Oak Harbor, Washington

We definitely might be going home tomorrow.  Maya has done well eating her required amount since 6pm yesterday and in many cases even more than they planned.  Cardiologist makes it sound like both problems with her heart are nothing to worry about and she will quite possibly grow out of them.  She had her car seat check today and passed with flying colors.  So it seems that sometime tomorrow afternoon we will be out of here.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Jordan had his first real doctor’s appointment today, and is doing well.  He gained an ounce already, making him 5lbs 1ounce.  He seems to be eating A LOT, I have a feeling he's going to be a chunker pretty soon.

Pictures

Jordan lost his umbilical cord so he has a belly button now.

Maya finished 3 full bottle feedings.  She will have to finished all of her feeding by bottle for somewhere between 24-48 hours before we will be able to go home.  So far 3 in a row is a good start.  Hopefully it continues.

Pictures

It's been one week since the kids were born.  Marylou and I seem to be coping well, feeding, diapers, sleep, and occasionally some food for us too.  Today’s milestone for Maya was that she completed her course of antibiotics, which means they removed her IV.  She is eating well, but not well enough yet.

Jordan wanted to pose for Uncle Matt’s request with his favorite president.   (See Matt’s comment on the last post if you don’t know what is going on)

I think that’s all that happened today, so here are a few more pictures.

Mostly we're just waiting for more information.  The echo was done, but we don't have the official word from a pediatric cardiologist.  The initial diagnosis is two heart murmurs, one in the top and one in the bottom.  The one on the top is something that everyone had when they were intrauterine, and hers hasn't (or won't) heal all the way up like most do.  The bottom one is basically a hole between the left and right side so blood flows from one side to the other when it shouldn't.  From the pediatrician it's not major, just something we will have to keep an eye on, but we are still waiting for the official answer from the cardiologist.

Jordan got his first washcloth bath which made for some funny hair, but no pictures of that.  He's still eating and doing well.

There was a request for some pictures with something for a size reference.  So here are a few pictures from today with my pinky finger which measures roughly 2ish inches.

Pictures from today

Nothing major to report.  We had to drive back to Oak Harbor (1.5 hrs each way) for Jordan's follow up appointment with the Naval Hospital.  Nothing going on with him.  Maya doesn't have any IV fluids any more (may not have yesterday but I can't remember and days are running together) she does still have the IV in though so they can give her antibiotics.  Those will continue until Tue/Wed sometime.  Unfortunately she still isn't eating enough for their liking on her own, so she is still receiving a small amount though her tube directly into her stomach.  Sometime tomorrow morning she has an Echocardiogram and an EKG to make sure that her heart is doing what its supposed too.

Marylou and I seem to have figured out a sleep system which is working fairly well.  We basically take watch so that they other can have an uninterrupted couple of hours of sleep and that seems to make all the difference.  Last night I was dead tired after dinner so I crashed from 9-2 and then was wide awake from 2-5.  Tonight is reversed so it's 12 right now and I'm wide awake and ML is sleeping.  Hopefully this continues until they sleep though the night.

Pictures from today

Marylou and Jordan are officially discharged.  After discharging both of them, the doctors at the Naval Hospital decided that Maya needed to be transfered to higher care.  So a transport team from Seattle came and picked her up and took her to Everett where they have a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  Again for the most part she is fine, but the Navy docs were not allowed to tube feed, and Maya wasn't eating enough on her own.  I'm sure everyone one of us can relate, when your sick you never want to eat, and your just tired.  So we drove down in the truck with Jordan and have a room in the hospital.  It's a small 8x8 square, but they are letting us sleep there with Jordan while they take care of Maya.  The pictures might like a little scary of Maya, because they changed her IV location to her head. 

So we're making progress, I they are still making me feel like there really isn't anything to worry about.  It's just going to take time...  

We have internet access at this hospital, but the cell phone service isn't that great, so if you call please leave a message or else we may not know that you called.  We are moving a little slower now too, since we are fully responsible for Jordan we aren't getting as much sleep.  We did however get 2.5 hrs straight last night.  

Pictures from Friday

Pictures from Saturday

We got upgraded to a different room, so I now have a bed.  The downside is no more internet, so pictures will only be updated when I head home now.

