I am happy to report that our outstanding hospital bills have been taken care of! It helps to have loving, caring, doctor friends who continue to check up on the girls even though they have been home from the NICU for 14 months. The NICU at St. Joe's is top notch, made so by the doctors and nurses who work there. They continually go above and beyond the call of duty to advocate for their growing NICU family. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. I have been so happy with the care that my kids have received, and I will continue to take the girls there for any care that they may need (but hopefully they won't need it). Thank you so much to all of the doctors who took it upon themselves to help us. The doctors involved met specifically regarding our case, and we have been informed that our experience "will result in a serious review of all of their processes and should make life better for families in the future." I just have to say, "WOW"! What a serious load off of our minds.
Now that we don't have to worry about hospital bills, we can focus all of our energy on what is important...our girls. They had their 18-month appointment with the pediatrician on Friday. I cannot believe that they are 18 months old. Holland now weighs 18 pounds, is 29 3/4 inches long, and has a head circumerence of 44 1/2 cm. Eden weighs 16 pounds 9 ounces, is 29 1/2 inches long, and has a head circumference of 46 1/2 cm. We have finally hit the charts for 18-month-olds in head circumference and length. Eden's head is at the 50th percentile(!), and Holland's is at the 10th. Their lengths are between the 3-5 percentile. They are no where near the charts in weight, and who knows if they will ever be. I seriously doubt it.
A big part of the reason that Eden isn't gaining as much weight as we would like, is because she doesn't like to eat. She does OK with a bottle now, drinking 5-6 ounces at a time during the day, and up to 8 ounces at night, although occasionally she will still refuse even the bottle. Solid foods are pretty much nightmare. She has some good days where she will eat pretty good, but she has whole weeks where she eats close to nothing. She is a total pro at refusing to eat. She clamps her mouth shut, shakes her head, and smacks the spoon out of our hands. On bad days, she will throw up after eating only a few bites. It is beyond frustrating. We've had her evaluated by an OT who determined that there isn't anything physically wrong. She doesn't seem to have an oral aversion, very common in preemies, either. In fact, she loves putting everything in her mouth. As far as I can tell she is just VERY picky about what she likes, and how she likes it. Teething has also exacerbated the problem. Between the discomfort and the excessive amounts of drool that she swallows, and a little bit of mild reflux, I think her tummy sometimes feels a bit upset.
Ultimately, of course, the goal for any baby is to get them off of bottles and formula, and eating solid foods full time. Apparantly some kids accomplish this by 12-months. If we get there by age 2 1/2, I'll be happy. Our pediatrician did recommend going from 4 bottles a day, with 2 solid meals, to 3 bottles a day, with 3 solid meals. So, instead of 24 ounces of formula a day, they will be getting 16 or 17. Hopefully this will help with the solid feeding, because they will actually be hungry when we try to feed them. We've been at it since Saturday and it seems to be working okay. Eden has done pretty good the past couple of days. She LOVES cheese, so to get her eating more meat we've been making meat and cheese balls. Working pretty good. We've gotten her to eat fish, chicken, and ham this way.
The most exciting news in the past week concerns Holly. She is now pulling to stand! She did it for the first time on Thursday, and since then has been practicing nonstop. Now she is pulling to stand on everything, even Eden. I walked in the other day to find her standing next to Eden with her hands on her belly! She's also enjoying pushing things around the family room on her knees, and she has learned to go up the step from the family room to the kitchen. Anthother couple of months, and we will have a little munchkin walking about our house. Weird.
Eden is learning a lot too. Since she started rolling, she has become a little rolling bean. She had figured out how to turn and pivots her legs to change directions. She can pretty much go wherever she wants. Which is usually straight to where Holland is playing, where she grabs Holland's toy away and makes her cry. Her language development is taking off too. She is really starting to understand a lot of what we say. She knows "where's the light?", "where's Daddy?"...the dog, your eyes, your mouth. She verbalizes "ahhhhh" when she wants us to turn the light on and off. She talks a LOT when she is playing, and is doing a lot of turn taking when practicing conversations with us. She is so cute when she talks. She scrunches up her nose and eyes and nods her head saying "ahhhhhh." It is totally adorable, and it is amazing how far she has come in just a few months...
