Update on the girls!

Here's a few updates and photos of the past few days! I am sorry if you have emailed me and I have not gotten back to you...it's just been a very looooooong, stressful few days, but I think we are on the uphill from here! I can slowly begin to breath again. Praise God!

It's been very busy around here, as usual! There just aren't enough hours in the day and we only have one angelic baby here! From pumping to preparing bottles, to driving to the hospital to crying and praying to feeding Claire and staying at the hospital to eating and showering myself...busy, busy, busy! We are making it though!

So let's begin!

Claire:

Claire came home on Thursday night! It was so very bittersweet as we left Madelynn and Natalee who was very, very sick. It was so hard, harder than the first day when I left them all. The Neonatalogists and charge nurses said we could have left Claire for one more night but Tim and I decided that since we would be up anyway worrying about Natalee, we might as well focus on Claire while thinking about Natalee. It was a good distraction. It was interesting driving home, Tim drove out of the hospital with the flashers on, and any car that came close to us, her was practically stopping and getting as far away as he could. I can't blame him, I was in the back just starring at Claire, making sure she was breathing the whole time. When we got home, it was so weird! We just couldn't believe she was finally here, but again bittersweet because we were so worried. Claire did so good on her first night home but was a little fussy. She had gotten both her Synigist and Hep B shot and since it was a new environment and all, we expected it. I just starred at her all night and we held her in bed and did a lot of praying for Natalee. There was not much sleeping but Claire did very well.

Passing her Car Seat test!!

Home sweet Home!

Getting ready to bed the first night!

She went to her first pediatrician appointment on Friday afternoon and we were so impressed with the doctor! She is sooo nice and sweet! Everyone was so excited to see "one of the triplets", it was so cute! Claire was loving it too! She was so good! She was weighed in Wednesday night at 4lbs 8 ounces and at the doctors she weighed 4lbs 11oz! She is doing so good! She has to get her hips checked, but they look fine the doctor said. It's just a sonogram and it's routine for any baby who is breech now. I had never heard of it, but oh well. Also, Claire will go to the eye doctor on Wednesday, so we already have our hands full with doctor appointments with just her!

First trip to the doctors!

The At-Home nurse came yesterday and checked Claire and she gained another 2.5oz! So she was up to 4lbs 13.5oz...can we say pork chop!? She is so cute! She is drinking about 50-60cc's of breast milk with 22 calorie NeoSure every three hours. She sleeps 3 hours, wakes up and we change her diaper, warm her milk and she sucks it down in 5-10 minutes, burps and is back to sleep. I can't ask for a better baby! She is so good and we are getting so much sleep! I know it will be over as soon as Madelynn comes home, so we are enjoying Claire as much as we can right now.

She was so spoiled yesterday with her Grandma and Grandpa visiting and then her Nana too! She was loving it! And we also gave her a bath and she did so good after she pooped in the water after only 30 seconds! It was so funny, so we had to start all over again! She did great though and we were loving giving her a bath finally at home!!!

Enjoying her swing!

Madelynn:

Madelynn is enjoying her time still in the NICU. The nurses think she is loving the attention she gets and that's why she takes her time drinking her bottles! She will go almost 24 hours drinking all her milk (38cc's of breast milk with 22 calorie NeoSure) and then gets lazy and needs like 10cc's put through her tube, so the time starts over! She is so funny but has such a mild temperament. She is really a great baby they say! So she needs to be 48 hours tube free before she comes home. She passed her car seat test last week and weighs enough so it's just the eating which she is funky about, but they are confident that she will get it very soon! Every time I am there, she drinks all of her feed so no one is concerned, she is just taking her sweet time. She weighed in last night at 4lbs 8.5oz so she is right behind her sister!

Passing her Car Seat Test!

So we are confident she will be home very shortly with Claire!

