Gestational age: 31 weeks, 3 days 

Day of life: 46 

Beckett: 3lb, 8oz 

Juliette: 3lb, 14oz 

 

On Tuesday morning before we left for the hospital, the nurse practitioner called and let us know that Beckett’s stoma (the part of his intestines that stick out through his ostomy) had prolapsed and that they were trying to pour sugar on it to get it to go back in because apparently that is a thing. She also said that Juliette had lost her IV but they were able to give her the last dose of antibiotic as a shot instead of placing a new one, which we were thankful for. 

 

When we got to the hospital, Beckett’s stoma looked a lot worse than we were expecting. About two inches of his intestines were out and sitting on his abdomen. They were using cafeteria sugar packets on the area, which seemed bizarre and also didn’t seem to be working. They let us know that an area of the prolapse looked purple, which indicated that it might need to be removed because the tissue didn’t look healthy. Soon, the room was filled with people making plans for surgery. Prior to surgery he needed to be re-intubated because he would be getting pain medication and a paralytic and wouldn’t be able to breath on his own. The paralytic made sure he wasn’t able to move during the surgery. Seeing him go through intubation again and then be so out of it and limp was incredibly hard. 

 

Within a couple hours he was being wheeled out to go to the operating room. Dan and I realized that he was twice the size from his last surgery, which gave us some comfort knowing he is a lot bigger and stronger than when he was at 6 days old. 

 

Since Beckett would be going to Bay 1 to recover, they moved Juliette into his room and out of her curtained room. The surgery only took about 45 minutes, but he was gone for a few hours with all the prep work and transport time. We heard from his surgeons that everything went well and he handled the surgery great, but they had to remove 8cm of intestine. They removed 7cm during the first surgery and we’re waiting to talk to the GI doctors about whether this will have any impact on absorbing nutrients and if there will be any long-term impacts. Beckett will have to pause on milk for a while and will have to restart again slowly when he’s in better shape. We asked about what could have caused the prolapse and they said it can just happen with babies who have ostomies because pressure can be put on the stoma as they grow, especially considering he was so small for the first surgery. Beckett spent the rest of the day pretty out of it, with little twitches here and there as he slowly came out of the anesthesia and paralytic. We left the hospital feeling sick with exhaustion and tried to go to bed early. 

 

Wednesday had been a day we’ve been dreading because it was the twins’ first eye exam. We thought they might let Beckett sit this one out, but apparently they very rarely let babies skip eye exams. We at least had some comfort that he would be on pain medication and that might work in his favor. Several doctors and nurses had told us the previous week that they suggest parents leave the room during eye exams because it can be gruesome to watch and babies don’t tolerate it very well. After getting their eyes dilated, the eye doctors pry open babies’ eyes using a tool similar to what they use during a LASIK surgery and examine them for Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). This can be common in premies due to immature eyes and the use of oxygen in ventilators. There are 5 stages and the lower stages are treatable with oxygen therapy (ironic), but the higher stages are more concerning and can lead to vision loss and/or retinal detachment. Luckily, both babies had stage 0 which is the best case scenario, but since their eyes are so immature they need weekly eye exams because their eyes can still change. 

 

Today, Beckett was able to move back to Bay 2, but unfortunately is farther away from Juliette than he was initially and got moved into a curtained room. We’ve heard they’re going to try and move them closer together, but we’re not sure when that will happen. They are hoping to extubate Beckett tomorrow when he’s less reliant on pain medication. So far, he’s been doing pretty well with recovery.  

 

One good piece of news is that Juliette has reached a weight where they can try turning her isolette to air temperature instead of bed temperature, which means that her bed isn’t warming her and the air is slightly heated instead. This makes her work a little harder to keep herself warm and is a step towards getting a crib. This also means that she can start wearing clothes!