Hi all..

Long time no post. Sorry for the lag, my trip back to Vancouver last week was a bit all consuming. Quite bizarre being home in October when we last left our house in August. Pool still had toys everywhere, Sam's bed still not made from when we got up that morning on Aug 30th, fully expecting to come home that afternoon. Anyway.. back in Edmonton now.

Monday last week was not so good (the day I left for Vancouver). Madeleine and Dillon had just been re-intubated on the Saturday, and Madeleine starting having problems Monday. She was "DESATing" and "BRADing" every hour most of the day. A DESAT is when her blood oxygen levels drop below 70% (90% is norm), and a BRAD is when her heart rate drops below 100 (normal is 160).

By Monday evening she was BRADing every 15 minutes. (once a day is not really good). The doctors were getting concerned and were troubleshooting with us. They told us they would try a blood transfusion first, then if that did not work by Tuesday morning, they would do a complete blood analysis, including a lumbar puncture, where they draw spinal fluid out from a needle in her spine. They wanted to check for Meningitis, as they could not figure out what was wrong with her. This was particularly devastating, as earlier that day, the parents of the baby next to us in the ICU (Harrison), had been told that Harrison would not make it due to having contracted Meningitis. Harrison had been in the ICU with us from the beginning, and was a week older than our twins.

So we went to sleep on Monday night fearing the worst. Thankfully, the blood transfusion did the trick, and they ruled out Meningitis and did not proceed with any further tests. She continued to have some further ventilator issues on Tuesday, with a bad "leak", where the efficiency of the tube is compromised, but they changed out the ventilator unit to a newer model, and that seemed to resolve the issue. She has not had a single BRAD since Tuesday now, and only a few DESATS that she recovers from quickly. Yay! She is quite the little fighter, and we are very relieved.

Dillon cruised through all of this sleeping and putting on weight. He does, however seem to know when Madeleine is getting all the attention. Every time she DESATS, and the nurses rush over, he does the same thing (to a lesser extent), almost every time. When she got re-intubated last Saturday, he decided he needed to be intubated as well, a few hours later. I guess this twin competitive thing kicks in pretty early!

I realized I have not updated their weights in a while, so here there are. Dillon is now at 2lbs 14oz, almost a full pound heavier than birth weight. (a 48% gain) and Madeleine is 2lbs 1oz, a gain of 10oz (43%). Both are doing well in this area, and are on full feeds, meaning they can ingest the volume of breast milk they should be getting. They get fed Abby's milk (she pumps it) via a feeding tube. You can see it (a thin green wire) in some of their pics. They are both still on an IV for additional saline water and some lipid emulsion (soy based fat) as well.

They are both 5 weeks old today (Sunday) and would have been 30 weeks along in development had they still been in utero. They are starting to get noticeably bigger. I even noticed a difference in the 5 days I was away. They are both starting to move their hands around more, and exploring with their sense of touch. When we hold them on our chest, they push their hands up into out throats, or grab our fingers all the time. Yesterday they were both quite alert, opening their eyes quite a bit.

That's about it for the last week. Here's a bunch of pics from the last few days.

Dillon frowning away on Mom.


Dillon sleeping


Madeleine stretching her arms and legs


Dillon all scrunched up while sleeping. Starting to look a little chubby in the arms.


Madeleine hiding from the camera.


Madeleine grabbing my thumb during kangaroo care


Madeleine with a clear face between tube tapings. Her cheeks are red from the tape being removed.


Dillon looking passed out. He likes to sleep fully stretched out.


A few vids as well. We will try to start shooting more of these as they are starting to move around more. First one is Madeleine coming off kangaroo care, and being put back in her incubator.

Madeleine stretching and a diaper change at the end (my apologies for the poop shot)