That’s what I said to the doctor today when he said the girls need blood transfusions, but… thankfully it sounds A LOT worse than it really is!  It’s common for preemies (and even some newborns) to be anemic, which the girls are.  The girls are so tiny and the nurses and doctors take blood from the girls often (to check blood sugar, check of infections, etc. etc.), and their little bodies have trouble replenishing all the blood… remember that they should be in mommy where they would be receiving blood from me.  The doc said it’s obvious they’re anemic, but they aren’t in desperate need of the transfusion right now, but didn’t want to wait to when they needed it (since the time would come)- he wanted to go ahead and do it– to get ahead of the game.  So anyway, they both are getting some extra blood through IVs today- it will give them 1-3 drops per minute for about 4 hours.  The doctor and nurses say that it should instantly improve their coloring and I bet it will make them EVEN MORE active… do you think they’ll regret this??  Little feisty girls!  Just kidding!  

Reese, our big girl, is up to 11cc’s of milk and digesting ALL OF IT!!!!!!!  YEA!!!!!!!!!  She’s been as happy and feisty as can be– loving her paci and staring at mommy and daddy WIDE eyed!

Riley has been through a lot lately, poor girl.  Last night right when we got there, they were about to try to put in her new PICC line. (what timing…)   She was screaming!!  Not fun for mom and dad to hear.  But- they didn’t get it in because her blood vessels weren’t ready for it– the vessel wasn’t open enough or something, so they’ll try it again another day.  She’s had an IV in her foot for her nutrients, but unfortunately, it went out today so they had to put a new one in her scalp- bless her heart.  BUT… she got her tube out of her throat to her tummy (the one pulling air out) because her tummy is looking a lot better- yea!!  Her cannula is out too.  After the transfusion (so later tonight) she’ll get her feeding tube back in and start on 3 cc’s of milk– yea!!  I held her today and she just stared at me and was sucking on her tube in her mouth.  What a cutie!!

Please pray that the blood transfusion goes well and that it benefits Riley and Reese, that they tolerate their feeds and continue increasing them, and that they stay free from infection.

**A lot of people have asked about when we get to take our girls home– the NICU says typically it’s around the original due date or so, so the end of October beginning of November probably.  They have lots of growing to do!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Updates and News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.