More for Day 8 in the NICU

Here are a few pictures from last night. Brenden had a great time holding his new baby sister. This NICU experience is so emotional. Last night I saw Avery doing some weird twitching - makes me so nervous. We saw Conner have so many seizures that I immediatly think that is what was happening. Apparantly preemie's have an immature nervous system and they do all sorts of strange stuff - they twitch, and shake and have eyes that roll up, and often look crossed eyed. Thanks to the nurse Chris for telling me to "knock it off" and stop worrying. I am driving myself crazy. After everything we have been through in the past 3 years, I am a basketcase. Avery went to the breast 2 times today - I can only be at the hospital for about 1/2 of her feedings because Brenden's school schedule and at some point I have to sleep a little. They have this awsome scale in the NICU for breastfeeding to measure how much the baby eats. We used the scale for the second feeding and Avery took 20ml from the breast - that is terrific since it was only her second time ever breastfeeding. Her requirement is 40ml every 3 hours - so I did have to give her the remaining 20ml in a bottle, but hey - she did it! She finally gained some weight last night. They measure the babies in grams - so Im not sure what it is in pounds. She is not back to her birth weight yet, I know that. We are headed back to the hospital and I will be there for the 9pm feed and the midnight one - so hopefully she will do just as good as she did this morning. Also we had to get Avery a new carseat since she is so little - and she will be taking her car seat test maybe in a day or so. The NICU makes sure the babies can tolerate the position in the seat without dropping their heartrate or forgetting to breathe.