Met with the doctor last night

We didn't get home from the hospital until 9pm last night and I had so much to do to get Skylar's things ready for his first day of school that I didn't have time to write until now.

The boys nurse called yesterday and said that Dr. Brown was there today and not again until Friday, but only during the day. We were due for our next meeting at the end of this week so my mom agreed to watch the big kids while Ian and I went to the hospital. The talk went really well. He's very happy with their progress. He was off for 5 days and he said he was shocked to come back and see them off oxygen and doing so well with oral feedings. They've been gaining the proper amount of weight and their heads are growing appropriately (about 1cm per week. anything between .5 and 2cm per week is considered average)

Over the next week, his plans are to have their feeding tubes come out and to stop their zantac. He's hoping that once the feeding tubes come out, they'll not have as much reflux since the opening to the stomach will be able to fully close. He also hopes to have them both in open cribs in about a week and a half but he said that they probably won't go home after 24 hours. He's planning on having them in open cribs for a few days just to make sure they're most importantly, maintaining their temperature, but also still gaining weight.

He wants them to come home on as little medicine as possible so he also plans to stop the diurell and potassium. They're already on small doses for their size but he doesn't want to stop all of the meds at once. They'll definitely come home on the poly vi sol (smelly vitamins) but his goal is for that to be it.

Dr. Brown also estimates them to be developmentally about 4-5 days apart right now and we may have to make a decision to bring them home at separate times or keep one in for a few extra days so that we can bring them home together.

Tonight, my mom and I will be taking our infant cpr class so parents and grandparents will have done everything to allow them to come home.

So, onto their progress. Yesterday, Riley was 2lbs. 15.7oz. As of this morning, he's 3lb.s 1oz.!!!! He hasn't been too interested in his bottles but that's ok.

Addison weighed 3lbs. 14.8oz. as of this morning. He's been taking all of his bottles. The doctor on this morning wrote orders for Addison to move down to the 24 calorie fortifier. They both will be weaned down to regular breastmilk before coming home. They're going to keep Riley on the 26 calories for now.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot. I was exhausted last night and was not planning on meeting with the doctor and things have kind of been pushed to the back of my mind due to trying to get all of Skylar's stuff in order for school. I thought it might be nice to share a picture of Skylar from this morning. He's very proud and excited to be a 2nd grader :)