Tonight we have a house guest in the shape of Annie, the resucitation doll. Our homework was to watch a DVD teaching us life-saving skills in the event a baby stops breathing, and to practise on Annie. I think David and I both have it mastered, but who knows if we'd be able to do it in a real emergency, hopefully we will never find out.
Joe is still managing to have all his feeds from the bottle. He is certainly showing signs that he is getting tired though, and was desaturating quite a lot for his last feed this evening so I wouldn't be surprised to find him with a feeding tube in tomorrow when I go in. His hernia seems to be healing well. It's still covered with a protective dressing, and his testicles are very bruised but he doesn't seem in any pain or discomfort from it. We had our first experience with proper vomitting today. I thought it would be a good idea to try and stretch their feeds to four-hourly but apparently Joe's tummy didn't agree and he threw up the extra milk with quite some force, all over me, himself, his bed and the floor. We won't be trying again for a while after that little episode!
Harry is still not needing oxygen and is taking alternate feeds by bottle. He is generally much sleepier than Joe but I am sure he smiled at me this evening. He was laid on my lap and I was singing to him and he looked right at me and smiled a bit. He hadn't even had a bottle so I know it wasn't wind. He obviously knows a great voice when he hears one and wants to show his appreciation ;)
My plan all week was to take the babies out for a walk tomorrow so every day I have been asking to talk to the doctors about it. My plan wasn't so much to ask their opinion, but to tell them that is what is happening, but I'm having second thoughts now. The doctors and nurses don't think the babies are stable enough (I do!!) and their suggestion was that a nurse comes with us. Thanks, but no thanks. They have fed me so many horror stories this evening that I don't want to be put in a position where they can say 'I told you so..' so I will just have to bide my time until everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. The main problem seems to be that doctors always look on the negative side and see problems with everything, and I always think positively and can't imagine anything going wrong, ever. We need to meet in the middle, but at the moment the doctors aren't budging and unfortunately I'm not really in much of a position to dig my heels in in case I get it wrong.
The babies eyes were looked at again this week. Harry's eyes seem completely normal, and all signs of ROP have resolved. He will be seen again in two weeks with a view to it being the final time he needs looking at. Joe is still to be seen weekly for time time being as although his eyes haven't got worse, they still aren't normal.
On Wednesday both babies also had head scans. Joe's was fine, and Harry's showed he has a harmless cyst in his brain, possibly caused by a resolved bleed, but it's no cause for concern and unless they are still in hospital for another month, they won't need to be scanned again.
The babies weights mid-week were: Harry 5lbs 14.5oz and Joe 5lbs 4ozs.
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