Gabrielle's PICC Line is Out!

We are so relieved. Thanks for all of the prayers, good vibes and crossed fingers.

We got a great report on both girls tonight. The neonatologist is really happy with how well they're eating -- she said most babies are a lot bigger when they eat as well as Gabrielle and Alaina do. It's probably because DH tells them they're getting chicken fingers and Snickers....

A Ride on the Roller Coaster

Since the day the Gabrielle and Alaina were born, the doctors and nurses in the NICU have been telling us to be prepared for a roller coaster ride while the girls are there, meaning that there will be lots of highs and lows along the way. Luckily, we've had mostly highs so far and everyone is overjoyed by their progress, but yesterday we got our first taste of a low.

I went in for my morning visit expecting both Gabrielle and Alaina to be PICC line free and hoping I'd get the chance to hold them. Sure enough, Alaina's PICC line had come out and she was obviously enjoying having her arm free. But Gaby's line was still in. After we left Sunday night, she threw up her 6 o'clock feeding. One of the biggest risks the girls face right now is a condition called Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), which is a gastrointestinal disease where infection or inflammation can cause damage to, or even the destruction of, their intestines. If the girls don't keep their feedings down, the doctors' main concern is making sure NEC isn't the reason why. After she got sick, Gaby's next four feedings were held until X-rays could be taken of her belly to make sure she didn't have NEC. The good news is by the time I arrived at 11:00 yesterday, they had ruled it out and started her feedings again with 10 cc's of milk, but now she has to tolerate 15 cc's again before the PICC line can come out. Even though this was a really small setback, it was still draining.

Jan and I went for our night visit and were happy to hear that Gaby had done well with her feedings and was up to 12 cc's, and the doctor was confident that her PICC line would come out overnight. But we had a new issue to deal with -- Alaina had thrown up her 3:00 feed and the X-ray technician was on his way down so they could check her for NEC. We watched as our little 2 pound baby was X-rayed and waited for the results to come back. During the wait, the doctor showed us Gabrielle's X-rays from earlier in the day. It turned out that the reason she had gotten sick was that her O.G. didn't go all the way down to her stomach so when she was being fed, the food couldn't make it where it needed to go. It wasn't her fault she had gotten sick and there wasn't anything wrong with her -- her feeding tube just wasn't in properly. She missed four feedings and her PICC line was still in because of something silly like that. Poor baby!

A few minutes later, Alaina's films came back and lo and behold -- her O.G. wasn't in her stomach either! Our girls love to pull at their wires and tubing (I had seen Alaina pull her O.G. almost all of the way out of her mouth earlier in the day) and now that they've both had vomiting incidents from the O.G. not being in place, I'm sure the nurses will be checking them much more closely from here on out.

So that was our day yesterday. In the end, both Gabrielle and Alaina were fine but the fear that comes along with any little setback, even something as simple as vomiting, is tortuous. The roller coaster analogy is right on.

One perk that came out of the crazy day was that little Alaina needed to be cleaned up while we were there and we got to see her pretty little face without all of the tubes and tape she normally has on. Here are some pictures:

Diapers & Feedings & Temperatures, Oh My!

During our visits yesterday, DH and I got to change the girls' diapers, feed them and take their temperatures for the first time. I know, this probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but when your babies are in the NICU and you can't do "normal" parental tasks, even the littlest things are milestones.

The girls still have their central lines in so we can't pick them up, but when I went for my afternoon visit, Gaby's nurse decided that she was stable enough for me to help with her care (each of the girls has a different nurse and some let the parents be more hands on than others). First, I changed her tiny little diaper. The NICU has preemie sized diapers for the girls but even those are too big on them right now. We're going to take a few of them home with us for their baby books so when they're older, they'll see just how little they were. Next, I helped take her temperature, which was perfect, and then I got to give her her milk. She drank all of it and then proceeded to wail for the next five minutes until we put her back on her tummy with her pacifier which finally lulled her to sleep. When DH and I went to visit the girls later that evening, I took care of Gabrielle again and daddy got to feed Miss Alaina. It was a great day.

We also got really good reports on their feedings. Gabrielle is getting 5 cc's of milk a day and Alaina is getting 4. They've been tolerating the milk really well and if they continue to keep it down, they'll get 1 cc raises every 12 hours. That would mean they could have their PIC lines removed in the next week or two and we'll finally be able to hold our little ones! Keep your fingers crossed.

Tummy time all around

When we went to visit the girls yesterday, both were lounging on their tummies. It's so cute to see them in this position! And they seem to love it. This is the calmest Alaina's been -- she's usually flailing her legs all over the place -- but tummy time agrees with her.

