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.