Greetings,
We are happily amazed at the progress our babies have made in the past eleven weeks. Elsa is in a crib and doing a good job of keeping her temperature steady. She had a bath on Friday and "tolerated it well" and passed her eye exam with flying colors (her nurse had her wearing a party hat when we came up to see her after the eye doctor left). Also, it was a very big morning for us because she took in enough milk nursing to constitute her first full feed orally. She is moving full steam ahead and is weighing 4 pounds 5 ounces. They have even begun to mention starting to plan for home, which always makes her mom tear up.
Jonas is also doing very well, but taking his time. He had 18 hours on nasal cannula and it was determined that he was having to work very hard to breathe, so it would be better to go back to CPAP and give him some time to rest and recover and try again a bit later. He is doing a great job tolerating his feeds, sucking on his pacifier, and growing. Jonas's eye exam showed that he has level 2 retinopathy of prematurity--this is a condition of the eyes that can happen when preemies are on high levels of oxygen for long periods of time. Level 2 is basically a watch and see category. His eyes could heal and get better, or they could get worse, in which case he would need to have a procedure done. The good news it that it is possible his eyes can heal and if they don't there is a treatment. Jonas is weighing 4 pounds 6 ounces these days. We are enjoying his crib because it gives us a chance to interact with him a little more closely.
We continue to pray for healing of lungs, eyes and brains as we give thanks for how far they have come!
God bless,
Mari, Dan, Elsa and Jonas