Good Progress, Pics, and Caleb meets the twins!

Kinley Marie

It is so hard to believe that the babies turned 8 weeks old yesterday and 35 weeks gestation today.  I am thrilled to report they are both making great progress.  I know I haven't posted any pics of Kinley, so here are a few I want to share.  These first few are of the first time we got to dress her.  I was not expecting it that day, thus I was unprepared, thus she had to wear a hospital t-shirt...but at least I had the bow!

Kinley has finally started gaining good amounts of weight daily.  As of tonight, she is 3 pounds, 9 ounces.  She also got to start attempting bottle feeds, and though she did get very tired and fell asleep both times, she showed us that she is capable.  We know over the next few days she will start to get the hang of it!  She is still having  As and Bs, but the doctor is letting her "outgrow" her caffeine that she has been on since birth, so hopefully her body will adjust and she can outgrow the As and Bs as well.  She also gets to move to a big girl crib tomorrow.  She is still feisty, but has seemed to calm down a lot since going off CPAP and getting to be swaddled.  We think the swaddling really helps her stay still and grow, because before she was literally all over the isolette.  One particular day, Sandy (who if you don't know by now is our favorite nurse) got her situated first thing in the morning (in the center of her mattress), and not even 10 minutes later, found her like this, perfectly content and asleep.

A little later that day, Rachel and I came back from lunch and found her like this...again as happy as a clam and saturating at 100% oxygen.

Now, we all know babies at this age should not be able to move around this way, and we haven't quite figured out how she does it, but she does it.  This is where the swaddling discussion started, and since, it has helped keep her still and in place, hopefully helping her conserve calories so she can grow!  Yes, I know, Kinley will be the one giving me a run for my money!

Cooper is also continuing to do very well.  He now weighs 5 pounds 10 ounces (which is way bigger than Caleb was when he came home).  He is still working on mastering the bottle feeds, though he gets better and better every day.  It is even possible that he could be home in a week or two!  He almost looks like a term newborn, and he definitely has the cry of one!  He is very dramatic about getting his assessments, temperature checked, and diapers changed!  But most other times he is pretty laid back!  Here are some recent pictures of him!

One of the best things that happened this past weekend was that Caleb got to finally meet his brother and sister.  He did very well and seemed to be interested in looking at them and figuring out who or what they were!  Here are a few pics from that special time.  We know it will take some adjustment once we all get home, but so far Caleb seems to be happy to see Cooper and Kinley!

As always, we appreciate your prayers as we still have some milestones to meet before we can all come home as a family.  We are so happy with Kinley's progress, but definitely want her to continue to grow so she can catch up and come home not too long after her brother.  We thank you for all of your prayers so far, we can feel them and they are working!