The boys have developed a bit of a thing recently where they’ll push each other around on things…

Just got this in an email from Nat this morning… boys are in a good mood!

Just made a quick little video using an iPhone app…

http://animoto.com/play/vGgs9ckbcQQNDrPSBuP3vQ

Too short, but hey, it’s free!

Hey all,

Happy 1 week birthday Alex and Jack!

Big news! Well, Alex’s is bigger than Jacks… they did their first poops today! That’s a good sign, although Nat was both over the moon and less than impressed. Over the moon about the first poop, but less than impressed when the black, tarry nastiness that they were got all over her hands when doing a change on Alex. Apparently it was quite impressive, and certainly not what you would expect from a baby… Although this is expected as the first poop, and it even has a special name. Sarah told me it earlier, but I can’t remember what it was called, but I do remember her saying that it can be quite hazardous to your health breathing its smell in.

The other big news of the day is that both of the boys ductus’ (ducti? ducteseses?) seem to be closing up or almost fully closed! On Alex, his seems to have fully closed as they couldn’t hear the telltale murmur this morning. That’s pretty damn good after only one dose of drugs. Jacks seems to have almost completely closed by itself too, which is a great feat considering how much of a problem it was causing only a few days ago. Both their pulses and blood pressures seem to be better today as well. Perhaps that’s just me wishing it, but they do seem to be better.

Jack has been started on breast milk today, and Alex has had his intake upped. I think A is getting 1ml every two hours, while J is getting 1ml every 4 hours. All the valuable antibodies in the milk will help, plus it’s another step towards getting them fattened up a little and more durable.

They also dropped off Jack’s morphine intake by about 1/3, and he doesn’t seem to be showing any effect from it. He was more active today when Nat was hanging out with him. He is also bending the knee on his lucky leg quite a lot, which is a great sign and the swelling on that knee has receded too.

Prior to all this happening, we had actually signed up to a multiples prenatal class where you get to learn all about births, how it happens, what you’re supposed to do, what happens after, all that sort of stuff. Well, we leapfrogged about half the content of the course, and the first night of the class was the night the twins were delivered, so I guess we proved that you really don’t 100% need to do all the coursey things before you go in. Of course, we had read a lot etc, but some of the stuff they go into the course probably makes it much worse before you actually go in for your delivery. Particularly the cesarean. I dropped down last week at the end of the course to apologise for not rocking in (how rude!) and give my reason to the teacher, and they were still talking about the dreaded cesarean… all the students were peppering the teacher with questions like the number of people in the room, what it’s like, how much does it hurt etc. There I was, standing in the back corner thinking “Ha. I’ve just come from one of those…”. It sounded like they were all terrified by all this additional knowledge they now had, whereas we knew the basics (It hurts, takes a while to get over, and there’s a couple of football teams of nurses and doctors waiting at your beck and call) and just forged on regardless. Well, actually, Jack an Alex caused us to forge on regardless.

Actually, if you’re lucky (or unlucky?) I might even tell you the whole story about how we ended up with these two cute little twins, sometime in the next few days. Well, except the dirty parts. Actually, you can probably figure the majority of it out, so I’ll just start a week before the birth. How does that sound?

Anyhoo, before I digress again, the other good news is that they are going to put a pick line into Alex sometime today or tomorrow, which is a much more sturdy line arterial that they run from somewhere on their arm to very close to the heart. This means that we’ll be able to pick him up & hang out with him! Skin to skin time is apparently very important. They’re seriously contemplating putting one into Jack as well, but, as usual, they’re being a lot more cautious with him.

One of the things we have to keep in mind is that we’re definitely not out of the woods yet. Potentially still in dense forest. The kids still have at least another 9 weeks to go in the NICU, and it would be very easy to get used to things going as well as they have done in the last couple of days. Of course, they’ve got Nat and my genes, so they’re going to be tough, but you read so many other stories about premature babies that go through so many ups and downs and trials. Of course, Jack and Alex are still going through theirs, but everything is so overwhelmingly positive that it’s easy to forget that there are a multitude of complications lurking in that dark shadow beneath the bed.

The final funny thing I can tell you that happened today is that one of the boys doctors, when we were hanging out near their humidicribs, looks at Nat and says in his slight indian accent “so, I hear you are an architect?”. Turns out that he’s currently designing a house for a block not too far from my work, and he wants Nat to look at the plans. He got all excited about it then went and printed it for her to have a look at… and it’s flinkin huge! Follows the same sort of standard for other Richmond houses that are just great big blocks that have as many rooms in them as they can squeeze in. It has the normal kitchen, then it also has the “spice” kitchen adjoining it. Which is bigger. Has a 6 element stove. It’s own dishwasher… Good to see we’re looking after our doctors over here!

Now, I’m going to go to bed before I get stuck on any more tangents.

Love,

A&J&N&J

PS, for those who haven’t seen the previous updates, I’ve saved them on http://alexandjack.canaussie.com/ for posterity.
PPS, if ever you don’t want to get these emails anymore (I do tend to ramble and take up your day), just let me know, I won’t hold it against you. Jack and Alex might though.