quickie (again)

Parker's god parents are down. Today was a busy but good day. Will try and write more tomorrow, but something was just added to my plate which is going to keep me hopping through Monday.

Overall girls are doing well. Emma Jane is still running high on her blood pressure. They have put her on a medicine which she'll be getting twice a day until...well until the good Lord deems fit to lower her blood pressure naturally. (hopefully only a couple of years.)

Will talk more later.

blessings.

"4 pounds 10 ounces" or "The four letter H-Word"

Yeah, so here's a fun game....this picture is Parker...and this one is Emma Jane. They look different, but bundled up with hats on they also look a bit alike.

They have started bantering around the four lettered h-word. Nothing specific as of yet, but I went through the infant CPR class the other day and both Mary Jane and I had to watch some videos. One was on car seat safety and the other was on "never shake a baby". Today the girls had their "car seat test". They had to stay in their car seat for an hour and not have any de-sats. They passed with flying colors. One more hurdle down. Now if the blood pressure thing would just magically sort itself out.

"Weight" till Thursday.

Well, Emma Jane has yet to get her first dose of blood pressure medication. They wrote an order to give it to her if her blood pressure went over 120. And...like magic she was going up to 117 (still way to high) but not going over 120. Then they decided to write the order for if it goes over 110 and...she shot down to 107ish. It reminds me of when I was little. When I was a kid I almost got glasses. My vision wasn't so hot and they said next time they checked me they would probably need to get me glasses, and the next time they saw me...didn't need glasses. Then there was the time they were going to take my tonsils out. I was getting tonsillitis all the time and the next time I got sick they were going to remove my tonsils...and I stopped getting sick (for a while...these days I get tonsillitis all the time and Mary Jane wants me to get my tonsils out). I guess Emma Jane is just taking after her dad. For now....
Of course Emma Jane looked like this all day, and her blood pressure was only barely under the medication stage, so there is a good chance we'll be all medicated as soon as she wakes up. Meanwhile Parker looked like this all day:

Which I think was her way of saying: Medication? What's medication? I want some medication! Why can't I have medication? I'll raise my blood pressure....watch! Where's my pacifier? Where are you? Who are you? Want to see me poop? Hey what's that? Can I hold it? Can I touch it? Does it go in my mouth? Does it go in yours? Want to change my diaper? Can I help? How about that medication? Pick me up. Put me down.....

After a couple day self imposed sabbatical, dad was back to holding kiddos. Seeking to make up for lost time he went for two at a time.

You remember the old Charlie Brown book "Happiness is"?

Happiness is...two babies asleep on your chest.

If it’s not one thing…it’s high blood pressure

Emma Jane has high blood pressure. This is something we have been watching for a little while now. When the doctors first brought it up they joked that if it was Parker they would probably chalk it up to Parker being…well…Parker, but it’s Emma Jane, and it’s high even when she’s fast asleep. So the doctors have been doing all sorts of tests and stuff on her. They did another heart echo, and her heart looks fine. They did a full renal workup and found her kidneys to be fine. What it all comes down to is Emma Jane has hypertension due Chronic Lung Disease. As I mentioned a while ago (at least I think I did) the girls were on oxygen long enough to officially be diagnosed with Chronic Lung Disease. At the time I said we had no idea what that meant/would mean. We still don’t, but we may have just found the first symptom of that. For some reason that the doctors admit they can’t really explain, there is some type of link between hypertension in preemies and Chronic Lung Disease. Emma Jane is going to be trying out blood pressure medications over the next couple of days to find one that works well for her. She could be on it for days, weeks, months, years, or even the rest of her life. The chances are good she’ll be on it for somewhere in the years category. This isn’t great, but it’s nothing to fall apart over. Hey, at least now she has something in common with my dad, Mary Jane’s mom and dad, and just about all of the baby-boomers out there.
You go girl.

Parker on top and Emma Jane on the bottom

So there.

Not going to say a lot tonight. Kind of out of it from cold.
Will write more tomorrow.
Likely there will be more to say.

cough...sniffle...wheeze...hack

Alas...as those of you at Salem this morning most likely ascertained, I have a cold. At the time of this writing my voice is gone. Of course this means that I have had to go into a sort of self imposed exile. I have seen little of the girls and held them not at all the last two days. Which is killing me. It's funny, ten weeks ago I had never held either of them and now I can not conceive of life without spending quality time with them every day. It's like when I got married. One day I went home at the end of every night, and the next I shared my entire life, every moment, with Mary Jane. And within a week I couldn't remember what it was like to not share it with her.

Speaking of Mary Jane, here are some photos of her with Emma Jane

Don't worry...it's a love punch.

Mary Jane really doesn't like it when I take her picture. Here she was giving me the...enough with the camera look.

But then she got nappy...so I to have more fun.

You guys did pretty good with yesterday's quiz. Parker was on the right of the picture, Emma Jane was on the left. All that said here is another quiz. Here are two separate pictures of the girls. Which is which?

What Now?

Someone asked me recently, "What can I be praying for now, specifically" (I've already mentioned Camryn...keep her in your prayers).
As far as the girls go, the big thing they are working on right now is figuring how to eat on their own (so they don't need the NG tube) and how to gain weight from that. Sounds simple enough, I know. You figure...eating = gaining weight but sometimes it ain't so simple (Akersons...another shout out to you). I'm oversimplifying things, but when the girls are given food through the NG tube it is fortified with extra calories. When they get it straight from mom, well....it isn't. They need to learn how to take enough during feeds and then use that to grow big and fat. This last week they have been working on eating on their own more and more. They're learning, they're getting better, but their growth has slowed down because of it, and they are not where they need to be yet.


Emma Jane snoozing on dad. She stayed like that for three hours yesterday. I got there at 9:00 Friday morning, planning on giving them their 9:00 feed via bottle. There is a learning curve here for me too, I need to learn how to feed them via bottle. Again you would think that would be obvious, but many times babies have an adjustment period you have to help them through even when they are born full term. The girls, being so early, have more trouble with it. Actually they are learning quickly I am told, the nurses are pretty impressed with how they are doing, but they still need to be reminded sometimes to either a) swallow (when they don't things get very drooly messy very quick b) breath (when they don't things get very blue very quick) and/or c) suck (when they don't things get very nowhere very quick). So I got there in time to do the 9:00 feed and the little stinkers refused to wake up. They didn't stir at all when we changed their diapers. When we fussed with them they didn't bat an eye. Eventually we were forced to give up and send the feed down through their NG tube. I decided to hold Emma Jane while her feed went down. I put her on my chest and got the only signs of life I saw from her that morning. She nuzzled around a little like a little dog working it's way into its favorite spot. She got comfortable and was back in the land of nod, not to stir again, at all, even with all the commotion of decorating the room and being excited for Mary Jane, until it came time to change her diaper and stuff for the 12:00 feed.

Parker examining the world in one of her rare, calm, and contemplative moments. It's funny. We had some visitors yesterday, and Parker was calm and quiet through their entire visit. It was like she was trying to prove me a liar in front of them.

We stuck the girls together just for fun. Okay...quiz time. Who is who? I will reveal later. What do people think?