Gestational age: 36 weeks, 5 days 

Day of life: 83 

Beckett: 5lb, 0oz 

Juliette: 6lb, 4oz 

 

Beckett made it to RAM! Babies can’t move over to the NICU in the children’s hospital unless they are on RAM, so he’s making good progress, but they need to wean him to a lower level to make sure that he’s stable enough and won’t need to switch back to CPAP. We are crossing our fingers for next week! Our roommates got their own single room last weekend, so Juliette has been holding down the fort in our twin room, waiting for brother to come. 

 

On Friday, Beckett was upset enough during one of his cares that his nurse gave him some Ativan. He typically gets pretty mad during the start of his cares when he needs to be woken up and messed with, but calms down eventually with his pacifier. This time, it took a lot longer to calm him down so they gave him a little help. She saw in his chart that they discovered the large stool ball in his contrast study and he still hadn’t passed anything. Dan and I have brought this up several times to see if it was a concern, but his care team was confident that it would pass, eventually. However, with what seemed to be his increasing discomfort, they ordered a glycerin enema and he passed some of it right away! While he was still a little cranky with being woken up during cares today, it was more fuss and less screaming, which felt like an improvement. 

 

We’ve been talking a lot about all the things he could be uncomfortable from: feeling constipated for 70+ days, having a prolapsed ostomy, not getting enough food to really feel full, and being poked and prodded all the time. We’re hoping that moving things through will provide some relief and his surgery this month will help with everything else. 

 

Both twins’ eyes stayed the same from last week’s ROP exam. We have been told to prepare for Juliette getting discharged before Beckett, and for her to go home on oxygen for her eyes. They haven’t given a date yet, but they said once she gets the go-ahead from her regular team, it will be the eye doctor’s decision and it will just be a Wednesday to Wednesday waiting game depending on her eye exam results. Her care team has been really happy with how she’s doing - she switched from RAM to a regular nasal cannula with oxygen and no pressure (which she could go home on), and is on phase 3 of oral feeds, really close to moving to phase 4, which is a bottle or breastfeed attempt at every feed! 

 

The only thing that happened with Juliette last week was a blood test that showed her neutrophils were low. Neutrophils are a white blood cell that help your immune system and fight off infection. She got an IV dose of immunoglobulin to try and boost her immune system, which brought her neutrophils back up a little. They said this can be common with premies, but they’re not sure why her levels were lower than they have ever been, so they’re going to keep an eye on it. A good reminder that babies can have poor or compromised immune systems and to wash your hands and avoid kissing them!