Andrew's home!

Andrew came home on Monday as is doing great.  I took off Monday and Tuesday so we could all get settled in.  Andrew is doing great; he's just thriving!  He's eating well, along with all of the other functions.  He rests well between feeds and is overall pretty easy.  We just want to hold him all the time, but we resist so he keeps up his ability to sleep on his own.  He went to the doctor once this week and all is good.  

We have a setup downstairs with a crib near the couch and are taking shifts during the night since we want to be near him while others get a period of sound sleep.  I take swing shift, Kristen takes  night shift and grandma takes morning shift.  We even had Juli over to take the swing one night so I could go to the hospital and feed Bennett!  Grandpa Garnon came on Friday, so we now have another helping hand with Char and the dogs.

okay bro, I'll see you on the other side, I'll break in the dogs and make sure that the food is just as good - stay strong

big sister going to pick up Andrew to bring him home

Char and her antics.  I call this the "Andrew's outta here" salute.

grandma checking out the board

Char's friend from next door who has identical triplet brothers. 

free, free, free - I'm free

discharge paperwork - I'm so happy Mary Kay was there on this day!

I was so happy I could cry; really enjoyed holding him on the couch in our house without anything hooked up to him

what a great big sister!

Jack dog is very interested in the new baby

Andrew Bear

Hell week for Bennett

For Bennett, this week started bad, got worse and ended up just okay.  First, his brother went home and he was left all alone in the hospital with parents who were now juggling babies in 2 locations. Then, they determined that his eyes were worse, so he needed surgery on Thursday.  He will lose his peripheral vision to hopefully save the rest of his vision.  He came back from surgery intubated (on the ventilator).  They'll know next week if the surgery worked.  He went off the ventilator, then was having complications so they put him back on (intubated again).  He was a mess and so were we.  When he came off of the ventilator again, he had an inflamed airway from the intubated.  He wasn't able to eat orally an more and had not been able to get any food the day of surgery.  Then they started him back on partial feedings.  He was so uncomfortable and when he cried is sounded like a 50-yr smoker gasping for their last breath.  It was horrible.  Then, there was an outbreak of some bacterial infection in the hospital.  He doesn't have any symptoms but tested positive as a carrier, so we have to gown up and wear gloves in the hospital for the rest of his stay.  No, we cannot touch him for the rest of his stay!!  Today is Sunday and he is feeling better and is eating by bottle again.  He's doing okay but has a way to go to be back to where he was last week.  I didn't realize what a setback this surgery would be.

We were sad for Bennett that Andrew was home.

They still had some time together

I'm including all of our good time from this week here on Bennett's post.

Richard courted Char on their way to school.  Erin overheard their conversation: "Charlotte, do you LOVE songs?  I love songs!"

pick-up from school - friends are helping us out a lot

more visitation rights before the outbreak

after surgery

While Bennett was in for surgery, I was in Pullman, WA at the grand opening of the renovated 1920s WSU Community/Duncan Dunn Student Housing project.  All I could think about was Bennett.  The marching band came out and played the WSU fight song.  I say it was for Bennett.  Our good friend Carolyn saw the video and adapted the words of the song for our boys...Fight, Fight, Fight for The Wilson Twins! Win the Victory! We're going to win the day for B & A! Best in the West, we know you'll all do your best so On, on, on, on! Fight to the end! Honor and Glory we must win! So fight, fight, fight for the Wilson Twins and victory! Go Twins!

still on the vent

lost weight

this pretty much sums it up

On Sunday, Char, grandpa Garnon and Brad went on a Portland Sunday Parkways bike ride with friends.  We had a great time.

a balancing act

I love Mason's new glasses!

He's feeling a little better today, eating more and airflow is down to 2 liters.

Week 10, full of emotions

This week has been a real roller coaster ride.

On Monday Bennett's labs came back and his hematocrit was low again so he had a higher likelihood of needing another transfusion, but they wanted to check one more time. Bennett's eyes are also getting worse. He's at a mild stage 3 retinopathy of prematurity which is not quite surgery and of course nothing is ever cut and dry. One doctor or nurse says one thing, another person another thing. They'll check it again next week. Then the results of Bennett's brain scan came back. There is more significant tissue damage than they originally thought as its more widespread throughout his brain. It is still mild in severity at each location. The prognosis is still not clear. They say to expect at least some minor motor skill and cognitive issues, with cerebral palsy, blindness, or hearing loss as possibilities. Okay, so he already has bad eyes already and there's a possibility if blindness. Yeah. We keep coming back to the fact that it currently appears mild and are hoping for the best.

Early in the week Andrew had an episode where his heart rate and oxygen saturation went down for a minute and the nurse needed to give him extra oxygen to revive him. This was a setback for his Friday discharge.

That was some really heavy news for us to deal with and we had just finished prepping the house with mixed emotions about only bringing one of our boys home while the other stays in the hospital.

Amongst all of this, some really great things happened.

I gave Andrew a bath and held both boys at once - both firsts for me.  Kristen and I had a much needed date night - dinner at Meriweather's and a movie (the Campaign).  We're really lucky that my mom is around to help out.  Grandpa comes in town later this week and then in a few weeks the Massings are in town.  Again, we're super lucky to have all of the help.  We also keep getting positive encouragement from our firends, the Adelmans, who went through a similar twin situation.

Bennett's heart echo came back normal this week and he took his first full bottle. He's doing really well with his weight gain and feedings and they have reduced his quantity of air. Bennett had labs Saturday night and his hematocrit is up, so no blood transfusion!

Andrew passed all of his discharge tests as the week progressed. His feeding tube came out, he's getting all his food through a bottle, he's been on his back in his own crib, his brain scan looked good, his heart murmur is gone, and he passed his car seat challenge! The car seat challenge is the last test before discharge where they sit in the carseat for an hour to make sure they can handle it. The positioning is sometimes challenging for preemies.

So, Andrew is coming home Monday!!  We've been getting a lot of great coaching from our nurses on what to do with a preemie at home and we already took the CPR class.
And the next chapter begins...