18 weeks old (2 weeks adjusted)

The twins are now 18 weeks old or 2 weeks adjusted.  Cade now weighs 8 lb. 8 oz. and Camdyn now weighs 6 lbs. 6 oz.  Camdyn is continuing to work on taking her bottles and breastfeeding.  Cade's update is much longer.  He did another swallow study and did not do so well.  It showed that some milk is going into his airway, so they have stopped all oral feeds for him.  All of his feeds will be given through the tube.  Our doctor consulted with some of her colleagues and is recommending another ENT when we are discharged.  This other ENT has more experience with bilateral vocal cord paralysis.  From what our doctor told her, she thinks there is a chance that it may just be unilateral vocal cord paralysis since he can breathe fine on his own and has been off of oxygen for a while now.  I really don't know what to think.  Without her seeing him, I am not going to put too much into that thought yet.  They plan on sending Cade home with the feeding tube, and since that is all that is keeping him in the NICU, we may get to bring him home soon!  I am going to talk to the doctors about sending Camdyn home with her feeding tube as well.  They would like for her to be able to take all of her bottles, but I feel like we can work on that at home.  Whatever she can't finish, we can give her through her feeding tube.  If I'm going to have to learn all about how to do gavage feedings for one, I may as well do it for the other one too.  Hopefully, we'll know more about Cade after we meet with this other ENT. 

I don't really even know what, how, or if I should hope at this point.  You hear things like "false hope", "don't get your hopes up" and then also, "hope for the best", "hold on to hope".  What the heck?!  What am I supposed to do?  I don't want to give up hope that everything is going to turn out great, but I don't want to build up some false sense of hope when I should be working on acceptance.  This is so confusing, and often times, it is just too much.  All I can focus on right now is that at least my babies may get to come home soon.  It's definitely not the ideal way to have them come home, but nothing is ideal in our crazy situation.  At least when I want to check on them at home, I won't have to wait 10 minutes on hold to get to the right nurse who has my babies for the night.  

Here are a lot of really cute pictures of my precious kiddos.  Enjoy!

my blue-eyed cutie during tummy time 

my sweet angel smiling and sleeping during tummy time - how sweet!

Cade - all cheeks.  I just want to squeeze them!

Camdyn taking a little rest.  "Mom I'm only 6 lbs.  What do you expect me to do on my tummy?"

my precious babies

my very sweet "big girl" with her "girl baby"

my little chunky monkey - We never would have imagined him to be so chunky coming from the 1 lb. 8 oz. where he started.

two peas in a pod (or swing)

The babies had a really nice nurse the other night who took all their tubes out so we could get some cute pictures.  I love all these naked pictures.  In the ones below, Cade is either kissing Camdyn, nursing on her nose, or trying to eat her!  I can't tell.

look how much bigger Cade is than Camdyn (Notice the cute fat rolls!  Yay!)

 "I love you Sis!"

Camdyn

Cade

my sweet babies

 April hosted a shower for me in La Grange this past weekend.  It was very nice.  She got this adorable cake and cookie bouquet for the shower.  Isn't it so cute?  Thank you everyone for all the wonderful presents.  I can't wait to dress Camdyn and Cade in all the cute outfits.