Twins are doing well

Statton
Cassidy

The twins are progressing right along. They figured out on wednesday that Cassidy had an Ecoli infection in her blood so then they were able to know exactly what kind of antibiotics she needed to be treated with. They also did a lumbar puncture on her later that afternoon to make sure it hadn't gotten into her spinal fluid. If it had they would just have to treat her a little bit longer. So far the results of the lumbar puncture came back negative so she just has to be on antibiotics for 10 days. She has been receiving her antibiotic since the sunday she was born. They drew her lab levels early this morning and they came back within normal limits but they will still give her the last dose of medicine. They have both been getting fed by a feeding tube thru their noses. They have both been tolerating the feedings well. Since they have tolerating feedings well and are taking a certain volume of milk the nurse took them off their fluids that go to their IV's. They will leave them off for 24 hours and if they tolerate that well they will be able to have their IV's removed.
The nurses weighed them saturday night and Statton weighs 4 lbs 1 ounce and Cassidy weighs 3 lbs 11 ounces. They had both lost some weight at the beginning of the week which is normal for newborns. They are finally starting to turn around on their weight gain and starting to put it back on. Blair and I are just both thrilled with how well they've progressed in just a weeks time. It seems like every time we come in to see the babies the nurses always have a tidbit of good news on their progress. I was talking to the nurse this afternoon and she thinks at around 36 weeks they should be ready to go home. They were 34 weeks on Saturday so hopefully only another 2 weeks and we can have these beautiful little babies home in their own beds. I was discharged from the hospital on thursday afternoon and have made arrangements to stay with my cousin Scott and his wife Becky. They have been gracious enough to take me in for a few weeks and I'm glad to have some family close by.

The twins have arrived!

Cassidy
Statton

February 17,2008 our twins were born. They were taken by c-section at about 4:18 sunday afternoon. I went into active labor at about 1:00 that afternoon and the nurses and doctors weren't able to get me stopped so I was prepped and whisked off to surgery. Blair had just arrived home in Burley when I called him and told him that our kids were coming tonight sometime and that he needed to get back to Ogden. He didn't make it in time because things moved a lot quicker than anticipated. He was going over Sweetzer summit when I called him to tell him he was a dad.Our little girl came first and weighed 4 lbs and 16 3/4 inches in length. Our little boy came about 5 minutes later and he weighed 4 lbs 5 ounces and was 18 inches in length. They were both taken to nicu right away and I was told they were doing well. I was taken to recovery for about 45 minutes and then they wheeled me into the nicu to see the babies before taking me back to my room to rest. She was intubated right away and given some surfactant for her lungs. He was intubated awhile later and then was taken off late that evening. She was able to have her intubation tube and oxygen taken off late monday night. They did some lab work and found that she has an infection in her body so they are currently treating her with antibiotics but are still unsure exactly what kind of infection she has. The Nurse Practioner told us for as sick as her lab work says she is she doesn't act sick at all. She's very active and responsive. They will keep checking her labs and will treat her with antibiotics for atleast 7-10 days. He isn't showing any signs of an infection so were hoping he'll stay that way.
I ended up running a high fever sunday evening so they took some blood cultures and also started treating me with some antibiotics. My blood work came back showing a high white cell count which means I've also got an infection somewhere so they are going to keep me on antibiotics for awhile. The doctor figured that between me having an infection and our little girl, between the two of us that's what probably put me into labor. So all in all it's probably a good thing I had the babies when I did so they could get our little girl treated. We've officially named our twins. We named our boy Blair Statton Heward, he will be called Statton. We named our little girl Cassidy Heward. They were born at 33 weeks and 1 day. We all did pretty good!

ultrasound

So I had my ultrasound on wednesday. They checked the amniotic fluid levels to make sure they were adequate and evenly distributed. Fluid levels looked good. They also checked placement of the babies. Our little girl is still breech and our boy is now more head down than transverse. They figured that's what might have saved my water from breaking a few weeks ago because she was sitting breech instead of head down which wasn't putting as much pressure on things. They want to wait atleast another week before doing measurements again but they figured the babies should have gained atleast another 4 ounces each. That would put our little boy at about 3 1/2 pounds and our little girl at almost 3 pounds. The doctor came in later and checked me again, I'm still sitting at 4 cm and 90% effaced. He was thinking of cutting my meds back to every 6 hours instead of 4, but after looking at things he said they feel they need to keep being aggressive with my meds. The doctor did say that IF I make it to 34 weeks they would probably think about taking me off the meds completely and see what my body decides to do. That would only be about another 2 weeks which gives me a timeline to look forward to. So far things are pretty boring. I'm getting in plenty of tv time and try to nap when I can. I appreciate everyone's emails and postings. I look forward to reading them and having contact with the outside world.

31 weeks!

Yeah- as of Satuday Feb. 2 I am officially 31 weeks along. I'm still on bedrest in the hospital and they are giving me a drug called Procardia every 4 hours to keep the contractions under control. So far this seems to be doing the trick. They will be doing another ultrasound on wednesday to check on the babies growth. They did an ultrasound about 2 weeks ago when I first got here. The babies were looking good, our little girl was weighing about 2 lbs 10 ounces and our little boy was about 3 lbs 3 ounces. So it will be good to see how much they've grown in 2 weeks. Our next mini goal is to get me to the 32 week mark. This last weekend was nice. Blair came down for the weekend and my parents came down on saturday. I was allowed to go down in a wheelchair to the cafeteria where we all had lunch together. It was so nice to be out of my room for just a short little bit. It's funny how simple things like that get you excited when you've been stuck in a hospital room for so long.