Mommy is so proud of her PO'ed babies!

Sounds crazy right? Except that in NICU lingo, PO stands for per oral, aka taken from a bottle. So whenever the babies work with a bottle rather than get fed from their tube, they are considered to have PO'ed. While they are in the hospital ONLY, I want these babies to be PO'ed all the time!

We are making great strides with the bottles. Everyone has taken at least two full bottles, and the boys have taken a few consecutive bottles which is AWESOME!!! They have to take all eight daily feedings by bottle consecutively, to prove that they can survive without the tube as a backup. So every bottle or partial bottle they take is wonderful. Right now Michael is the leader, having taken three consecutive bottles. Ben is actually the next best, because he's taken two or three over the course of a day which is great. Little Miss Delia has decided to pull the diva card again and likes to take about a quarter of her feeding, fake sleep so we put it in the tube, and then wake back up again to play. We haven't quite figured out how we are going to break the habit but it's getting mighty frustrating. The first of many battles with her I'm afraid.

Ben is off his oxygen for the moment, and thus far has been doing very well. He sometimes has spells where his oxygen level dips below the preferred level but he recovers quite well, so the nurses are really pushing to leave him off and let him muscle through. Hopefully he'll keep fighting and build up his strength so he can be rid of it forever!

Everyone is doing well for their age (37 weeks adjusted as of Thursday; 6 weeks old as of Friday). Right now they just need to build up their stamina and endurance. They are all anemic, which is extremely common even in full term infants, so that affects their ability to maintain the energy necessary to take a whole bottle. We'll just keep plugging along and hope for continued improvement every day. Once they take those eight consecutive bottles, they can probably come home within a day or two. We're getting closer and closer!

Everyone got their first round of immunizations today, woo hoo! They did really well and so far don't seem to have fevers or be fussy at all. Hopefully all shots will go that well from now on. We had eye exams last week too, which turned out mostly perfect. Delia had something a little bit out of the ordinary show up on hers, so they are testing her urine to rule out some kind of infection that the doctors are almost sure she doesn't have. It was just fascinating to me to see how they get a urine sample from a baby (cotton balls in the diaper; who knew?)

Delia and Ben are in the six pound club (6 lb 4 oz and 6 lb 1 oz), with Michael bringing up the rear at 5 lb 10 oz. His reflux is still pretty bad, so he was on a special formula the past week to try to help, which kind of slowed his growth a bit. He's back on breastmilk as of yesterday, with a little rice cereal to thicken it and help with the reflux, so he should catch up and join the six pound club very soon.

We've had lots of exciting visitors the past week: all three great grandparents! It was the first trip ever for the Woelfles to Jackson, so they saw the babies and the house last Sunday. Grandma McD hadn't seen the babies since the day after they were born, so it was a big change for her, Mary and Susan to see. And the babies are already demonstrating an amazing ability to behave well around company. Hopefully that continues throughout childhood!

We started training our helpers this week also. Grandma Maggie spent three days with us and started changing diapers and working with feedings. Delia was nice enough to give her a "diaper christening" if you catch my drift, so now she can handle explosive diapers with ease. And CGAM (crazy Great Aunt Mary) saw some diaper demos today so that she'll be ready to start in next weekend when she comes back to visit.

Now that we're entering the six pound zone, we've moved up to newborn clothes. Delia was absolutely busting out of the preemie stuff, but of course drowns in the newborn sizes. We're cuffing the sleeves and that seems to be taking care of it for right now. I'm sure she'll have those filled out rather quickly too. Good thing I brought the preemie stuff to the hospital for them to wear or it never would have been used!

We're still on the pediatrics floor of the hospital in NICU overflow, which works really well for us. We don't see all of our favorite nurses as often, as they sometimes have to stay upstairs to work on patient transports or more high risk cases, but the level of care is still wonderful. We are enjoying our privacy and the nurses say we are almost ready to come work here. I even know the code to get into one of the kitchen areas for when I do my breastmilk pumping dishes, how crazy is that?

My dad made a very interesting point after his visit last weekend. He said that he's heard me talk about how busy I am every day many many times, but it didn't really hit him until he saw me doing it. Here's a typical day in my life right now to give you a feel for the craziness my life has become:

7:30 AM Get up and pump
8-10:30 AM Eat breakfast, shower, cook supper, pack my lunch and my/Ethan's supper, clean house (ha ha ha), run errands
10:30 AM Leave for hospital
11:00 AM Arrive at hospital; begin "cares" for everyone. "Cares" consist of temperature, diaper change, vital sign exam by nurse, and feeding. Bottle feeding takes approximately 30-40 minutes on a good day. Delia goes at 11, Michael 11:30, and Ben at 12. Usually at least one massive dump diaper per care that requires a clothing change and/or bedding change.
12:30 Pump, if everyone cooperated during 11AM cares. Otherwise, pump at 1
1:00 Eat lunch and socialize with babies (rather than making them work by eating or torture them with diaper change). Or soothe cranky crying babies. Or change disgusting diapers that stink so bad they can't wait for the next care.
2:00 Repeat cares
3:30 Pump, if everyone cooperated, etc etc
4:00 Brief nap if lucky, or socialize. Maybe personal phone call if lucky.
5:00 Repeat cares (seeing a pattern here?)
6:00 Dad arrives, so between cares duties heat up supper and eat
7:00 Pump, catch up with Dad on the day
8:00 PM Repeat cares. First care of night shift adds in blood pressure and weight measurement, which involves removing clothes. Keep in mind clothes has likely changed two to three times per child by now.
9:30 Leave for home after cares are complete.
10:00 Pump
10:30 Catch up on email, pay bills.
11-2AM Sleep
2:00 Pump
3-7:30 Sleep

Even typing that out just doesn't do it justice. I'll have to pay closer attention tomorrow to figure out exactly what it is that I do during all those in between times, because I promise you there is very little sitting involved :)

And right now I'm behind schedule because I haven't pumped yet and am cutting into my sleeping time. More to come in the days ahead!