A Few Setbacks

The boys have had a few setbacks today. Braylon has had some difficulty with reflux so they started him on Zantac today. I was able to hold him skin-to-skin during his 12pm care time. He just laid there so comfortably and slept the whole time. He had a little case of the hiccups while I was holding him and he spit up a little on my chest. He got his umbilical line out today and will be strictly on breast milk and they are going to increase his calories, so he will start packing on the pounds, well, okay, ounces.
Brother had a little bit of a busy morning. We thought that both would avoid getting PICCs or IVs but Kaden ended up needing to have an IV placed. They removed his umbilical line also, but he needs fluids for a couple more days. He has been having more desats and the nurse thought that it may be related to his gastric tube that goes through his mouth down to his tummy. For some reason he ended up with a little bigger tube than his brother. She replaced it with a smaller one to see if maybe that will help with the desats. She thinks he may be gagging on it a little. He has not been tolerating the high-flow cannula well and is working a little too hard at breathing so they decided to put him back on c-pap for the night to give him a break. Although I hate that I can’t hold him while he is on c-pap and it looks so uncomfortable, I am happy that they put it back on. Today when I was doing his 12pm cares he seemed so exhausted and he hardly reacted to me touching him. I was pretty upset and felt terrible for him. Tonight he seemed to have a little more energy during his 9pm cares and even opened his eyes a little. Hopefully he will have more energy tomorrow morning.
Both of the boys have been having more spells of apnea (where they forget to breath) and bradycardia (where their heart rate decreases). Braylon had one brady spell that lasted almost 3 minutes at around 5pm but recovered from it. I don’t know if the nurses telling me this information is a good thing or not. I can’t decide if I want to know everything that goes on, it is difficult because there is nothing I can do to make it better. The nurses have assured me that this is normal for preemies but it is hard when they are your babies.
Bryan and I have been calling each other frequently for updates. My pumping schedule is midnight, 3am, 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm. Bryan has to be at work at 5:45am so he gave me a little wakeup call before I got up to pump this morning, just to see how I was doing. It was so nice to wake up to his voice rather than the alarm clock. He has been busy doing things around the house when he is not at work. We are both counting down the days until he is back up here. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for him to be away from the boys. I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful and strong husband who even though he hates every minute that he is away, is willing to make sacrifices so he can provide for his family. I don’t know what I would do without him.