Big Step!

The boys are out of their isolettes!!! They are now in one crib together, which is totally exciting. They usually don't put them in cribs until they reach 1800 grams, and the boys are only 1650 grams right now. But they have both been maintaining a temp of around 37.4 degrees celcius, which is a little warm, even though their isolettes were set at room temp. So now it's a matter of seeing if they can maintain their temps out in the open air. If not, they go back in the isolette for a couple more days. But I think they'll be able to handle it.

I've also been given the green light to do rec feeding twice a day and when the doctor came by today, he mentioned attempting some real feeding (no pumping before hand) this weekend. We'll see how that goes. So far, Levi has pulled ahead of Asher in terms of latching on and getting anything done during rec feeding. Maybe feeling like he's actually getting something done will help Asher get motivated.

It's so nice having Nathan back in Boise. It was definitely a good thing that he went home, but both the boys and I missed him. The hardest part was probably going in and holding one of the boys, and then knowing that the other boy was laying in his isolette, awake, and not being able to hold him. I did hold them both at the same time once, which was entertaining because all the sudden I had no extra hand to scratch my nose or adjust a baby.

Every time a doctor comes in to see the boys, they always exclaim over how quickly they are gaining weight. Yay! They are growing in leaps and bounds, and I'm loving seeing them change from skinny preemie babies to just small babies. They're actually starting to have chubby cheeks! Maybe they don't look like it in the pictures, but even my mom agreed that the pictures make them look skinnier.

It's amazing how little time I actually have during the day, even though I only go to three or four of the boys' feedings. Here's a typical day in my world right now: wake up at 9:00 or 9:30, take a shower, pump by 10:00, grab some food real quick, leave the room by 10:35 to get to the boys' room by 10:45 in order to help with Levi's cares before his 11:00 feeding. Start rec feeding with Levi at 11:00 for about 20 minutes until he falls asleep, put him to bed, start rec feeding with Asher until he falls asleep. By the time they both are asleep and I get out of there, it's usually 12:00 or 12:30. I usually head back to the house, eat, pump at 1:00, and then take a nap because I woke up every 3 hours the night before to pump. Wake up by 3:30, pump at 4:00, leave the room by 4:35 to go to the boys' 5:00 feeding. Repeat the rec feeding schedule. Done by around 6:00 or 6:30. Back to the room to pump by 7:00, eat somewhere in there, back to the boys' room by 7:45 for their 8:00 feeding. Done with that by around 9:00 or 9:30. Back to the house to eat something, do laundry, catch up on the blog, pump, spend time with Nathan, and collapse. Although sometimes we through an 11:00 pm feeding in there too. And most of the time, because I'm a night owl, I stay awake to do a 1 am pump before I go to sleep and set my alarm to wake me up every 3 hours (4 am and 7 am). I usually only get about 2 1/2 hours of sleep between pumping.

Anyway, I think I'm going to call it quits on this post and finally edit the photos from the past few days! Look on the boys' album for them! And then...pump and bed...now that the laundry is finally done.