Baby progress!

There are several things that the babies have to do before they can come home.  They're all making amazing progress towards these goals!

First, they have to be able to maintain their body temperatures. For the past two weeks, they've been in isolettes which are big plastic bed boxes that are warmed so the babies don't have to work at maintaining their temperatures.  The process of moving from the isolettes to an open crib involves slowly weaning them off the warm isolette air and into the open air for at least a day before they actually move into open cribs.  Charlie has been wearing clothes and weaning into the air over the past day, and John and Peggy started that process last night.

Second, they have to be able to suck, swallow and breathe at the same time so they can eat from a breast or bottle instead of a feeding tube.  They have all been getting breast milk for the past two weeks through their feeding tubes.  Two days ago we and the nurses have started giving them milk in a bottle, and they all took some, which is awesome!  They only get a bottle a couple of times a day, so they have some progress to make before they are getting all of their nutrition without the feeding tubes.

Also, obviously, they can't be on IVs.  The good news on that front is that as of early this morning, all the babies' IVs are out! John and Peggy are off their supplemental nutrition (which the nurses call souped-up gatorade because that's kind of what it looks like), which means their IVs came out! Charlie's has been out for over a week.  This makes it so much easier to hold them because they don't have a board taped to their foot or hand where the IV is (Hannah calls it a paddle because that's what she thinks it looks like), and we don't have to worry about accidentally pulling it out. Not that that's ever happened.

They are making progress towards coming home everyday and although we don't know when they will be ready to come home, everyday we see progress! 

Here's Charlie last week, chilling in his isolette.  He still had his IV in- see the paddle on his hand to stabilize it for the IV? That's all gone for all three of them!! They are all opening their eyes more and they have become so much more interactive and interested in our faces this past week!

 Hannah and John.  You can see that the babies have fewer tubes and such attached to them. 

Laura and Peggy having some snuggle time.