They seem to be holding their own today, which is always nice for us to hear.

Charlton is up to 1.4 mls on his feedings every hour and seems to be doing ok on the new ventilator. His Ventilator is at 34% and he is requiring 35% oxygen.

Savannah is up to 4 1/2 mls on her feedings over 1 1/2 hours. Her ventilator is set at 32 % and is requiring 28% oxygen.

They heard some fluid in Savannah's lungs so they did give her a one time dose of medicine to help clear it up.

We are at the Hospital and it is definitely an up day today. Charlton's X-ray show that both his lungs are open and not collapsed so they moved him off the oscillatory respirator and back onto the conventional one. Both of them are requiring less supplemental oxygen. Both of them went up in their feedings again. Savannahs head ultrasound shows that her level 4 bleed is actually a level 3, so she has bilateral level 3 bleeds and not a 3 and 4 like we originally thought. Also, there isn't any development of water on her brain. The nurses also took two really good pictures of Savannah today but I wont be able to upload them until I get home.
The only bad news I have to report is that a guy speeding through a construction zone on the highway kicked a bunch of gravel up onto our van and cracked the windshield. I guess you cant win them all.

Savannah's respirations still seem to be up and down, but not as much as yesterday. Her feedings are now up to 3mls and she seems to be tolerating it. They did another head ultrasound on her today, but we still have not heard any news on that. Hopefully one of the doctors will fill us in tomorrow. At this point they are looking to see if she develops water on the brain, which would then require a shunt (not even sure what that is).

Charlton's latest x-ray of his lungs seemed to look a little better than earlier today. However, the collapse is still there. They are slowly decreasing his supplemental oxygen. He was at 50 - 60 % last night and is currently at 30%. This is very important because they want to put him on a different machine, but they need to get this number down and get him more stabilized. They have increased his feedings to .7 ml continuously every hour.

We just arrived home today from being at the hospital since Thursday.

It is difficult being near your babies and not being allowed to comfort them when they are in need. Thankfully we are able to put our hands on Savannah, however we are not allowed to talk to them loudly or stroke their skin because this will only cause them stress and for their saturation levels to drop. With little Charlton we are only allowed to look at him through the isolette (incubator) since he is in such respiratory distress and just our touch can cause dramatic changes for the worse.

As noted on Friday Charlton's left lung had particially collapsed and today we found out that he left lung is doing better, but now his right lung has particially collapsed.

Both babies are now taking breast milk and they are slowing increasing their dosage. Since babies typically lose weight when they are born, both are still under their birth wieght at this point. However, we are hoping that will change soon.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

Today was better than yesterday. Both Savannah and Charlton are having respiratory issues but both are handling thier feedings well. Savannah gets 2 ml of breast milk every 3 hours and Charlton gets .4 ml every 3 hours continuosly through thier feeding tubes.
Charltons arterial line went bad again and they had to pull it, they'll probably put a new one in tomorrow. He also was moved a few times because he just wasn't comfortable in any position they put him in. We weren't allowed to touch Charlton because his saturation levels drop greatly when he's disturbed but we both put our hands on Savannah a couple of times. She really likes it when we lay our hands over her legs. Her oxygen saturation levels increase and she sometimes moves her hand down to touch ours. I also got to change Savannahs diaper. I've done it three times now. Ashley was very excited because she got to see her brother and sister for a little while this morning. She has only seen them twice before.

Today was a very rough day for both Charlton and Savannah.

Charlton is not doing as well on the Oscillator as the doctors had hoped. In addition, they did an
X-ray on is lungs which showed that his lungs have partially collapsed. The doctors were hoping to take him off the Oscillator and move him to another type of vantillator but they do not feel he is stable enough at this point. They also had to change his arterial line again today because he continues to have problems with the artieries having spasms.

Savannah: They were considering taking her off the ventillator, however, over the last few days she has not been stable with her oxygen saturations and she periodically stops breathing all together.

We are hoping/praying that they will do better tomorrow.

Savannah's infection (fungus) has moved into her blood stream which is never a good thing. The fungus can attach to her organs, which in turn can cause further complications. They took an ultrasound of her Kidneys while we were at the hospital and although we were not given "official" word, the technician hinted that there was no fungus present in the Kidneys. The Doctor also said that Savannah's lungs were doing better and they were thinking about extubating her, however, just the stress from the ultrasound caused them to have to bag her (supplimental airflow in addition to what the respirator could do for her). At this point I don't believe the will be taking her of the intubator anytime soon. They will be checking her heart in the next few days to see if there is any fungus present.

Charlton: I was shocked to find out that little CJ is actually doing worse than Savannah in terms of the lungs. It looks like he will be intubated for a long time. They would like to get him off the Oscillator and put him back on the Ventillator because at this time they feel it will be better for him.

In terms of feeding they are both being feed breastmilk through a tube that goes into their stomach. Charlton seems to be tolerating it more than Savannah, however, they are still trying to feed it to Savannah so that her stomach will get use to it. Her dose is much smaller than Charlton's.

