Rough and exciing few days.

There has been some changes the last few days. Sorry I haven't been able to post. We have been at the hospital most of the last 2 days and then come home exhausted at night, so not much time for the computer. Since their arrival the girls have been doing everything together, until recently.

On Thursday morning the doctor called me and informed me that Caroline had changed and appeared sick. That morning when the nurse arrived she noticed that she was lethargic, having periods of apnea (not breathing), bradycardia (slow heart rate) and looked pale. She notified the doctors right away and they did blood tests, x-ray and started on antibiotics immediately. When we got there she still looked puny, but she started perking up shortly after finishing her 2nd antibiotic. Her heart rate improved and her apnea stopped. They also gave her some extra IV fluids, so that helped too. Initially the doctor was worried about a spot on her abdominal x-ray that looked like it could have infection so they stopped her feedings and put a drainage tube in to decompress it. When they rechecked her next x-ray it had improved and there were no signs of infection on the x-ray. There were signs of infection by her behavior and in her blood so they kept her on the antibiotics. Thank God the nurse caught it right away and they are so aggressive because as of yesterday it was confirmed she has a bacteria in her blood stream that is very dangerous. It could have been worse. The doctors were surprised that her blood culture came back positive for the type of bacteria it was (prob ecoli or clostridium). They said it is not common for preemies her age. Now that they have isolated a specific type of bacteria they changed her antibiotic to one that is made to fight that specific type of bacteria. She has stayed strong and did not require any changes in her oxygen and is still just on a little bit (1liter at 21%). We let her rest all day Thursday. Yesterday they had to do a puncture in her back to take out some of her CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) to make sure it did not spread there. We should get some of the results today. They did cultures of that too, but those take a couple of days to fully come back. She was fussy after the procedure yesterday, probably hungry and tired of all the pokes so we got to hold her for a long time and she slept and slept. Hopefully they will restart her feedings today, since she did well throughout the night. They don't know how she got the infection, but she has had a lot of IVs since being there or she could have gotten during birth. They will have to watch Juliette to make sure she does not get sick. This is something I knew could happen, but hoped it wouldn't. It could have been worse though. Multiple people have told me you have to be prepared for them to take 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards while in the NICU.

As for Juliette she has made tons of progress. She is completely off of her oxygen and IV fluids and her feedings are up to 32cc. They still have her on the monitor and are watching her closely to make sure she does not get sick, but she hasn't showed any signs. Yesterday she was being super wiggly and the nurse found her in her warmer turned sideways with her arms over her head and legs hanging off the side sleeping away. She said she looked quite comfy. While I held Caroline Randall and the nurse gave Juliette a bath. It was so funny, she didn't like the scrubing of the body, but she like the hair washing, don't we all! The nurse put a preemie outfit on her and she looked so cute. It fits her perfect. We didn't have our camera, but the nurse took a couple of pics with her camera and is going to have them printed for us. She was very relaxed after all that excitement and slept the rest of the day and night.

Now we are just waiting for Caroline to get better and catch up with her. As of yesterday Caroline weighed 3lb 14oz and Juliette 3lb 12oz. They are both 17 inches long as of Monday. They are so beautiful and amazing, I sometimes still can't believe they belong to us. We are so blessed. I will try to post an update tonight or tomorrow if I can. Please pray that Caroline gets better , Juliette stays healthy and we don't have any more problems. I was a mess on Thursday until I saw Caroline look at me and start moving around. She looked at me with this "I'm going to be okay, mommy" look and I immediately felt better. Thanks for all the support and prayers. Oh yeah, there are a couple of new pics at the bottom of the page.