Happy 1 Month Birthday Babies!

Today the babies turned 1 month old! Hooray! I made cupcakes for the nurses and a little cake for Dr. Hiatt and his team. One of the nurses made an adorable sign for the babies with their pictures and a birthday message. It was very sweet! Joe is bringing Birthday Monsters (another great book by the genius that is Sandra Boynton) up to read to the babies tonight to celebrate. We are so happy to have reached this milestone and are looking forward to celebrating each and every passing month! And hopefully after two more, the babies will be home with us!

Everyone is doing well today. Annaleigh seems to be feeling much, much better after her surgery. She is no longer on pain medication and is looking happy and perky. The tube in her nose, which was draining the bile from her stomach, has been removed as there is no longer anything that needs to be drained. She has also pooped several times today, which is a good sign that her GI track is functioning properly. The surgeon said that she should be ready to start feedings again very soon, and hopefully this time she will tolerate them with no trouble at all. She had a big jump in weight last night to 940 grams, although the nurse warned us that a lot of it could be attributed to post-surgery fluid retention. We’ll have a better idea of her true weight in a few days. This morning Joe managed to finally get a great picture of Annaleigh without a ton of tubes hiding her gorgeous face. She is even more adorable than I thought she was!

Lily is a star today! She finished up her steroid treatment and she will be rewarded tomorrow by having the ventilator removed and going on CPAP. Well, Miss Lily Bug might not think of it as a reward, but it is excellent progress for her. She was weighing in tonight at 985 grams and tolerating her feedings and the fortifier beautifully.

Charlie is the only slight cause for concern today. He’s still relying heavily on the ventilator, which they are attributing mainly to his prematurity. Dr. Hiatt said that they will most likely give him the same course of steroid treatment they gave to Lily in hopes of strengthening him. He is no longer showing any symptons from the MRSA and he is finished his antibiotics. He is still enjoying his feedings and they were finally able to add some of the fortifyer, in a lesser amount this time, and so far he's been albe to tolerate it. His weight tonight was 1050 grams, up only 30 grams in the last four days, but given the fact that he peed a ton thanks the lasix it makes sense that he stayed the same.

So all in, all another stable day for the babies – thank goodness! We are hoping for many, many more like this, although we are of course still bracing for the bumps that are sure to pop up again. But for now we are happy to celebrate our beautiful babies, their one month on earth and the joy they have brought us in that short amount of time.

We also need to take the time to thank our mystery friend in Dayton, Ohio. This afternoon we received in the mail a generous Visa gift card. It was accompanied by a nice note, but no signature and no return address – just an Ohio postmark. So whoever you are, thank you so, so much! I know we keep saying this, but we are still constantly overwhelmed by all the kindness and support everyone, even people we have never met, have been showing us through all of this. We are very, very lucky.