Owen and Caleb Update Part 3

We figured it would be time for another update because we know you have all been waiting on the edges of your seats about our two adorable babies.
First again Sue is recovering nicely she has been super mobile and gaining strength by the hour. Her doctor is planning on having her released upon the world again on Saturday afternoon.
As for the boys we have been putting things in a positive light, mainly because they are stable. However, they are still very young in development standards. A typical baby is born at 40 weeks and these guys were born at 35 weeks so they have some catching up to do. With that in mind there are no major problems, but it is expected that they will both be in their respective hospitals for a week or two.
We’ll start with Owen this time, he is still at the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) at IMC and as we have been told by his team the average baby in his state will stay at the NICU for about 3 weeks. We visited him yesterday afternoon and he was kind of struggling on the CPAP (assisted breathing) machine so the nurses and doctors were keeping an eye on him to see if he would stabilize or if they needed to move him to a ventilator (full breathing machine). Eventually they made the decision to administer a type of medication called surfactant, this type of medication allows the lungs to become lubricated. In Owen’s case his lungs were sticky and he basically had to exert himself just to push his bad air out as well as breathing in. So this medicine helped to keep his lungs open to circulate the air better. As a result he is once again back off the ventilator and back on the CPAP with hopes of going onto enriched oxygen later tonight (no more machines breathing for him). Also with the help of the kind nurses Sue was able to finally hold him for about 20 minutes even with all his hoses, tubes and wires. Long story short he is improving slowly but surely.
With Caleb even though he is medically stable and has eaten a few times, he will probably stay at least for a week. With that said he has been such a good eater. His tummy is starting to get out of womb phase and into baby phase. Sue has fed him now 4 times.
As a side note in regards to their blood tests, most of you know that Sue is a carrier for hemophilia. As such the hospitals have been very gentle with both boys until they have firm results on whether or not they are hemophiliacs themselves. It looks good for Caleb because he has already had blood drawn twice and it has clotted both times before it made it to the labs. He had another sample drawn today that should finally give us an official result. Owen’s blood however has been tested and has come back with a clotting factor percentage of 39 which is an extremely mild case of hemophilia (normal clotting percentages for most people range from 65 to 100).


Dad, Mom and Baby Owen