Day 9: Just Gotta Run

A mixed day, which is the norm now. Ana experienced the “bilirubin rebound”, as it is known in these parts, where after a day of successful phototherapy, her levels spike back up once she’s off the lights. She’s back under the lights.

Dorothy was incredibly sleepy/lethargic today. The working thought from the team is that she did so well yesterday that she’s just simply tired. They’ll run labs again to check her bilirubin levels overnight as high levels can make kiddos sleep, though she was in the green last night.

On the plus side, they were allowed to increase their feeding and given a minimum, which they generally met. Even with the possible negatives, they’re still optimistic for discharge pretty soon. They had the majority of their pre-discharge tests, lacking the “car seat study”, when they put the kids in their carseats for 90 minutes while still on the monitors to ensure, frankly, they’ll stay alive if riding in the car (e.g. their angle within the seat doesn’t cause them too much effort to breathe or whatever else). They previously passed their hearing screen, but apparently, may need to do it again for reason I don’t know due to some of the bilirubin eradication efforts.

Beyond the medical fun, two things of note on this Sunday. First, I ran the Decker Challenge Half Marathon. Long ago, I signed up for the Austin Distance Challenge, which consists of a number of runs (a 8k, a 10-mile, this run, another half, a 30k, and finishing with the Austin Marathon) with a decent break for the holiday season. I was really banking on the kids not coming until after today!

To complete the challenge, you have to run in all of the races. No exceptions. Since they’re doing well, I took a few hours off. It was painful—not running at all since Thanksgiving and eating nothing but hospital cafeteria food and take-out in a week—but finished it!

Later today, Fr. Bill, our pastor at St. Ignatius, stopped by in the midst of his day of Masses, baptisms, and cooking dinner for his fellow priestly housemates. It was a very nice visit. Fr. Bill announced at our usual 7:30 a.m. Mass that the twins were here. When he said “their names are Dorothy…and… and…”, Olivia yelled “Ana!” from the back. We’re not that social at Mass, but we’ve naturally found a good community at that particular time and, well, we stand out a lot :-).

A special shout out to Kathryn Whitaker who gave the twins their first stuffed animals—the owls seen in the pictures above with Fr. Bill. The owls are required to live in biohazard bags to be allowed in their beds!

All in all, not a bad day. We’re much more aware of the Texas two-step of the progress in the NICU. Tomorrow, we’re going to shift the schedule to put me at home half-time so the older girls remember me and to give my in-laws a break. They’ve done an amazing job taking care of the three older girls far longer than any of us expected.