Pull over. We have a blow-out!

No, not a tire, but a baby blow-out!  For several days, it had seemed as if Sophia was never going to get settled.  She was irritable and gassy.  Well, that all changed on Friday.  As if someone had pushed the lever and opened the floodgates, Sophie exploded in a disastrous, albeit enjoyably relieving, mess.  Her seemingly impermeable diaper finally revealed it's true porous self as the eruption escaped from the front, back, and sides.  I'm not gonna lie, it was disgusting.  I never understood how some little being that barely weighs five pounds could produce what seemed like five pounds of waste.  There was no way to just change the diaper and move on.  This required the full bath treatment.  Seriously, it was up her chest on the front and between her shoulder blades on her back.  Yuck!

You don't have to tell these parents twice.  We took the advice of so many that responded to the last post and decided we'd use the pink tub from the NICU and give her a bath in the sink.  MUCH BETTER this time around.  We turned on the faucet and played with the temperature until the green light on the temperature turtle showed us we were in the sweet spot for bath time.  While Meg washed her hair, I actually ran the water right on her belly.  It was like spa day at Chambre des DeBauche!  She looked like she was in heaven.  WAY different than poop time in the pool last weekend.  I decided against posting any proof as to protect the innocent :)

Sophia, post-spa treatment


As you may have guessed by now, due to my lack of excitement around bringing another baby home, Maddy had an "episode" on Friday, so the go-home clock was reset. If there's a silver lining to having to spend another week in the NICU, it's that we get to practice just a little longer with just our guinea pig Sophia.  She's still having a lot of trouble with reflux.  Also, I'm going to go ahead and deem her "the fussy one."  Who knows?  She could prove me wrong.  I absolutely hope so.  So, for now, we're planning on bring her home this Friday.  If she has another episode this week and her go-home date slips to next week, there's a high probability they'll send her home on a monitor.  It's not the worst thing that could happen, but her random episodes are the only things that are keeping her from coming home at this point.  Plus, the NICU won't keep them past their original due date, 11/4, if it's just a matter of monitoring her breathing--that becomes our job. 

Maddy, patiently waiting for mom and dad to rescue her from the NICU


Izzy is doing very well. She's up to 3 lbs 13 oz. She had minor surgery this past Wednesday to get her stoma under control.  Basically, it kept creeping out to the point that it measured 3.75cm, which is pretty long if you measure it out.  They did have to put her under anesthesia, so that's always a little scary and they also had to intubate her, but immediately took it out once the surgery was over.  She still has (hopefully just) one surgery ahead of her to re-connect her intestines.  The story is still the same though.  The goal is to get her to grow as large as possible while balancing her liver stats because of the TPN with how much food she's able to digest with the portion of intestines she has between her stomach and stoma.  If she stops growing, starts dumping, or shows signs of liver distress, they'll perform the remaining surgery.  She's been such a fighter so far, so I'm thinking she'll continue to work through whatever she needs to so she can grow as big as she possibly can.  It does mean that she'll most likely be in the NICU until sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it also means a higher likelihood of having a successful surgery.

These girls have no idea how much they're loved.  I can't wait to get them home!

Izzy, checking out her Nana (my mom)