Roll Over!!!

It's been a while since we've blogged-- but this morning's accomplishments were worthy of a submission! After eating a "big" 10 ml, Elise hit the ground rolling!! She figured out the unassisted back-to-front roll over. She got stuck on her arm so she didn't quite clear her head before her nervous momma came to the rescue. It's so hard to know how much stress their healing sternums can tolerate. She didn't appear to be in pain but that is a lot of diagonal force that just didn't look too comfortable.

Some other observations we've made since we came home:
-- We can't hear the girls' breathing at night on the monitor any more. It wasn't until their breath sounds were absent that we realized how labored their preoperative breathing actually was.
-- Both girls are sprouting a new crop of hair (dark brown and so far it's straight-- a nice compliment to their blueberry blue eyes)!!
-- The girls are up most of the day. This was also the case before the surgery; however, in the week- and- a- half before they went in they were sleeping most of the day.
-- Both girls have found their hands and almost always have them in their mouths.
-- In addition, since they've been spending so much time on their backs (we've had a 2 week ban on tummy time during their early recovery period) they have both found their feet. Margot grabs her knees and even works her way down to her ankles with her jaw and tongue reaching out in the hope that she might get those tasty toes into her mouth. Elise is happy to throw her legs high into the air and swing them around, but is less concerned with getting them into her mouth.
-- Margot makes raspberry noises. I think she learned this in response to spitting out her yucky tasting lasik medicine.
-- Both girls have figured out how to turn on and off their Ocean Wonders music boxes that are attached to the sides of their cribs.
-- "Suzzly noses" as we called them are a thing of the past!
-- Both girls have successfully transfered a toy from one hand to the other!
-- Yankee Doodle is a huge favorite and is sure to elicit huge smiles and even some giggles.

Finally, now that the girls' hearts have been successfully repaired we have received medial clearance to make some changes around here. First and foremost we're all sleeping through the night (i.e., 6 glorious hours)!!! You may remember that we tried the sleep through early on and the girls were quite cooperative (they went 5 hours before they let us know it was time to eat), but after only two days of the missed feeding our doctor advised us that we had to stick to the 3 hour scheduled feedings as the girls were not able to make up the calories through an increase in volume at other feedings. Now that their hearts are repaired, there is no medical reason why we can't slowly move toward demand feeding; however, we will have to let their girls' weight gain and growth set the parameters for our transition.

Other changes are as follows:
-- We moved the girls into separate cribs two days after returning home from the hospital. We hated to do this as they are just too cute together, but they were waking each other up by batting eachother in the face and grabbing eachother's ears, etc. and we knew this would only get worse.
-- We changed from the Gerber Nuk nipple to the Avent nipple. We made this transition at one week post-operative and the girls made the "smooth" transition after a week long learning curve. This change was recommended by the lactation consultant at Children's as it would encourage the girls to use a wide latch and suck the nipple deep into the back of their throats just as they would if they were nursing. Success with the Avent nipple should assist with the transition to breast feeding.
-- We will continue to supplement my breast milk with formula up to 24 calories per ounce until we see a steady weigh gain trajectory and we see the girls increase their volume of breast milk at each feeding.
-- After the doctor is happy with the weight gain and growth, I can begin to introduce nursing and eventually drop the supplement from the bottle of the child that is not nursing that feeding. Good thing we've got a huge freezer full of breat milk because it looks as though I can only feed one kid at a time (I produce between 8 to 10 oz of breast milk at each pumping. The girls should eventually demand ~8 oz per feeding).

The time frame for all of these changes is somewhere around 4-6 weeks post operative and progress to the next stage will be contingent on the girls. We're still under quarantine from all children and any adults with active clod symptoms, but we hope to hit the road by the third weekend in April! Can't wait for our Debutant Ball-- What a coming out party it will be! Hope to see you there!!!

Happy Friday!

We're looking forward to a visit from Nouna Kathy and Nouna Christina next week!