Hard to believe it’s already been 32 days since our girls were born.  It’s also hard to believe that I’ve been in the hospital 65 days and have only left 3 times for less than 2 hours a piece.  I spent Halloween and Thanksgiving here and am really hoping we won’t be spending Christmas or New Years here.  Just a couple days ago (December 10th) was the one year Anniversary of the day we found out our first baby no longer had a heartbeat at 12 weeks gestation.  What a difference a year makes!

The girls have been doing really well since Grace has gotten better.  She seems to have mostly caught up with her sisters.  The doctors and nurses joke about how if you’ve seen one of them you’ve seen them all because they’re so similar in all regards.  They often have similar temperatures and similar test results.  The last week or so we’ve really been trying to get them growing and eating.  The growing part is going great!!!  They are gaining about 30-60 grams per night each and are up to 4 lbs 14 oz for Lily, 4 lbs 14.1 oz for Anaia, and 4 lbs 12.3 oz for Grace.  The eating part has been going a little slow.  We’ve been working on breast feeding and bottle feeding and they seem to be starting to get it but they’re just so tired all the time and get worn out so fast.  Today they tested the girls for Anemia since they were put back on oxygen and discovered they’re all anemic.  That explains why they’re so tired.  The doctor started them on 10 days of epogen shots which should help their red blood cell count and give them some more energy but…. that means we’ll be here at least another 10 days which puts us right before Christmas.  In order to go home the girls have to:

1. Take all feeds by breast or bottle and be growing – they’re growing but still have a NG tube for feeding while they learn to suck/swallow/breathe
2. Keep normal temperatures while sleeping in an open crib – they’re already doing this
3. Have no episodes of apnea (temporarily stops breathing ) and bradycardia (slow heart rate) for 5 days – they do have some A’s and B’s but we’re told that it could be because they’re anemic.  Hopefully the Epogen shots help and they can pass this after their first few days of shots
4. For babies needing oxygen, pass a room air challenge which is being on room air for a few hours with no intervention.  It’s to make sure they would be okay at home if their oxygen ran out or they pulled it out in the middle of the night or something like that
5. Pass a car seat challenge to show they can sit in a car seat long enough to get home and go places without have any breathing or heart rate issues

It still seems like so many obstacles in our way of taking the girls home but we’ll get there… Hopefully soon.

I’m including a few more images from our birth photographer Crowned Photography.  These were taken at 3 weeks old when we were finally able to hold all 3 girls together.

Laura of Crowned Photography asked me to place my hand on the outside head on my side (Anaia) and Alvin to place his hand on the head on the other end (Lily).  After a minute, Alvin moved his hand to Grace’s head in the middle and said he didn’t want her to feel left out.  Awwww… he’s so sweet

After the girls were all laying together for a couple minutes, Grace (middle) and Anaia (right) held hands.  Precious is all I can say.