Thanksgiving Week Update

Dave and I spent the night in the NICU Monday night for our official "rooming in" with the boys.  This allowed us to practice being on our own with the boys all night, while they are still hooked up to monitors and the nurses are just outside the door in case of an emergency. 

The family room in the NICU

Daddy and Henry

Henry had a great night - a big feeding followed by a few good breast feeding sessions. He also had a few periods of quietness that allowed us to put him down and get some rest. 

Jameson had two bradycardias during feedings, the second was the most significant brady either of us have witnessed and required nurses assistant to get him breathing again. Probably the scariest moment of my life. He was immediately sent back to his standard NICU bed and was given a nasal cannula to get his oxygen levels back up. By morning, they rearranged the nursing staff so the boys could get dedicated support.


Tuesday morning we met with the neonatologist and she recommended Jameson will likely need another 10+ days to give his system more time to mature and hopefully no more bradies. Given we thought Jameson was developmentally head of Henry, the neonatologist suggested to also hold on to Henry for an extra couple of days for observation. Unfortunately Henry also had a series of bradies on Thursday evening, so he is now under close watch with no ETA of coming home. 

Dave and I are trying to keep positive spirits. We are thankful both boys were still in care of the amazing NICU stuff during these episodes. And we are especially thankful to be surrounded by so much love and support from our friends and family.


The boys 40 week due date was Dec 4th - and that is when the NICU staff initially suggested we should anticipate them coming home.  So hopefully we will be able to bring them home within the next week or so.

Henry: 8 Weeks 

Jameson: 8 Weeks 

With Jameson: Mommy's little turkey

Frick Family

Ask and you shall receive

Well, last update we were talking about playing the waiting game to see when the boys were going to get to come home.  Over the course of the last week or so, Jameson and Henry have picked up their feeding.  Dr. Wertz, the neonatologist on this past week, adjusted their feeding intervals from 3 hours to 4 hours to get their hunger urges going.  It did the trick as the boys were much more voracious in their eating.  This morning, the feedings tubes were removed from both of the boys and they taking all feedings by mouth. (Pictures below) So, fingers crossed, the boys are on their countdown to departure.  We do our overnight stay in the NICU “suite” tomorrow night where we get to experience our first of many nights of limited/no sleep.  Then, if all goes well, the boys should be coming home on Wednesday, just in time for their first thanksgiving. 

Jameson

Henry

Overnight suite in the NICU

We don't know when...

One of the more common questions that we get from folks is when are the boys coming home.  First, we just want to say thank you, it means a lot to us that people reach out and care about how our boys are doing.  We usually share the fact that their original birth date, Dec 4, is the best estimate.  All things considered, they are tracking a bit behind their gestational age, though nothing that has alarmed the doctors.  But to be honest, we don’t know, and it could easily be Day X for one boy and Day Y for the other.  It’s a tough reality to deal with, especially for relatively Type A personalities like ourselves who are used to schedules and metrics and results orientation (Intel shoutout).  We watch the boys each day, and some days are good and other days are setbacks.  And sometimes it’s good for Jameson and not for Henry, or vice versa.  And we’ve read so/too much that we have expectations for what they should do at week 37 when maybe their internal clock says I’m not ready to do that until week 38.  It’s an easy situation to get stressed or cynical, because even the doctors and staff can’t answer the biggest question on our mind each day: when can we bring them home?
You feel out of control and that your kids are in complete control of their development.  I’ve heard from fellow parents that is sometimes a feeling you have to get used over the years :)  Just happening a little bit earlier or in a more exaggerated manner for us.  Fingers crossed, it’s sooner rather than later.

We also wanted to say thank you to our friend, Kathleen, who has been extremely generous with her time in driving Raechel to the hospital those mornings when I have to work.  Countless thank you’s.  It eases Raechel’s burden/energy of driving the ~2 hours a day roundtrip and lets us spend our return drive home together, which is great for our relationship and just shared decompress time post-NICU. 

Some quick stats for those who are interested: the boys are 6 ¾ and 6 ¼ lbs.  Jameson is doing better on his bottle/breast feedings, probably 2/3 of the way there as he’s been pretty good at doing a bottle feeding every other time and getting most/all of it down.  Henry is having a harder time with mastering the suck/swallow/breathe coordination (accompanied by the occasional grunt/poop) and has had a couple Bradys over the past two days during his bottle-feedings.  It’s a tough thing to master given the variables, one of which is us :)  The speech pathologist has printed out recommended instructions on body positions and procedures, but we’re still trying to find that groove where it all goes smoothly.  But so far as we know, that’s the last main hurdle.  Might take days, or weeks, or maybe a month if that’s what they decide.  But regardless of when, there probably won’t be two happier parents on the planet when we’re able to bring them into our home the first time.  Can’t wait to share that update

Jameson (left) and Henry (right)

Dad with Henry (left) and Jameson (right)

Henry, looking suspicious of David's storytelling

Mom and her growing boys

Frick Twins: 6 Weeks!

