Aside from a huge gust of wind knocking down a tree on the property line between us and the Red Cross, it's been a pretty quiet week, so there's not much to report.
Dr. Sharma got an occimeter (a machine that tests the pulse and oxygen levels in the blood through a little bandage looking thing that wraps around her foot) for us to monitor Eden's pulse ox at home and I went to Regional yesterday, April 2, to get it. They went ahead and weighed her and took her pulse ox and there was good news on both fronts: she'd gained 7 ounces in 9 days (yay! Formula breast milk is great!) and her oxygen levels were still 88, so they hadn't dropped in the two weeks since we'd last had them taken. Dr. Sharma was very happy with her stats and how she's slowly starting to plump up. The boys got so chunky so fast on formula, its a little strange to me to have as small a baby as I do at this stage. But since she's doing great, I'm happy with that.
We're to take her pulse ox every day, once a day, and keep track of it on a log they gave us. We'll take the book to every appointment and on the off two weeks that we don't go, we'll fax it in. So every two weeks the doctors will see her log even if they don't see her physically. We have a scale at home that we're not terribly adept at using, but maybe eventually we'll figure it out and we can weigh her ourselves to track her weight gain.
Still no set dates on anything, which is still frustrating, but I've accepted I can't change that by asking every time we communicate with the doctors. It just irritates them (I'm sure, they've never let on they're irritated, but you know they've got to be mentally rolling their eyes) and doesn't give me any answers.
One thing that's huge is we're pretty sure we've got childcare sorted out. We sat and had a conversation with Mom and Bob last week and they said they'll take the boys while we're both in Dallas. We hadn't even considered asking anyone to take them full time, so their offering was amazing. We said Austin wasn't going to be there the whole time to help the boys have some semblence of normality in their lives and Mom pointed out that I shouldn't be in Dallas for the surgery by myself and that if Austin wasn't going to go, she would. So he and I talked and decided that the pre-surgery and ICU part of the hospital stay, he'll be there. The boys will stay with Mom and Bob and then Austin will come home and take over. We're still hoping they can come visit on the weekends so I can see my boys but if not, we've got Skype (our experience with Facetime is that it doesn't work, plus I don't have it) and phone calls.
During the day, since Mom and Bob shouldn't have to take care of the boys all day every day, we're planning on sending them to the child care at Zion Lutheran. Either Bob's sweet talking or our situation or a combination of both have gotten us spots in their day care program even if its short notice. I've started the process of filling out the paperwork and gathering up the documents for them. It's a great program because it's 6:30am until 6pm and they provide the kids breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack, they go outside to play twice a day, weather permitting, and there's a place to leave car seats in case we don't know who will be picking them up. I think there's even a thumb print scanner? I don't know, but it seems pretty great to me. We'll figure out the cost of it later.
The freezer is pretty well full to capacity now, but we're eating through the stuff the boys don't like so that when I'm gone, Austin will have a freezer that's 90% boy friendly food for their dinners. I do have a list that Austin gave me of things that Austin wants/needs to have on hand so I'll be stocking up on various things over the coming weeks to make sure he's good. I'm hoping to get it to a point that he doesn't have to go to the store except for milk, maybe, and he only has to do laundry once a week for the boys.
I've got lists of household items, lists of food for the guys, lists of stuff for me to take with me to Dallas, lists of questions for the doctors, lists of stuff we have to get squared away for day care, lists for just about everything. This makes me feel like I have some control over stuff, even if I don't actually have any control.
As for helping us in some way, there's a couple of things we're thinking about and we'll let you know if they come to anything. I don't want to say anything now in case they don't happen but if they do, I'll post here about them ASAP. For now, thanks so much for the continued prayers and well wishes. Eden is doing great, smiling more and more and its fun when she's alert and looking at us. She's still not terribly interactive, but we'll get there.
Happy Easter!
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