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.