They're here!!! Well two weeks ago.

Sorry for the delay in this post, but we've been a little busy!

The girls decided they had enough of the womb and made up their minds to enter this world a little early.

Megan delivered on 8/9/10 (pretty cool birthday). Lily was born at 2lbs 12oz, Emma was 2lbs 6oz and Abby was 2lbs 7oz. For their gestational age of 28weeks 5 days we are told those weights are great.

Everyone came out screaming with nice healthy lungs that needed no ventilation or additional oxygen. They all had CPAPs for about a day and a half and then moved to nasal cannulas, again without additional oxygen. The fact that they didn't need oxygen or any real help breathing is HUGE for preemies. That's one major test we can mark as passed! A huge sigh of relief for Mom and Dad.

The next test was their digestive systems. The doctors and nurses start them out slow 1cc over an hour every hour, then 2cc over an hour etc... This goes one for a little over a week until the were up to 8ccs. Everyone passed that test with flying colors (of course they can eat...I am their Dad after all). Now everyone is on what they call bolus (sp?) feedings, where they get 25ccs over an hour every 3 hours. Everyone is passing that test too!

One concern for preemies is a condition called PDA...basically it's the special valve in the heart that allows the babies to switch from getting Mom's air/blood to using their own lungs. In preemies this valve sometimes doesn't get a chance to close properly prior to needing use. If it's not closed properly they can have a murmur and all sorts of bad stuff, often treated with medicine or surgery. Our girls have all passed that test too. No surgery or medicines. Yay!

Another preemie issue are brain hemorrhages. The check for this is an ultrasound of the head. A small bleed would not be unheard of and probably not a long term problem, a large bleed would be worrisome. Our girls all passed that test too with no bleeds at all!

Emma and Abby are still experiencing the occasional "Brady" spell. This is where the heart rate drops below 80 normally these are all self resolving lasting only a handfull of seconds. This is not uncommon in babies especially preemies. One thought behind it is that since they are little, they are probably having some reflux which hurts a little...then they bear down to ride out the pain and as a result everything slows down. The doctors and nurses are not concerned with this too much as they are trending to having fewer and fewer.

We're hopefull that the girls will be moved over to the feeders/growers room in the next several days. This will be a really big step for them.

I hope we haven't overloaded you with info. We will be posting some pictures once they move over to the feeders/growers section. We are just wanting to keep some of the early pictures off the interwebs, for the time being.

*UPDATE* : Forgot to mention...PICC lines came and went...The End.