Marylou got her staples out today and should be discharged sometime tonight.  We will still be allowed to stay in the hospital, she just won't have to be monitored anymore and will be in charge of taking her meds on her own.

Jordan is off of all the machines, and is totally on his own. We were able to bring him into our room and feed and change him.  The only thing left is his IV, which should come out around 6am tomarrow (they leave it in for 24 hours even if they aren't running anything though it)

Maya is out of the hood, but still on oxygen.  They have it down to 40% (the air we breath is 20%) so as long as she keeps doing well they will drop it down until she's just on normal air.  She is on antibiotics because she has pneumonia, but they aren't making it sound like it's anything to worry about.  She'll have to be on the IV until at least Tuesday though.  Hopefully all the other machines will come off in the next few days.

Pictures from yesterday

Pictures from today

Today we became parents!  Maya Jade and Jordan Alexander were born at Naval Hospital Oak Harbor just after 12:30 in the afternoon.  Jordan was born 5lbs exactly, and Maya was 5lbs 4.5 oz.  they both have a decent amount of blonde hair.  Since they were born a little premature, and twins on top of that, they are both having some minor issues with breathing.   So in looking at the pictures Maya is in an oxygen hood, to regulate her oxygen and humidity.  At this point it is nothing to really worry about but hasn’t allowed us to hold her.

They were born through c-section and mom is doing fine.  I was in the operating room for the whole surgery and did surprisingly well.  I wasn’t sure how I would hold up having never seen anything like it before, but it was amazing.  I even got to cut both their umbilical cords.

We won’t be disclosing who was born first, but they were only a minute apart.  We don’t want the older to hang that over the younger’s head in the future.  So don’t ask, we won’t tell… at least until their 21^st birthday.  Then we will let the younger buy the older the first round of drinks.

Thanks for the support and congratulations.  We are very excited and will be updating as we can.

Pictures from today

Pregant, bare foot, in the kitchen = Perfect Woman
*disclaimer - I actually did the dishes, this was a posed picture since I thought it would be funny, so I don't want anyone giving me a hardtime for making my wife do work while she's about to pop.

35 weeks cute

Three more pictures from our baby shower in Midland. Enjoy! (and thanks mom) :)

Thirty-four weeks down and less than four to go; the twins seem to be happy hanging out for the ride so far. Yesterday we had an appointment day complete with a growth scan and non-stress test. While the measurements get to be less and less acurate at this stage of the game when things are getting cramped in there, Jordan is not quite 32-week size at about 4lbs 5oz while Maya is over 35-week size at about 5lbs 6oz. Their heart beats are ticking away at about 140's and 130's respectively and they get excited when I push on their feet which are all jammed up under my ribs in front of my liver.

We'll be switching to twice-weekly non-stress tests watching their heart beats now that we're in the home stretch and we get another peek with a growth scan in two weeks unless we're weighing them out on the scale in the open air by then!

Pictures from the Mapes party and baby shower in Midland are trickling in. Check them out here and remember to come back later as more should be on the way.

In addition to the 32 week prego belly continually growing larger, there's been other big changes around the house too.

Here's some pics of the inside of the house sp far: entry and closet, kitchen (left from the entry), hall (right from the entry), nursery (first door on the left of the hall), hall bath (first door on the right of the hall), and master bedroom and bath with a walk-in closet. You can tell that Riley, who obviously isn't very camera shy, was trying to figure out what I was looking at all over the house. And check out the system that tech-savy daddy already has set up to be able to check-in on the kids without having to open the door and risk waking them.

Things are still a bit messy, but at least there's a few of the rooms where the piles of stuff have been given a place to the point where I'm willing to share what some of the inside looks like. After a sewing project to cover some boxes for storage in the kids room, a trip to donate stuff that's sitting in the living room, and after hopefully selling a bunch of books on my Amazon.com store, then we should be able to show off the rest of the house.

Also, Jake trimmed the hedges and mowed the lawn and has the outside of the house looking pretty spiffy. Everyone's been asking for more pics, so here's the east side, backyard panorama, view down the hill to the bay, back of the house, and the west side as well. Note the houses on the hill above us are on the next street up so everyone has a view of the bay. They even have a 15 foot maximun tree height rule in the neighborhood to avoid clogging up the scenery for someone else. And in case you didn't notice that there were two cars in the driveway... we got a minivan!