6 Weeks, 6 Days (GA: 34 Weeks)

The nursing is coming along slowly.  Yesterday we thought the boys did pretty well.  The nurse gave them "credit" for drinking 10mL.  So the tube-fed portion of their meal was 10mL less than normal.  But Nanette thought she may have delivered as much as 30mL.

So after the moderate, yet unquantified, success of her nursing attempt, Nanette was worried that the babies' tummies would explode when the nurse gave them the rest of their meal by tube.  The milk is forced into the stomach over a period of 30-45 minutes using a large syringe infusion pump so Nanette was really worried about those little stomachs literally bursting.

The only way to really tell how much milk they get when nursing is by using a nursing scale.  It is a highly accurate weight scale used to measure a baby before and after nursing to see how much weight was gained.  Each gram is counted as one milliliter of milk.

Well, today all of her fears were alleviated.  She used the nursing scale and discovered that each baby had received about 2mL, or less than half a teaspoon.  Suffice it to say, Nanette is no longer worried about exploding stomachs.

The occupational therapist tells us that the behavior of the twins is normal for their age and history of prematurity.  The doctor still gives an expected discharge date of around their original due date (end of May).

One note on Gabe: He had his follow up eye exam this week and he has stage 2 ROP in zone 3.  It is still not too concerning; he will get another follow up exam in a couple weeks.  One more note:  Dr. Chan told us that Gabe's head ultrasounds look "encouraging".  He expects the ventricles to decrease in size over time.