Down and Up

Well the last couple days have been pretty good. Couple ups and a couple downs.
To pick up where we left off... On Wednesday night Brady was able to hold his Little Superman for the first time. Ethan looked so small in comparison to Brady. (No comment on Brady's chest hair) He was so happy to be finally holding his son. Brady also changed his first boy diaper yesterday. the look on his face was pretty funny.
Madaline has been doing well without her PICC line in and tolerating her feeds rather well. She is enjoying her pacifier very much. It is so cute to hear her make little sucking sounds when she wants to use it. They are also adding supplements and extra calories to her feeds which should help her with energy and help her grow. This is probably the only time in her life where extra calories are encouraged. Taken it in while you can little one!
Last night was a little stressful for me. After we had a good night with both babies, I got a call at 1:00 am in the morning from CHOC saying that Ethan is having a lot of DSAT's and BRADY's. (This means that his heart rate is dropping and his oxygen levels have to be turned up). This is normal with preemies. However, he was having more than his usual amount and not recovering from them as easily as he normally does. They did blood work and found put that he has an infection. They believe that it has something to do with his PICC line, so they removed it. They sent a culture of to the lab to figure out what type of infection and had to start him on antibiotics immediately. What a feeling getting a call like that when you are sound asleep. I called back to make sure he was doing okay in the morning and they said that he was doing better after the PICC line was taken out. They did stop his feeds but started them back up later in the day. His little body is so sensitive to everything right now so it gets stressful seeing him go through that and hearing the alarms go off every time it happens. No wonder my blood pressure is high.
Today was okay day. The development team is continuing to work with Ethan on his arms and legs. They are satisfied with some of the improvements that he has made, but would like to see more movement from his legs.
Auntie Stephanie got to meet her niece and nephew tonight and she had a smile from ear to ear the whole time. She was my personal photographer as well and got some great shots of the twins. She came on a great night since we were able to give Madaline her first bath. Madaline did pretty well to start, then kinda broke down and wasn't have it. Once all was done and she got wrapped in a toasty blanket, she was happy as a clam.
On our way out, we stopped by to tell Ethan's nurse that we were leaving for the night and she said that she gave Ethan a pacifier for the fist time. She said that he was loving it, but she had to take it away after a couple minutes because he was forgetting to breathe and suck at the same time. That is very normal for preemies and is one of the reasons why both twins have feeding tubes and are not bottle fed at this point. They will grow out of it eventually though.

One last thing, I signed to do the CHOC walk in the park at Disneyland as I mentioned in previous post. Again, we would love to have all of you walk with us. Our team name is: 20 Fingers, 20 Toes (thanks mom for the idea). I am trying to figure out how to put a direct link out, but I am still working on it. It the meantime, if you want to join, you can go to www.CHOCwalk.net and click "Register Here". After you agree to the guidelines, so to "Join a Team" and select our team name from the drop down menu. Fill in the registration information and follow the prompts.
Again, If you don't want to walk, but would like to make a donation, it is very much appreciated. To do that, you would go to www.CHOCwalk.net and select "Sponsor Walker". It will ask you to select a person, and you can put my name or Brady's name and follow the prompts. Thanks again for all the support and love. We thank God every night for it.

Pictures:
The first 3 are Madaline. From top to bottom, this is after her bath, during and before. How cute is this little angel. She takes after her mom!!
The bottom 3 are Ethan. The top picture was taken tonight by Auntie Stephanie, the last 2 Daddy is holding his Little Superman.