Thanks for All Your Prayers

This morning, the girls seem to be doing well. Taylor’s feedings have been going well. She had a little residual (leftovers in the belly) today, so they decided to slow them down a little. Kamryn has begun not having residual and had a messy diaper without any help, so that’s progress. After doing a chest x-ray on Taylor, they determined her lungs weren’t handling the ventilator well, so they hooked her up on a gentler machine. We didn’t find this out until going in last night and her bed was surrounded by about eight people learning about the machine. This kinda made us nervous, to say the least, to walk in and see all that activity around our daughter’s bed. It seems to be what she needs, though. The last x-ray showed her lungs looked much better. This new machine is a bit more involved, however, so we are not able to do Kangaroo care at this time. We did get to do it two nights in a row, and are glad for that. There was another head scan done on Taylor yesterday. We haven’t talked with the doctor about it yet, but her chart showed that there has been no significant change for the better or the worse. Pray for a change for the better. We really can't express how much your prayers and encouragement mean to us.

A little piece of Heaven

We got to “Kangaroo” for the first time tonight. It was absolutely the most amazing thing. “Kangaroo” is a way to hold newborn preemies, where they remove them from the incubator still attached to all the monitors, and lay them on one of the parent’s chest skin to skin. We’ve heard that it does wonders for the babies, so we had high hopes going in to it. When we went in tonight, Kamryn’s oxygen was turned up to 65%, which is the highest it has been. Up until the last couple of days, she had been on between 21% (room air) and 30%. I decided that Kamryn needed her mom, so they got Kerri ready and sat her in a recliner beside the incubator. Then they disconnected all the wires and IV’s and laid her on Kerri’s chest. Now, there is a monitor that shows how much oxygen is actually being circulated in her blood. They try to keep it between 85 and 95. It was riding at around 88 when we arrived. While they were getting Kamryn situated after laying her on Kerri’s chest and reconnecting everything, her monitor started beeping. I looked up, and it was actually reading above 95, almost as soon as they placed her on Kerri’s chest. They turned down the oxygen supply on her, and before long, she was setting off her alarm above 95 again. Over the period of about an hour, Kamryn’s oxygen was turned all the way down to 34%. She was still consistently alarming on the high side, but the nurse noticed the IV in her head was causing swelling, so they had to take her away and put her back in the incubator to remove the IV and put in another one. Now keep in mind Kamryn’s oxygen need had been on the rise the last few days. We were absolutely amazed at the way she responded to being held by her mom. They are concerned with her maybe becoming sick, so pray for that. Now, meanwhile, I got to go over and hold Taylor the same way. She also did very well with it. I think I may have enjoyed it more than she did, but she seemed to enjoy it as well. We ended up having to leave soon, because they were admitting another baby, but we were on such a high after leaving. God is so good.

The Girls are Holding Their Own

The girls are already 11 days old. It's hard to believe, even though it has been hard and long. Anytime I see "Hospital" on the caller I.D., it makes me tense up. Yesterday, one of the babies' doctors called and actually gave us some good news. He told me first that both girls would be started on feedings. They seem to be tolerating it well. The next thing he said was that Kamryn was doing well on her breathing, and they wanted to try her on cpap, which is the nostril ventilator. They tried it without removing the tube, and it didn't go well. They are going to try it tonight with removing the tube. That makes us nervous. We pray she will do well with that. As far as her fingers, we won't be able to tell anything yet, we just have to wait it out. Then, the doctor asked me what the cardiologist had told me before. I said that he told me Kamryn still had a large PDA. He said that's what he thought, but that he talked to the other cardiologist and that one said her PDA actually looked a good bit smaller that the last one. He didn't understand why it did, since she wasn't on medication for it. I just smiled and replied, "I Know why." This is a Christian doctor, and he said that he agreed with me, and added, "the power of prayer." He didn't hear a murmur, and said he suspected that the PDA was closed. After doing the echocardiogram on her today, they said that it was only a small PDA, and that they would not do surgery at this time. Keep praying, it's working. Taylor seems to be doing well also. Her head isn't showing signs of swelling, which is good, and we feel God will handle this situation as well. Thanks to everyone for your prayers.