Natalee:

Natalee is IMPROVING! She is really starting to get better, THANK YOU JESUS! We learned a lot more yesterday about her condition. Yesterday, when I got to the hospital, she looked so much better than the day before. She did receive a blood transfusion on Saturday morning; it wasn't really needed but they just decided it would help her to recover quicker. I got to see all of her x-rays for the first time too. I have to admit that the first few x-rays really scared me, I almost had to sit down. Her first x-ray on Thursday morning looked bad, her infection level was at 10 (normal is under 2) and then by Thursday night it was 22 and the x-ray looked HORRIBLE! Friday morning, at 24, the x-ray looked terrible also. But as the x-rays continued, it got better and better, and by last night everything was almost gone, still about 25% of the disease but SO much better! I was so glad I got to see the x-rays, it made me feel so much better.

I also got to hold Natalee for almost an hour last night. She starred up at me the whole time with her big bright beautiful eyes! It was so emotional. The last time I held her, Thursday morning, she moaned and groaned the whole time and I cried tears of fear. Last night I cried tears of hope, thanking God for saving my baby, I will be forever grateful. ***(I did cave in and read a few things about NEC, I know I said I wouldn't, but I couldn't take not knowing a lot about the disease my child was suffering from. I knew it wouldn't make me feel better, it made me feel worse, but at least I felt prepared for what might come. However, everything I read was so upsetting. Surgery or death, nothing positive. So many people have lost their children to this horrible disease that they don't know much about. I didn't read much, but what I read was enough. Natalee will always know how lucky she is.)***

Anyway, she is sucking away on her pacifier so well also, which she never did before. One of the  nurses came up to me and said that they were all cheering when Natalee was crying the night before when her nurse had to put in a new IV, because the days before she didn't care what anyone did to her since she was so sick, so the fact that she cared, could feel and was crying were all GREAT signs! She was way more active and moving around all night and yesterday, so they were so happy! Her color was so much better, still very pale and still having blood in her stools but nothing like she looked and was.

The Neonatalogist said that Natalee's case was a very rare case. She was so sick with the NEC, and they are very surprised that her other organs didn't follow what was going on in her intestines, as most times it does. However, she did not have some of the other issues that they see with NEC. Natalee did not have acid in her blood, as they normally see. She has had normal bowel sounds the entire time, which normally stops when a baby has NEC. Natalee is urinating and pooping, which sometimes stops with NEC because the bowel dies. They do not have any reason to think that any of her bowel has actually died, thank God, but not to say that it still can't happen. They do not see any narrowing on her x-rays which would lead them to believe that there could be a blockage or dead bowel, but doesn't look like it at all right now. Her tummy is much softer than it was and the swelling is going down.

Today, the x-ray looked even better, she was taken off her oxygen and can actually lay on her stomach and feel comfy. AMAZING! Her color is improving still and they are very optimistic. Again, the Neonatalogist said this morning that she is such a lucky little girl, because many babies do not make it with NEC. He also used the word "fighter" to describe her! She is crying a lot more and they think she is really hungry now too, which is awesome! She won't get any food though for at least a week to give her bowels enough time to heal. But she is still working on her sucking with her pacifier so that's good! She is barely having any green leakage in her tube from her intestines, which is another great sign and her body temp is stable. She never had anymore "bradys" other than that one and has maintained everything since then. She also has continued to gain weight which the doctors didn't think she would. She was up to 3lbs 8oz last night!

Today she will have her IV's taken out and a picc line started. It's a much easier way for them to give her all of the anti-biotics, since she will be on them for awhile, seven days from the first normal looking x-ray.

Phew, I think that's it with her. If all continues to go well, when they finally decided to put her back on some food, it will be breast milk with no diary. So goodbye to my peanut M&M's, EL Fudge cookies, pizza...cheese...oh well! I will do whatever it takes for Natalee to get strong and if breast milk is the easiest for her to digest and she can handle it then I will do whatever I need to do! They just want to make sure she isn't lactose-intolerant and not risk her irritating her bowel again.

We are soo lucky and blessed that she is recovering! Thank you for all the continued support and prayers!