Josephine's room and we got to hold all three of them at once! After that we put them all in Sofia's crib and just stared at them for an hour or so! Non-stop entertainment!
(Update-wise, they are all doing well...Josephine is happy on HIGH-FLOW and they have even weaned her down since she's been on that. She just needs to get a tad bigger so she can be in a crib too. Sofia is still without breathing support and doing great. Madeline is on low-flow and is handling it so far! All are gaining weight at the appropriate rate and, more importantly, pooping!)

Here are some pics from yesterday. It was a bummer because our digital camera ran out of charge so we had to take most of the pics using the camcorder (and those were grainy). The first pic is the real camera. I also had to include not only two videos from yesterday, but a video from Friday because I caught such a cute sneeze on camera by Madeline!


OK, I want to see how good you all are. Who is who, from left to right in the pic below?! Post your guess in the comments!

Update on Josephine

She had a procedure done yesterday to look at the function of her vocal cords, and to look at her airway structure/function. She did a good job...they warned me that she could come back from the OR vented if it was necessary, but she came back only needing CPAP- a good thing! They found out that one of her vocal cords is definitely paralyzed, but the other one seems to compensate. This means that she should be able to eat by mouth! She will probably have a hoarse or raspy voice but I don't see this as a big problem. We also found out that her airway structure is a little weak and a bit abnormal. As of right now she doesn't need a trach tube put in. The doctors believe she just needs to get bigger and stronger. I can live with that! I really hope they are right and she won't need a trach, but if she does go home with one, that isn't the end of the world. Only time will tell!

Madeline and Sofia are doing just fine! Currently, Sofia is without any breathing assistance! Madeline had her OT "workout" today and she loved it! Life is pretty good; lets keep it that way!

34 Weeks Tomorrow!

Hello! It's been a pretty decent last couple of days! Two of our girls are in CRIBS!!! Who knew being big enough to be in a crib would be such an important milestone! Sofia and Madeline both moved into cribs on Saturday. The nurses tried with Josephine but she couldn't keep her body temperature up (she is the smallest, so it's not a big surprise). Since Sofia and Madeline are in cribs, we are at free will to pick them up whenever! We haven't really abused this too much yet because we don't want to overstimulate them.

Sofia was on and off of any breathing assistance (low flow canula) for a couple of days, but for now we're sticking with the low-flow. It won't be surprising if she stays on for a bit because they are weaning her caffeine this week. Caffeine helps prevent spells (when breathing and heart rate go down) but at their age, they should be outgrowing these spells anyway. Sofia, along with her sisters, had her second eye exam on Saturday. The results showed her eyes are still immature but show no sign of retinopathy of prematurity! Yay for now!! Nothing much else to report about our little Sofia.



Madeline has been loving her high-flow! She hasn't become any worse since they stopped the steroids: such a great thing! Madeline likes being in a crib as well. On Saturday, she was almost too warm so they had to get rid of a layer. Her eye exam showed the same results as Sofia. The video below is so adorable! I had put in her pacifier but left her to go check on Josephine. I was sure that the pacifier would be out by the time I got back, but she figured out how to keep her hand in that spot so she could continue sucking! Luck or smarts?






Josephine's been having it the roughest lately. In the pic below, she is on high-flow, but they weren't able to keep her on it for very long. She is back on CPAP, but I am just thankful she's not on the vent! I would love it if she stayed off that for good. She is just having a lot of de-sats but other than that she's not acting sick. I'm sure she just needs to catch up, and her de-sats are only prematurity-related (at least that's what we're hoping for!) An ENT doctor will probably check her out sometime this week to see if there's anything going on with her airway. She will have to go to the OR room for that but I'm not really sure how invasive it is. I hope we find out some answers! I'll update later this week when/if we find anything out. The good thing is that she's still tolerating her feedings, and she's growing! Also, her eye results were the same as her sisters. Not too shabby...


Dan and I got to go to the Timberwolves game this past Friday night courtesy of the Twolves, who donated a bunch of great seats to the Children's Hospital. It was a close game (they lost in the last second!) During the game, Dan and I came to the realization of how when our girls have to go to the potty, it will be MOMMY who has to take them!! (I guess some places have family restrooms, so that's good.) Dan thinks that's just so funny! Ok, well have a great work week everyone!