Hospitals & Weddings

Yesterday we went over to the hospital "early" to visit the girls.  Dr. Kinstra told us Hazel had several apnea episodes during the night, so they increased her oxygen from 3 liters to 4 liters, and were also going to test her caffeine level to see if it could be upped.  If neither of those options work, the doc may put her back on the CPAP for awhile.  When asked, Dr. Kinstra said the apneas could either be from weak muscles (ie, chest not ready to support breathing) or developmental brain function (ie, her brain hasn't yet figured out she is supposed to breath regularly, since in the womb it wouldn't be an issue), but in practice it doesn't really matter what the reason is (although she figures it is probably a combination of both).  The doctor said this was pretty common, though, and normally it resolves itself around 34 weeks (although she also cautioned that babies don't always "read the book").   H also probably has a blocked tear duct (not surprisingly, they are really small at H's age), so they'll keep an eye on that (haha), and massage it at every feeding to help clear that up. Other than that, though, Dr. Kinstra was pleased with Hazel's progress and activity, and told us that she definitely has noticed H's personality, saying H whacked her (the doctor) with some of her tubes earlier in the day.  Hazel also gets 23 ml per feeding, and overall doesn't have much residue, which is good, too.

Abby is also doing well.  She seems to be tolerating the cannula pretty well, and her feedings have increased to 22 ml per, which is awesome (especially considering about a week ago she was 3 to 6 milliliters behind her sister).  She had several apnea episodes too, but nothing to worry about.

So Matt held Hazel again, and I held Abby, since I didn't get to hold her on Saturday.  Pictures of them after being put back down:

Hazel:

Abby:

During the kangaroo care, Matt sang "99 Bottles of Milk on the Wall" to Hazel while I provided commentary about it to Abby.  At various points in the song, when Matt got to an interesting number, he'd stop and explain why the number was important.  Several of his stops involved the calibration of ammunition for various weapons ... and if either of the girls becomes interested in that later, my cousin Matthew is going to flip for joy.  ;)

Afterwards, we drove home (me, for the first time in two weeks - finally off meds!), got changed, and headed down to Kyle, Texas for Tim & Rebecca's wedding.  The wedding was beautiful, Rebecca looked awesome, Tim was having fun, and we had a good time chatting with several bunches of friends.  Overall, I was much more comfortable at the wedding than I had been at the rehearsal dinner.  It probably helped that Matt and I talked about what our response would be on Saturday (after the dinner) AND that most of the people we spoke to at the wedding were people that actually cared what our response was to the "how are the twins doing" question.

And, as a side note, the rehearsal dinner and the wedding were the first time I wore my wedding and engagement rings in about a month.  They were still a bit tight, but it felt nice to wear them again.  I also wore heels to both events, and that was a first since I think December.  Surprisingly, no problems at all there - and we ended up standing for the entire wedding portion (30 min) since we arrived a bit late (and didn't want to sit in the sun, since it was pretty hot).