Four Weeks Old Today

Both Jacob and Lilian have been stable over the past few days.

Jacob has been having a slight issue with his CPAP prongs staying up his nose - to avoid damage to their nose, the babies have to switch between wearing a mask over their nose and prongs that fit up their nose for their oxygen supply. So he tends to get quite unsettled when he has in prongs in as they keep falling out of his nose and cause him to drop his breathing rate.

As a result of this they tried Jacob on 'flat CPAP', which is the next stage we are aiming for. This type of CPAP does not force the air in as their current version does, so they have to remember to breathe for themselves, and the CPAP then just supplies the oxygen levels. Unfortunately, Jacob isn't quite ready for this yet though and had to be put back on full CPAP.

Lilian is doing really well and is hopefully going to be tried on 'flat CPAP' by the end of this week. At the moment she is a little stronger than her brother, and as such, they think she will take to this quite well.

Now for something exciting...
Over the past couple of days we have been advised that the hospital have been in touch with our local hospital to discuss the possibility of transferring the babies back home. We have been advised not to get ahead of ourselves as anything could change at any time, but in theory, if both babies get settled on flat CPAP they could be transferred in as little as 2-3 weeks.

There is the added complication that the Surgeons may not let Jacob travel, they usually like to finish their own treatments/surgery and Jacob still needs his reversal Stoma surgery. This is something the Consultant's are checking on for us.

Both babies have to be settled on flat CPAP as the transfer team (Embrace) cannot support the level of CPAP the babies are currently on. The actual transfer date could also be difficult to pin down until the last minute as the Embrace Ambulance has to be ready, the babies have to have the go ahead from the Surgeons and Consultants, and our local hospital must have 2 cots available all at the same time -  and as we have witnessed on the Neonatal ward, a cot does not stay empty for long!