2/23/98 Email Update


Hi folks.

As today is the one month anniversary of the birth of our kids, I thought I'd send out a little update.

Holly and CarrieAnna have been home since last Monday, and are (so far) well behaved. CarrieAnna has a monitor for apnea/bradycardia (breathing/heartbeat slowdowns) which only goes off if we're changing her or feeding her. We had a home visit from a nurse today, who put the girls' weights at 5 lbs 1 oz, and 5 lbs 6 oz, respectively.

James is still in the hospital for another week or two, but doing VERY well. His Isolette incubator temperature is only .3 degrees celsius over room temperature, and he weighs 3 lbs 5.7 oz. The nurses all say he can't wait to the whole three hours between his feedings.

We're getting comfortable with all the lovely parenting duties. Feeding, diapering, bathing, as well as temperature taking (arm or rectal!), and doctor paging (CarrieAnna went 36 hours without a bowel movement, but had one soon after we paged the pediatrician). We also have had people helping out almost non-stop since we brought them home.
:-)

Our web page is still very skimpy, with only three poorly scanned images on it, but my last roll of film just came back, and I got it on floppy disk as well, so look for updates very soon. Here's the address:

http://geocities.datacellar.net/Heartland/Ranch/7550
Also, I wasn't feeling all that great the first half of last week, so I went to the Dr on Thursday just to be safe. I just called, and we're still waiting for the blood results to confirm the Dr's suspicion that I had GERMAN MEASLES. Ugh. It's not a rough disease, but boy the NICU went into a panic when they heard, since I had been there on Tuesday (I haven't been allowed back).

Michelle has been feeling tired, naturally, but otherwise healing fairly well. She's still pumping, and has been going to the hospital every afternoon to see James, and drop off breast milk. I can see it wearing on her, though.

I haven't been back to work since the girls came home, but I am doing some work today from home. We also have Dr's appointments on both Wednesday (the pediatrician, for both girls) and Thursday (the pulmonologist for CarrieAnna) this week. When I start going (If? Must buy lottery tix ;-), it's going to be much tougher on us, since right now we sleep between feedings until the 9:30am feeding. Ugh.

Bye for now, Chipp


February 11, 1998

February 23, 1998

May 1, 1998

July 17, 1998 1