The boys reached their 6 week birthday today!  It’s been some time since we posted a blog, so just a bit of a health download on the boys.  There was a some back and forth on their dosage of caffeine (off for a while, back on when they had a couple Brady’s, and back off again now).  Henry had a Brady yesterday, but they have largely cleared up for both boys at this point.  Henry has cleared 6lbs and Jameson is at 5 ¾ lbs.  They no longer have the oxygen monitor on their feet, but still have the heart and respiratory monitors on their chest.  And while they are starting to intermittently breast and bottle feed, they still require the NG tubes to their stomachs.  They seem to have the sucking instinct down, but haven’t quite mastered the suck/swallow/breathe coordination just yet.  Their feeding seems to be the long pole in the tent for their coming home, so hopefully that clicks in the next week or two.  Everything about their development seems to be on track according to the doctors and nurses.

Probably the thing that sticks out to us the most now is that instead of preemies, they look like newborn babies.  Their cheeks have filled in, their skin tone is more normalized, and their breathing patterns are more regular than when they first arrived in early October.  They moved up from preemie sized clothes to newborn, though it rests a little big on their frames.  It’s actually a little challenging to fit them in my shirt for skin-to-skin contact as their legs rest on my legs now versus just sitting on my stomach.  I’ve even noticed that their grunting, while still frequent, seems to be more fruitful in its efforts (i.e. more gas and poop and less just frustrating clenching).  That’s a sign that their digestive tract is starting to catch up to a full-term newborns as well.  And their cries seem to be getting louder.  A lot louder.  Which every parent in the world means they have good lungs and that’s a good thing, right?  Well, we are particularly thankful and they are welcome to cry as loud as they want.  At least until we get them home in a couple of weeks and it’s the middle of the night.

So fingers crossed things continue to go well.  There is no set timetable, but we’re still hoping for a Thanksgiving at home with the boys.  To be honest, it seems like it may just depend on the neonatologist on duty that given week.  Referencing back to the caffeine mention in the first bit, one neonatologist thought when they returned on caffeine they may be on it for 1-2 weeks.  4 days later the next neonatologist had taken them off of it.  So who knows.  We’ll just take it as it comes and keep hoping and praying they’ll be home soon.

Henry with his Bunny

Jameson with his Giraffe

Dad and the boys: Henry (left) and Jameson (right)

Mom and Henry

Friends of NICU

Hope everyone is well.  Raechel and I had a chance to go to a fundraiser for the Friends of NICU over the weekend.  It was a nice chance for us to get out while the boys are in the good hands of the nursing staff, and also obviously a worthy cause.  The charity was started 6 years ago by a couple who, like us, had twins at just over 30 weeks.  They support in-need families who have babies in the NICU, primarily by providing nearby housing and/or gas cards for transport to local hospitals for families who don’t live close by.  They actually have provided a couple of RVs that sit outside the Family Birthing Center so that families can visit their kids whenever they like, 24/7.  Health-wise, it allows the parents to provide the skin-to-skin contact that helps improve the babies’ health.  Very tangible in terms of how the funds are spent and the benefit provided.  They had a family speak from Chico (about two hours north) and how meaningful it was to them that, instead of initially visiting their baby 1-2 days a week, they were able to spend every day for their remaining 5 weeks with their child. 

 

Point being, the event got Raechel and I discussing how we could contribute further to the NICU cause.  Due to the generosity of everyone already, we have plenty of infant clothing, toys, supplies, etc., for the boys for this Christmas.  If you were planning on buying presents for them this Christmas, we’d love you dedicate those funds towards a donation to the charity.  To donate, the method of payment is as follows…

 

Mailing Address: Friends of NICU, PO Box 6242, Folsom, CA 95763

Paypal Address: purkis@friendsofnicu.com

 

 

For more info on Friends of NICU, visit: 

http://friendsofnicu.com/blog/our-mission/

Rae and David at the Celebration of Miracles Event

Visiting the Frick Twins

Raechel and I just wanted to send a quick note of heads-up that as of late we are limiting visitation for the boys in the NICU.  We wanted to share a little background as to why. 

Henry and Jameson are still at only 35 weeks of gestational development.  We have to remember that had they followed the normal pregnancy timeline, they would still be in the womb for more than another month, removed from light, touch, and surrounded by fluid to help mute all the noise.  Right now, the best thing for them is uninterrupted sleep and bonding time with Mom.  For premature babies like Henry and Jameson, sleep is essential for growth, brain development, learning, and memory.  Visitors bring distraction and can overly stimulate our growing boys.  Disturbances in sleep can cause exhaustion, damage to the developing body, dysfunction of the immune system resulting in susceptibility to infection, and serious stress and agitation.  Also, their immune system is immature, and the risk of a visitor bringing in a virus or other illness is extremely scary and not worth the risk to their health.  That’s particularly the case given we’re coming upon the peak of flu season.  Several of our Neonatologists have met with us to stress importance of sleep for the next few months and to keep visitor counts to the bare minimum.  Since we will be measuring their development based on their original Dec due date, we plan to wait until early February to extend invitations for visitors in our home or introduce them into environments with a broader set of people.  It doesn’t mean there won’t be exceptions to the rule, but we’ll choose those time and places depending on the circumstances and our doctor’s recommendations.  It’s not an easy decision, but one that is the best interests of Jameson and Henry’s short- and long-term health. 

 

We appreciate all the support and hope this background provides some perspective and understanding.  If this has sparked additional interest in learning about preemies, I have a lengthy text book anyone is welcome to borrow  ;)  We’re happy to keep everyone updated as frequently as we can, and address any questions you might have.