Day 8

Day 8 - Wednesday Dec 3

It's hard to believe it was a week ago that the boys were born. It kind of feels like we've been living just one really long day. 

Colton and Hudson are continuing to make progress. At today's weigh in, Colton was 4lbs 9oz and Hudson was 5lbs 5oz. Both went up on their feeds again, up to 24ml every 3 hours. Also, today they opened up the tops of the boy's beds and let them stay in the open air to see how well they would do at regulating their own temperatures- and they both stayed warm on their own. 

Colton's open bed 

Hudson's open bed

Colton took almost all of his feedings via bottle today and Hudson is just starting to take some feedings via bottle. Hudson's biggest challenge in feeding with a bottle is that he gets tired about a quarter of the way through and the remainder of his milk has to be given through his feeding tube. 

Hudson

Colton 

But even with all the progress, there still are some hurdles to overcome. And today we learned of a new one we might be facing with Hudson. When in the uterus, a baby's heart has an extra open valve that causes the blood to bypass the lungs. When they are then born and take their first gulp of oxygen and cry, that valve snaps closed and starts routing blood to the lungs. But, for preemies, sometimes that valve doesn't close all the way and you get a heart murmur. And this morning, the nurse practitioner told us they heard a murmur when checking Hudson's heart. There hasn't been one before, so they will keep checking to see if it's there again tomorrow. If it persists, they will end up ordering an Ecco on his heart to verify if that indeed is what it is. And if so, it should be something that goes away with time and would be another thing that could delay his coming home. So pray it resolves itself and and there is no heart murmur tomorrow.