Today's status...

For those of you who don’t know the story, I’ll try to give a snapshot(maybe not all in this post), and maybe details can follow. First of all though—an update on the kids: they’re both really cute. But you already knew that(even if Dawson does have my nose and chin). The short of it is that we’ve waited about 4-5 years to grow our family, and after many prayers, doctor visits, and ups and downs, here we are. I’m sure Amy can share all the details when we get out of the hospital, since I’m mostly clueless about infertility, NICU, medical terminology, etc.

Well, to start at the end and work backwards, here we are at the University of Utah Hospital, with two lovely little babies that were born at 28 weeks. They came out kicking and screaming, and Amy was overjoyed to hear their little cries, as she was behind the curtain and couldn’t watch like I could(cesarean birth). If it means anything to anybody, their APGAR at birth was 8; all I know is that an 8 is better than 0, and not as good as a 10. From what I’ve heard, babies this early don’t usually score that high, so that was encouraging.

Of course when you start out on such a high, it’s easier for things to go down than up. Both babies are sick with some kind of infection, and are having their battles, but we know they’ll be just fine in the long run. It’s a real blessing having both of them here at the same time—when one is down, the other is usually up, so there’s always a little extra comfort to help things along. I guess it’s somewhat like watching your stocks every day—it can drive you nuts. The weekly or monthly snapshot would be much easier to take, but we’re pretty heavily invested, so that’s kinda hard to do. We’re just happy to have a fairly diversified portfolio.

They say you can usually plan on taking your babies home right about at their due date, which is October 30th, so they’ll most likely be here for about 2-3 months. We took a tour of the ICU unit yesterday. Our babies are in room 1, which is for the babies in the most critical condition. After they become a little more stable, they can be moved to room 2, then on to room 3, and on up through 8 different rooms. After they have ‘graduated’ to room 7 or 8, they are ready to go home. There’s no telling how long it will be before we graduate to room 2, but my guess is that it will be a while. This has truly been a great experience staying at the University Hospital; the staff has been incredibly supportive and accommodating, and we are confident that the babies are getting the best treatment available.

As of today, Mallory is doing well. She has overcome very low blood pressure, high blood sugar, and a difficult time accepting IV’s for medication. She is starting to overcome the need for supplemental oxygen, and is doing better at using her lungs for oxygenation. Her body is partially operating as if she were still in the womb, but she’s getting the hang of it. Today she was trying to open her eyes to say high, but just couldn’t get her eyebrows up high enough. They’ve told us that for some reason the little girls always seem to fight a little harder than the boys, and we believe it. She hasn’t held still for 10 weeks, and she’s not about to start now.

Things are a little tougher for Dawson right now. His blood isn’t clotting like it should be, but after numerous plasma and blood transfusions, he is starting to show improvement. Maybe he just needs a little rest after overcoming high blood pressure, an extremely high heart rate, and being weaned off of 2 of his 3 heart medications. His need for supplemental oxygen goes up and down regularly, which is okay, because that allows him to give all of his energy to fighting off the infection.

The doctors have told us that just about all of the problems they are experiencing are likely due to the infection, and once the infection is gone, most of the problems will go with it. They are responding well to the medications, so that’s another mark on the winning side.

Well---it may be 3:00 in the afternoon, but I’m going to bed. A week and a half with no sleep is starting to take it’s toll on me, as you may have noticed if you starting dozing off yourself while reading this!

Stay tuned—more later.

Thanks again everyone,
Us