Catching up on the babies

In the last two weeks, a LOT has happened. Long post ahead!

On September 12, Heather was discharged from the hospital. She is continuing to recover very well from her C-section. It's good to be home but it means that we're no longer only a short walk from our quarters at the hospital to the babies in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit, a.k.a. ICN, intensive care nursery). Nevertheless we're still spending a lot of our time at the hospital visiting the babies.

Life with our two surviving tiny preemies in the hospital continues to be a roller coaster - the ups and downs and rapid changes from one to the other are jarring and nerve-wracking, but we're gradually learning how to adapt to it. There'd be too much to report if we were to cover each of the previous days' events, but here are a few of the more significant events thus far.

On September 16, Eliza underwent surgery to fix a perforation of her intestine, a life-threatening condition that preemies are prone to. We were very worried for most of the day, since even something as simple as moving her to the OR (operating room) was complicated and risky for such a little baby. Thankfully the surgery went pretty well - they weren't able to find the exact site of the leak but confirmed that her whole small intestine was intact, so they put in an "ostomy" to bypass her large intestine (where the leak must be by process of elimination) and allow it to heal while her small intestine continues to operate as normal. She's recovering pretty well from the surgery. Since the surgery she has had numerous "bradys" (heart-rate drop) and "desats" (blood-oxygen drop) but they seem to be getting a little less common and are requiring less intervention to correct as time passes. She's a tough little girl!

The girls later started both showing symptoms that suggested possible infection, and on September 21 we got confirmation that both girls had the same bacterial infection, some sort of Klebsiella germ (which can cause things ranging from pneumonia to sepsis to urinary tract infections in adults). The doctors put both of them on heavy-duty antibiotics to treat this, and so far it seems to be working. The doctors believe the infections and bowel perforations to be related but which came first is a "chicken and the egg" question at this point.

Also on Tuesday, September 21, we found that Charlotte was also showing signs of intestinal perforation. Since she's so much smaller than Eliza, and she was already very ill from this problem combined with her infection, the surgeons opted to initially go with the less invasive option, simply installing a drain for her abdomen (to let out anything leaking from her intestines so that it wouldn't fester) instead of opening her up to try and find and fix the leak as they did with Eliza. The hope was that first, this would give Charlotte a chance to improve her health and fight off the infection, and second, there was a small chance that doing so would allow the perforation to heal on its own.

After they installed the drain, Charlotte continued to get sicker. By Wednesday morning she was on 3 different types of blood pressure medication and her blood pressure was still low. She was also on high ventilator settings and she needed other medication that would require surgery to put in another IV line. Things were looking very grim. We spent most of the day at her bedside hoping for a miracle. We got our wish because over the next 24 hours she improved dramatically! She was weaned off all of the blood pressure medication, and they were able to get in another line without surgery so she was able to receive the additional medication, blood, and platelets that she needed. She was not going to be outdone by her sister!

Although her vitals are continuing to improve, Charlotte's bowel does not not seem to be healing on its own. (Hello rollercoaster!) The surgery team is talking about operating on Monday (tomorrow) to perform the same procedure (laparotomy) on Charlotte that Eliza has already been through. We are worried and scared for her since she is even smaller than Eliza.

Other changes with the girls in the last week - Both of the girls eyes have opened. Eliza's eyes are a little more open than Charlotte's and today she was looking around. It was amazing to see her looking back at us (even if she can't actually focus yet)! Eliza has also managed to extubate herself (pull her ventilator tube out) and remove the tube going into her tummy twice! Luckly they corrected it quickly. We are thinking of renaming her Trouble. :)

As we have previously said by e-mail, we still continue to be amazed and humbled by the outpouring of congratulations, sympathy, support and condolences we have received from everyone. It's comforting to know that so many people care about our family so much. Your e-mails, calls, text messages, Facebook messages, IMs, and cards have all been read and deeply appreciated - thank you!!!

We hope to keep this blog more up to date with all that is happening in our lives so watch this space for further updates.