Inspite of the recent events, Chuck and I are remaining strong. We strongly embrace God and know that he will look after our Children and will also continue to bring us strength.

We are planning on leaving tonight to spend the weekend in Morristown to be closer to our babies.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

Both Charlton and Savannah both seemed to be resting peacefully today.

Savannah had another head ultrasound today and she still has a level 3 bleed on one side of her brain and a level 4 on the other side of the brain. She was also introduced again to 1 ml of breast milk every 6 hours. We are not sure how she is going to do with this for another few days. We are hoping that she will be able to digest it with little or no problems.

Charlton was having some difficulties with his respirations so that took him off the standard respirator and put him on a oscillator, which seems to be working better for him. They have also started him on breastmilk again, 1 ml every 6 hours. We are also hoping and praying that he will be able to adjust to the breastmilk.
Charlton also had his head ultrasound, which thankfully appears to be normal.

Keep the prayers coming :)

We were pleased to see both babies resting peacefully today. The doctors are trying to leave them be as much as possible so they can recover from their surgeries. We were also surprised to see that both babies were able to open their eyes, since up to this point they were still fused closed. On the down side, we were also informed that both babies have infections. Savannah has two different infections and will be on antibiotics for six weeks. Charlton has one infection and will hopefully be on antibiotics for just a short time. We are trying to stay strong and just take it day by day.

We are going to try to stay away from the Hospital today and get some kind of normalcy. We have called twice to check on the babies and they are having a restful day. Charlton is passing meconium through his stoma, which is great but Savannah is not. Savannah is also on a lot of respiratory support where Charlton is on little.

Today was horrible. Jen and I stayed the night at the Hospital last night to be close to the babies. They did ok through the night but both are needing a lot of extra support, drugs and attention. They both had ultrasounds done on their heads and the results for Charlton were normal but Savannah has a significant bleed in her brain. The Dr's rate bleeds in the brain by a scale of 0-4, 0 being no bleed and 4 being the worst, Savannah has a 3 on both sides of her brain. I don't really understand the math involved in the statistics that the Dr was using but basically he says that Savannah has a 16% chance of surviving and a high risk of future moderate to major handicaps.
Luckily for us Aunt Sue was returning from Geneva and was able to come to the Hospital and perform a baptism on the babies in the NICU. Needless to say we are shocked and devastated on this recent turn of events. I'm starting to think that this hill doesn't have a bottom to it.

We are at the Hospital again. Savannah had to have the same surgery Charlton had yesterday. She did well in the surgery although her intestines don't look healthy and it's just a waiting game to see what happens next. Charlton had another increase in oxygen and they increased the amount the ventilator is working for him (Not good)plus they put him on blood pressure medications. I guess we haven't reached the bottom of this hill yet.
Hopefully we willl be going back up soon. This is really having a negative effect on Jen and I.

We just got home from the hospital. We have hit and hopefully tackled a major hurdle. Charlton's small intestine ruptured and they had to do surgery to clean out his abdominal cavity. The surgery went well and he is recovering. He will need another surgery to repair the small intestine after he gains some strength. Both babies are requiring more oxygen today and both have been taken off of breast milk. We keep getting told that this is a "roller coaster ride", I think we just went down the first hill.

We went to see them yesterday. Charlton is done with his photo therapy so he doesn't have to wear eye shields anymore, and I got some good pictures of his face. The nurse says he has my jaw line, I don't see it. Savannah is doing much better than her brother in terms of oxygen saturation. Everything else is status quo.

Charlton had problem breathing at 10% so they boosted his oxygen back up to 21%. Savannah is still going strong at 0% assisted oxygen.
Today Jen went home without her babies.
The emptiness that I felt as we left the hospital and our babies behind is immeasurable so you can only imagine how Jen feels.
It is comforting to know that the babies are in excellent hands and for the most part doing well.

April 13, 2008

Three long days have passed and the babies are doing good for 24 weekers
(thats what the hospital staff keeps calling them).
Savannah, although intubated, is not requiring any additional oxygen, Charlton is requiring 10% additional oxygen. Both babies started taking breast milk today.

The Twins Arrival

On Wednesday, April 9th, we were quite surprised to learn at a routine check-up that Jen was in active labor and 3 cm dilated 3 months too soon.
Thankfully, Morristown Memorial Hospital was directly across the street.
By the time she arrived by ambulance Savannah's water broke. At 1:25 am Thursday April 10th, Savannah was delivered. Shortly after at 1:45 am Charlton was delivered by C-Section.
Savannah weighed 1 lb 8 oz and measured 12 inches long.
Charlton weighed 1 lb 6 oz and measured 11 and 7/8th's inches long.
We would like to thank everyone for the outpouring of support and prayers.
As we go through this long and emotional journey we would like to limit our phone contact and have everyone send best wishes, prayers, and comments to this website or feel free to email us at jkrause1@ptd.net or ckrause@ptd.net.
We will frequently update the status of the babies on this website so please check back often.
Thank You again for all your prayers and support.