Day 31 Update - 1 month old!

Hi Everyone! Today our triplets are one month old, but their adjusted age is still negative. That means that they are still less than full-term age of 40 weeks gestation. They are 36 weeks 4 days gestational age, so minus 3 weeks 3 days. The fact that we have any of them home at this point is great and a wonderful 10th anniversary present! I keep telling myself that, especially when I get to stressing about Golda.

Golda is doing okay. Jon went to visit her last night and spoke to the nurses and resident about the need to suction her often and to clean her mouth. They agreed to some of his concerns but weren't as receptive as we would have liked. This highlights another of our problems with this NICU - continuity of care between shifts. There are numerous times when I have to tell a nurse what the nurse the day before said or did indicating that this information is not being passed on at report. So when I called today I was prepared to ask to speak to the charge nurse to discuss this. As it turns out, Golda's nurse today is the charge nurse. She said that she heard that we were concerned about some bubbles by the baby's mouth. I told her that was a huge understatement and downplaying of our true concerns and explained the problems. She agreed that, especially since we can't visit as often as we would like to, we need to be confident that Golda is receiving the attention and care she needs. She said she would place a note in the front of her chart instructing all nurses to suction Golda every three hours and more often if she seemed to be having difficulties or more episodes. That way, it couldn't get overlooked at report any longer, as sometimes happens when a new case arrives during report or an emergency occurs and it gets hectic.

With this taken care of, I got the update on Golda. She is still on CPAP, and still on room air. After Jon left last night she did not have any more episodes (thanks to his insisting she be suctioned - go daddy!). She is up to 25 ml of breast milk, but didn't put on any weight overnight. She is 1401 g (3 lbs. 1.41 oz.). We will visit later today.

Last night, being Friday night, we decided to go to dinner with my parents to Lenny's for our usual Friday night outing. Jon went to Babies R Us and got a double car seat stroller since we figure it will come in handy for the next couple of months and even once Golda is home too (we can use it at malls and such in combination with the single car seat stroller when we are both there). We fed the babies at 6 pm and headed out at 7:30 pm. Since these babies are slow eaters and weren't overly interested in eating they only got through part of the bottles. They were very good in their carriers while we ate. Micah started complaining in between the appetizers and main course so Jon fed him the rest of his bottle, then Leah complained after the main course, but didn't really eat any more of her bottle. Harry was happy playing tic tac toe with Mema during dinner and went home with her for his usual Friday night sleep over with Mema and Pepa.

Due to the disruption of their eating pattern though the babies gave us a really tough night. We had decided to feed them smaller portions during the night because they didn't really seem very interested in eating at that time and that together with the change in timing had them eating every two hours! The only benefit in this was that they were really hungry at each feeding and ate quickly, but man are we tired today! We have them back on an every three hour schedule today with full volume feeds and they are adjusting well, thankfully. This will be a lesson to us though - don't mess with the timing of the feeds while messing with volume of the feeds.

Tonight we are going to dinner and a movie thanks to Mema and Pepa's babysitting! Imagine - just us sitting down to a meal and not worrying about eating as quickly as possible so we can feed someone else!