Gestational age: 35 weeks, 5 days 

Day of life: 76 

Beckett: 4lb, 7oz 

Juliette: 5lb, 12oz 

 

Beckett has been slowly gaining some of his weight back. He finished his steroid course, which helped weight gain because it was boosting his metabolism. It also helped his mood and we’re glad to see our calm boy back. Beckett weaned off of NAVA and is now on CPAP! They’re hoping they can get him on RAM (like Juliette) soon. 

 

They started Beckett’s stool re-feeds into the lower half of his intestines on Monday and they have been going pretty well so far. He hasn’t passed any stool yet, but when they did the contrast study, they found that there was a ball of stool in his lower intestine that has been there since his first surgery at 6 days old. We imagine that it is hard as a rock after 70 days, so it will take some time to pass. They are going to keep an eye on it and ask Surgery how to proceed if he still hasn’t passed it in a few more days. 

 

Beckett’s reconnection surgery is scheduled for mid-August! This is a huge relief for us to have a date on the calendar and know there’s an end in sight to his ostomy bag. They discovered this morning that he has a hernia, which is pretty common in premies, but another thing that will require surgery to fix. His doctors will ask Surgery whether this can be fixed during his reconnection operation or whether it needs to be a separate procedure. In the meantime, he just needs to keep gaining weight and stay healthy. 

 

The twins had another echocardiogram done this week and the pulmonary hypertension was gone! We definitely weren’t expecting it to resolve so quickly, but were very relieved. They will stay on the diuretic for now and they’ll have a follow up echo done in a few weeks. 

 

Their ROP exams were a little better this week, with Beckett’s numbers staying the same but his eyes looking a little better in general and Juliette’s numbers improving. They are both still getting extra oxygen to help their eyes develop in a healthy way. 

 

On Wednesday morning, they told us that Juliette was the healthiest baby in Bay 2/Bay 3 and that they would need to move her to Level 6 of the Children’s Hospital in order to make room for babies that needed more support. While it was great to hear that our little girl is doing so well, it also meant that the twins would be separated again, but this time into different buildings. It was a really emotional day because it felt like they just got the twins back together again. They moved Juliette into a twin room in hopes that Beckett could join her soon, but since they’re so tight on space, we have to share the room with another family. They are hoping they’ll be able to put us in different rooms this weekend. 

 

Showing off how big she’s getting, Juliette moved from her isolette into a crib this morning! Now that she’s in a crib and on RAM, Dan and I can get her in and out without nurse assistance. This provides a little normalcy and helps us feel like we’re parents instead of visitors. She also moved onto oral feeding stage 2 of 4 and gets more attempts per day of breast and bottle feeding. Fingers crossed that we can get this big girl reunited with her brother soon!