Oxygen Free!

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, our appointment at Vanderbilt today went really well - and the boys are now completely oxygen free! The doctors were very pleased with their weight gain and since their oxygen saturation levels have consistently been at 98% or higher, they saw no reason to keep them on oxygen at night. We will still keep the oxygen machines for a few months to make sure the boys continue to progress well, but hopefully we won't need them. I guess I'm excited because I already stored the machines in the closet out of the way :) The boys are still wearing their apnea monitors but we are now mostly using them only at night. Our doctor didn't see anything wrong with taking the monitors off during the day while we're with the boys, so that's what we'll be doing. They will continue wearing the monitors every night, possibly until they are one year old. Although the risk is minimal, Max and Tyler are at an increased risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) since they were born prematurely. We have absolutely no complaints about keeping them on apnea monitors at night - I'm not sure we'd be able to sleep soundly without them at this point anyway!

More good news is that both boys are over 10 lbs now! Tyler weighs 10 lbs 4 oz and Max is 10 lbs 1 oz. Because they've been gaining weight so well, the doctor finally gave us the go-ahead to let them sleep as long as they want at night. (They weren't supposed to go more than 5 hours between feeds before today.) We've already had a few nights where we accidentally snoozed through our 3am alarm clock and they slept 7, 8 and 9 hours a few times. Although it was really nice, we always felt guilty letting them sleep through a feeding - but no more!

It has been a long road to get here but we couldn't be more grateful for the way everything has turned out. One of the head doctors at Vanderbilt today commented that the boys have made exceptional progress, and their post-NICU experience has been about as ideal as possible. Although there were moments in the past few months that seemed almost too much to handle, we have to agree with the doctor. Considering the challenges these little boys have overcome since they were born, a few extra months on supplemental oxygen doesn't seem so bad now. So here's to two less machines and hopefully a few more hours of sleep at night!

Happy Mom and tired boys after the 2 hour Vanderbilt appointment today. Andy couldn't go because of work so I survived taking the boys all by myself. They did really well and sat awake in their carseats basically the entire 2 hours without crying once.