Gabrielle got to spend her second day on her tummy and did her best Maggie Simpson impression by sucking on her little pacifier:

Gaby's nurse shut her phototherapy lights off for a bit so we could peek at her with her eye coverings off. Her little face is so sweet!

We got great updates on both girls yesterday. They're both being fed milk through the tubes they have in their mouths. If they were still in the womb, they would be swallowing amniotic fluid which would kick start their digestive systems so the goal is to do the same with the milk now. They started out getting 1 cc of milk at each feeding and each time they keep it down, their feeding amount gets increased. Last night, Gabrielle was getting 3 cc's and Alaina was getting 2. Once they can tolerate enough milk at each feeding, the lines the have in their arms, which give them supplemental feedings, can come out. When those lines are removed, we'll be able to hold the girls outside of their Isolettes. Since they were taken straight to the NICU after they were delivered, we haven't been able to do more than touch them in the Isolettes yet. So keep up the eating, little ones. We can't wait for the day we'll be able to hold you in our arms!

Gabrielle & Alaina's Birth Announcement

With the girls in the NICU, I need something to occupy my time in between visits and I've been reading so many posts about Scrapblog that I decided to give it a try.

We started telling people about the girls late last week once their progress reports kept comng back positive but there was no way we could call everybody so I figured I'd try to create a birth announcment we could send out. Here are the three pages I put together and when I e-mailed the link to our friends and family, they played to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I'm pretty happy with the result if I do say so myself!

Project Nursery Part Deux

Now that the girls are here, we're making more progress on the nursery. I have to catch up on taking photos of the new additions to the room but here were the next steps we tackled.

Once the closet was done, we moved on to the flooring. My vision for the nursery was to create a room that's bright, cheerful and modern. It took me forever to find the perfect carpet (DH was appalled by how many samples I ordered!) but once I saw these floor tiles, I knew we'd found the winner.

The floor tiles are from Flor and they are terrific. We have them in different colors and styles throughout our apartment -- in the entryway, the dining room and the office -- and they're perfect for children since if one gets dirty, we can just replace that tile with another. The style I chose for the nursery is Toy Poodle and we got them in canary, fuschia, teal, lime, orange and lilac.

Here's our four-legged child, Fiona, helping us lay the tiles:

After we got the flooring done, the cribs arrived. We chose the Oeuf Classic cribs for the girls and ordered them from Buy Buy Baby with their multiple discount and using a coupon. I've loved this modern style for a while and they convert into the cutest toddler beds.

And of course Fiona had to check to make sure they were sturdy enough for the girls.

So that's the latest from Project Nursery. I'll post our new dresser and the fabrics for the bedding later this week. We're working hard to get it finished so everything will be ready when Gabrielle and Alaina get to come home!

Oh, and one more note. I'm planning to put a quote on the wall above the cribs. I've listed three options in my blog poll but for some odd reason, I can't get them to show the whole quotes so I'm going to list them here:

1. Of all the stars we wished upon, the brightest one has brought us you.

2. We had each other and then we had you and now we have everything.

3. Precious ones, so small and sweet, dancing in on angels' feet, straight from heaven's brightest star, what miracles you truly are.

Please cast a vote!

Gabrielle & Alaina are one week old!

Yesterday was the girls' one week birthday and they had a wonderful day. Alaina kept her milk down for the first time and we got to turn off her phototherapy lights for a bit and see her little eyes open. Gabrielle had her first taste of tummy time in her Isolette and spent the day sucking on her purple pacifier. It's so funny to see them developing their own personalities even at this young age. Alaina is the dramatic one, which shouldn't really surprise us considering she spent so much time kicking her sister in the head while they were in the womb. She cries whenever her diaper is dirty and once it's changed, immediately poops or pees and cries for it to be changed again. Meanwhile, Gaby is totally chill and happy to kick back and relax. Both girls are doing so well that it's hard to believe that just a week ago we had no idea whether they'd even make it.



I had my own milestone yesterday when I FINALLY saw some milk after pumping. I was starting to think that after 7 days and no results that I might not have any milk supply, but I woke up yesterday with some drops on my nipples. Sure enough, my first pump of the day was a good one and the rest weren't bad either. DH was so cute -- he was cheering my boobs on every time I pumped, and we were so excited to bring the milk with us to the NICU. Knowing that the girls were starting to get milk was hard when I wasn't producing any so I was so relieved that things seemed to finally be working. But by nighttime, my supply was waning again and so far today, I've had little to nothing. A good friend of mine is an LC and she said that even though the Medela PIS is the best pump you can buy, with preemies I should really be renting a hospital grade pump. So that's our plan for tomorrow -- trying to rent a Medela Symphony so that I can hopefully get my milk flowing again.