Week 7

I'm a little late to post this week, a fair bit has been going on in the Jack and Ella show..

Jack decided this week he was going to starting piling on the pounds - last week he weighed in at 1.306kg, as at Sunday he is now 1.532 kg.  This is a pretty significant milestone, we can now even bath him in a normal baby bath.  First bath pics below;



OK not quite a normal bath what with the tubes and
 everything but hey we'll take it.







If Jack could talk, I'm pretty sure he'd say "What the...?!?"






















I managed to get a quick photo of Jack as they were weighing him without all the tube etc sticking out of his nose...

I'm told he looks like me - what a good looking boy! :)

Not to be outdone, Ella firstly practiced her whistling;

'phwee  phwee phweeee - we will we will ROCK YOU!'

and then proceeded to breath completely unassisted, so no tubes for her.  Ella has been at this point once before as a trial but this time it's been nearly 48 hours and still no issue so she's doing great.  Ella has also put on some weight - less than Jack as they continue their habit of first one, then the other putting on lots of weight - but still a good showing, she is now 1.428kg, just slightly under that 1.5kg milestone.

It's an amazing feeling being able to look at our little girl without (nearly) all the tubes.  The only one she hs now is the feeding tube. They are both having less of those events that make all the monitors go 'bing' and although the progress seems slow, it's amazing when we look back at how much they improve each week.

Week 6

Hi again all,

Well Ella has begun putting weight back on - in fact she now weighs more than Jack!!  She weighed in today at 1.346kg so good gain..  Jack was put on diuretics for bloating so a more modest gain, he is now 1.306kg.  They are both steadily improving and each day we are a little closer to our goal of having two happy healthy babies to take home - still a couple of months away at this point, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Jessie, Jack and Ella's Aunty Stacey has come down from Brisbane for a week to visit and as last week with Grandma we timed it really well and she was able to have a cuddle with both Jack and Ella!

I thought I would upload a few videos this week,

Ella's bath by Mummy

Jack sucking on his dummy

Ella being weighed

Week 5

Hi again.  I guess slightly less has happened this week, Jack and Ella seem to settling into more of a routine.  Ella's feeds are up to 8ml per hour, Jack is on 7ml per hour.  Even with this, Jack is chunking on the weight - it's fairly obvious even looking at him.  He is now up to 1.294 kg and putting on around 25-30 grams per day.  Ella on the other hand has lost nearly 50 grams over the past week, back down to 1.111 kg.  They're not sure why at this stage, she has no temperature/infection, she's feeding well and her digestion seems perfect.  Mind you she does umm... move her bowels very frequently so maybe this contributes to the weight loss.  I'm sure we'll find out in the coming days.

Ella has actually progressed from CPAP, she was breathing completely unassisted for around 24 hours and then put back on HHFNC (Humidified High Flow Nasal Cannula) which is considered a lesser form of assistance (and far less obvious as you'll see in the below photos.  Grandma came down from Brisbane to see her grandbabies in person for the first time and timed it perfectly as on the day she arrived, both Jack and Ella were having a really good day and were able to have first cuddles with both their big sister and their Grandma.  It was a good day!

We have almost finished their room (spare bed in there at the moment for Grandma)



Grandma with Ella - note the nasal Cannula



Grandma, Jessie and Jack

Jessie with her little sister Ella

And with her little brother Jack

I thought I would include a few comparison shots below;



Jack Day 2







Jack day 37



Ella day 2

Ella day 37



Jack on CPAP

Ella on HHFNC

Week 4

Hi Again.  Every week I think that not much will happen the following week but every week they surprise me!

At the start of the week, the doctors told us that Jack may have a partially collapsed lung - not quite so drastic as it sounds and far less of a problem than it would be for an adult.  Still, he needs some assistance with breathing at the moment - they will keep him on CPAP though as going back to a vent tube would be a big backward step - they want him to work hard!  Over the course of the week he has got steadily better and even though he is still not as stable as Ella, he's still doing pretty well.

