Days 50-53 - March 14-17

Today was bath day for both girls.  Aubrey seemed to enjoy her bath (she didn't protest, at least).  Here is a picture of her getting cleaned up by mommy.

Here's the sweet hairdo that daddy gave her before it was completely dry.

Here's the dry version.

You observant readers will notice that Aubrey's nasal cannula is no longer in her nose.  She's been breathing all on her own with no additional oxygen for over 24 hours now!  All she has on her face now is her feeding tube.

Her feedings are now fully fortified (20% extra calories) and up to 28 mL every 3 hours.  Here's another cool thing we've been doing with her.

We've been trying to get her used to the whole eating thing over the past few days.  She will usually drink about 5 mL (one teaspoon), and then get tired and fall asleep.  In order to leave the NICU, both girls will have to be able drink their entire feeding from a bottle.

Paige's turn.

Paige didn't seem to like her bath quite as much as her sister, but she was really relaxed afterwards.  Here's a picture of mommy giving her a bath.

When I picked her up to put her in the bath water, she peed all over me.  Never having been peed on before, it caught me off guard, and she's lucky I didn't drop her, haha.  Anyways, here she is after the bath with a cool hairdo and a very strange facial expression.

After her bath, Paige snuggled up with me for over 2 hours.  She still doesn't doesn't like being touched, but she really enjoys being wrapped up or held tight.  Andrea and I have joked that we'll need to get her one of those dog anxiety wraps before we go home.

Paige's nasal cannula is at 3 liters/minute and around 30% oxygen.  These numbers would be lower, but due to some bloody nose and skin irritation issues she's been having, the cannula is not all the way into her nose, as the picture above shows.

Her feedings are up to 26 mL fully fortified every 3 hours.  We have not tried bottle feeding her yet, but hope to possibly start that in the next week.

Andrea and I are really surprised and happy with how much progress both girls have made over the past week.  During the first month and a half we were in the NICU it seemed like the girls' hospital stay was never going to end.  Now we're starting to catch glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel.