Day 42: Lent

For all of you Catholics out there, we've just begun our second "Lent" in the NICU.  I've been trying to figure out how to correlate both the time spent and time remaining to something realistic.  All I could come up with is Lent.  But, it does fit.  Since we're aiming for a home date of mid-January, I'm separating the time into two 'Lents.'  40 days and 40 nights - times 2.  I'm not going to get biblical because frankly, that's just not me.  In fact, I had to actually look up the biblical meaning of Lent - everything aside from the fasting, and the time leading up to the Easter.  So, sure if you looked up the definition of Lent (and I'll leave that for you to do in your leisure), you'd very easily be able to find parallels between our NICU journey and that Season.

Although it has not yet been made official with a sign, Aiden is now a member of the 3 Pound Club, weighing in at 3lbs. 1oz. as of last night.  He had a tough day though.  Tuesday is blood work day for the boys and Aiden's CO2 levels (again) were on the high end.  He also had some more frequent de-saturations this morning, requiring higher concentrations of O2 and so it was time for another blood transfusion.  See, all of these things work together - the immature lungs not able to fully open and close without assistance, the blood not able to carry O2 to the lungs as efficiently and effectively as a larger baby's could, and it results in less than stable O2 levels.  He's also been clamping down again, as he did the other day when he kangarooed with me.  He was given some Lasiks today, along with the blood to get rid of the excess fluid.  His vitals improved over the afternoon and when I visited after work today, he was resting comfortably.  His chest x-ray from 10 days ago compared to today's shows monumental improvement.

Jackson is still holding steady at 2lbs. 13oz. doing well on the CPAP and with his feeds.  He has a couple spells each day where he forgets to breathe, and his O2 levels, and sometimes heart rate will drop, but he then catches himself and resumes breathing.  These are the apnea spells I was talking about the other day, and are completely normal, albeit, slightly scary.  Since the boys are 32 weeks today, their O2 saturation levels are expected to be higher, so the monitor's alarms were adjusted today.  There was more dinging than normal today because of this, but the boys will grow into these higher settings.

Real time update here on the weights.  Called the NICU while writing this and found out that Aiden is now 3lbs. 4oz and Jackson is 3lbs. exactly.  Some of Aiden's is fluid though.

Dad's tired, and there's not much more to tell, so I'll leave you with that.  There will be no update tomorrow, as it is mom and dad's anniversary!

Pictures below:

Below:  All Aiden

Below: All Jackson