Gap

We’ve been working on projects the last few days and there hasn’t been a lot to report on the girls. These are things that may keep us from having a truly daily update schedule on this blog. See Extra Bits below for information on staying up to date.

Elizabeth’s Gut Issues

We’ve had some more issues with Elizabeth. A couple of times over the last few days she’s had more blood in her stool. They’ve done more X-rays and there still doesn’t seem to be anything concerning. They’re hoping there’s still some of the proteins from her last issue. Out of an abundance of caution they’ve switched her to an even more “elemental” formula so that she still gets to eat and practice sucking but should be softer on her stomach. The product that they’re using now is neocate.

We’re still working with her because she seems to be doing really well with everything except with the blood. She’s even having fewer emesis (spit-up) and brady issues than Aspen.

Aspen

The biggest thing that we’ve observed with Aspen is that she is very sensitive to position. If she’s not sitting right her O₂ levels and heart rates will drop. We need her to outgrow those.

Here she is working with Momma on her binkie trainer.

Assistance

We’ve had a chance to talk with a social worker about what our options are. As you can imagine, even with insurance through my employer, two girls staying this long in the NICU is going to be very expensive. It turns out that we can qualify for some assistance, including WIC, if their stay exceeds 30 days. This Thursday (July 2) will be three weeks and according to the doctors and nurses we’ll easily exceed those 30 days. Sam’s birthday is July 10 and 30 days will be July 11, so we’re hoping they can come home as a belated birthday gift for her!

Pictures!

Extra Bits

I’ve added some other new stuff. Specifically, I’m going to be using MailChimp as a notification system. At 8 PM PT every day, if there’s been a new post, an email will be sent to anyone that is subscribed. The form is below.

There should also be an automatic post to Facebook, but I don’t actually know yet what that is going to look like.

I appreciate everyone reading these. As I’ve said before, we do like knowing that these are getting read.