Update on babies

I want to update everyone on where the babies are now, and then I'll do a post about delivery day later.

Connor got to come home with us on the same day I was released, this past Monday.

But Chloe had to stay in the Special Care Nursery. She is still so small and she isn't digesting her food well so that's making it hard for her to gain weight. She was also having trouble maintaining her temperature and they think that she's burning so man calories trying to stay warm that it's preventing her from gaining weight.

So before we left , she was put on a feeding tube to help supplement the food she wasn't taking from the bottle. So we feed her from the bottle as much as she will eat within a certain amount of time so she doesn't wear herself out and then she takes the rest of the bottle through the tube.

Yesterday, she was out into an isolate, or what some people call an incubator, to try to help her maintain her temperature without her having to do some much of the work herself.

I know this looks a little sad, but it's actually really good for her and it's really helping her improve. We're able to take her out when we need to and to feed her.

And when we were up there last night, I was trying to do a little bit of skin time with her since I'm not able to be with her all the time and we're not able to breast feed her because she will use up too much energy (skin time is where we take her clothes off and she lays on my skin on my chest) and she starting moving her head all around with her mouth open like she was ready to eat. And I told David that I think she's wanting to breast feed! And we had not even attempted this yet because we didn't want to wear her out before her real feeding since my milk had not fully come in yet. So I just let her go for it and it was working! She was getting milk and she wasn't letting go! So the nurses ran and wanted to weigh her really fast to judge how much milk she was actually getting and she had gained 9 grams! That was such an improvement from what we had seen in the last couple of days.

So I'm sending all of my breast milk to the hospital for her because she's been able to digest it so much better and the report from the nurse this morning was that she even finished an entire bottle without the need for the tube! And her temperature is getting better so she might be out of the isolate soon.

We're not sure how close she is to coming home and we can only take it day by day. But we are keeping our fingers crossed that she gets better, gains a ton if weight, and can maybe come home by this weekend.

And as upset as I get every time we have to leave her, I think this might be a way we can get things figured out with Connor at home and then we will know what we're doing when she gets home!

We've had 2 sleepless nights so far, but I'm not complaining! The only thing I hate is that I can't be with Chloe. Connor isn't allowed back up to the nursery, and I'm not allowed to drive yet, so we're having to come up with a plan everyday on how we're going to manage being with Chloe and keeping Connor at home. I hate leaving either one of them so I'm hoping this is almost over.

Here are a few pictures of the together before we left the hospital Monday night. They had only seen each other once before because they were hooked up to monitors.

Every once in a while Connor would open his eyes and just stare at his sister. It was very sweet.

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