We've had our first setback in the boy's progress (which is pretty amazing that they have only made forward progress in the month they've been alive). Carter's lab work came back yesterday with a pretty low level of hemoglobin in his blood. They believe this might be the reason why he has not been able to go off the nasal cannula. They retested it just to make sure, and it came back fairly low again. The doctor decided to begin a course of injections of a medicine that encourages the body to produce more hemoglobin. Carter will receive the medicine 3 times per week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) for the next two or three weeks. The doctor will monitor his blood work to make sure his hemoglobin levels are increasing. The doctor is very confident that this course of medicine will work and there should not be a need for a blood transfusion. If his levels do not increase after a few weeks, we will discuss if a transfusion is necessary. In order to help him, the doctor also increased the volume of oxygen currently being given through his cannula. If all works as planned, this extra oxygen and increase in hemoglobin should increase the oxygen level in his blood, so he should be able to be removed from all of the respiratory assistance. In addition, his growth should increase once his oxygen issues are figured out, as he will not be expending as much energy just to breathe.
Despite Carter's respiratory problems, he is still gaining weight. I did not see their weights yet for today, but yesterday he weighed 2lbs 12oz. Anderson is fast approaching 4 pounds, weighing in at 3lbs 15oz yesterday. We will give an update if they gained at all today.
The boys will not be switching to an open crib together in the near future. Anderson is maintaining his own temperature fairly well, but Carter has been a little bit chilly. Both of them are not quite down to 27 degrees Celsius in their isolette yet, so it will likely be awhile before they switch their beds.
Feeding is going well. Anderson took 6 ml of milk from the bottle this morning. Carter is taking in about 3 ml on the bottle feedings. Although we can't really measure how much they are taking in with breastfeeding, they are getting the motions down and getting used to it, so it seems to be going well. They are continuing to receive a full feeding via their tube while breastfeeding, and their full feeding minus whatever they took in through the bottle while bottle feeding.
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