They did their echo cardiogram to check for a PDA - this is the hole in the heart that all unborn babies have and they want to make sure this closes by itself in prematures - sometimes they need medication or even surgery.  They in fact only had to do the echo on Ella as they could actually hear that Jacks PDA had already closed!  The one thing he is beating his sister at!  Ella still has a small-moderate PDA that they expect will close by itself.

Ella Graduated to the slightly less intensive care room on Tuesday - this was a pretty big thing for us.  This means that she is fairly stable and doesn't need to be in the highest care category.  She continues to put on weight and is now up to 1.112 kg.

Then I finally got to hold Jack on Wednesday which was pretty amazing.  Every time we have gone to hold him, he has 'played up' so it was fantastic to hold him like that. 

My Boy

Relaxed!

He obviously liked it as Anthea got to hold him the next day.  There's something to be said for kangaroo care as it's called - that afternoon Jack graduated to the same room Ella was in.  For the first time we had our babies together!  Jack also made it past the kilo mark, coming in at 1.055 kg.



Our three Angels togather at last!  Ella on the left, then Jessie in the middle and Jack on the right

















They did the 4 week head scan (ultrasound) to check for bleeds etc and both babies still have no bleeds - brilliant news!  Jack has a mild case of what they call 'ventricular asymmetry' which I'm told by itself is not clinically significant but they will keep an eye on it.

More photos below;

Ella close up

Ella's label

Ella looking cute

Jack just hanging out and chillin'



Jack's label



New Years and counting!!

You will have noticed I am only updating weekly now - this is due to a number of things - mainly that they are not as up and down as they were in the first couple of weeks, a great thing!

Having said that, we had a number of firsts since Xmas.  Jack's infection has cleared up and then on the 31st he was put onto CPAP and his breathing tube taken out.  This is a good step forward for him - Ella has been only on CPAP since birth so he has some catching up to do.  You'll see the difference in the pics below - yes I know the CPAP looks bigger and bulkier but it is good to see!

Jack with his breathing tube (before)

Jack on CPAP (after)

Another major milestone and one that I was pretty happy with, is I got to hold my little girl for the first time.  You can barely see her underneath all the blankets/tubes etc but I can tell you it felt fantastic.  Looking at them both now, at a little over 3 weeks old (or almost 29 weeks gestation if you look at it that way!) they have come a long way from the tiny little wrinkly babies that came into our world back on the 10th December.  Any parent that has had preemies will tell you that these first few weeks seem to both drag as slow as can be, but also seem to have flown by when you look back.

Jack still isn't quite ready for a cuddle - every time we think it's going to happen he plays up a bit and we need to put it off again for another day!  I think that's karma from all the times I didn't want a hug from my mum!

Finally first daddy cuddles!

Probably the most exciting thing that happen this week is Ella made it past the 1kg mark!!!!  They were trading the lead over the last week or so, first Jack would be ahead, then Ella.   Two days ago, Ella took the lead on 966grams, Jack was at 948grams so we knew one of them would get across the line fairly quickly.  Ella obviously decided she wanted to win so put on a huge 91 grams in 2 days to weigh in at a massive 1.057 kilos.  Jack wasn't too far off the mark, coming in just under the mark at 994 grams - another day or so and he'll join his sister.  The photo below show's Ella's fantastic figures at the weigh-in (note the weight on the scales needs to have all the bits and pieces attached to her taken off the final figure).

Woohoo over the kilo mark!

Ella's weight may have been helped by her first transfiusion which happened yesterday - she was looking a bit pale so they thought they better give her a top up - 15 ml's to be precise.  Ella does really well being handled, poked, prodded, turned, moved, suctioned and all the other indignities which happen to them daily, today she was even breathing without assistance for some time while her normal cares were going on with no drama's.  Jack is probably about 1-2 weeks behind Ella in terms of development, but we'll leave him to progress at his own pace (and Ella can use this against him in their 21st speeches!)  As of right now they both have slightly elevated temperatures (as in 0.2 degrees celsius elevated) so they're being monitored fairly closely - I reiterate again what amazing care they are receiving!