Twelve weeks (36 weeks adjusted)

Carter- 6 lbs 2.9 oz.  18 1/4 inches
Easton- 5 lbs 0.4 oz.  18 1/4 inches

You read it right Twelve weeks in room 105 of the Kaiser Roseville Mother and Children's wing. I cannot believe we have made it this long. As I look back I would have thought there was no way possible to do this for so long and stay as strong as we have. It seems like we get sucker punched with new trials and setbacks all the time, but we hold strong to the exciting and positive progress these two sweet boys make.

Lauren has spent all of her time and energy at the hospital taking care of our boys and last week , Lauren fell ill for two days unable to see Carter and Easton, three days full of progress and exciting firsts. Last Thursday Carter was taken off the Vapo-therm and placed on 2 lpm of blended air and oxygen at a rate of 30%.

Then on Friday night, after i had finished work, visited the boys and did cares, came home to take care of Lauren, took fresh milk back to the boys, did cares and returned home, the Physical therapist came to see Carter and gave the "nod" of approval for him to start bottle feeding. Jess, one of Carter's primary nurses couldn't contain herself. needless to say at about ten thirty Friday night i received a phone call with an excited voice on the other end. "What's wrong Jess?" I asked. Her response was one of the proudest moments of our NICU stay. " Carter just drank all 41 milliliters of milk from a bottle" was her response. What an awesome accomplishment, our little Carter was able to not only drink from a bottle on his first attempt, but he was able to drink all that was given to him. Saturday Lauren was able to give Carter a bottle for her first time, and again impressed us by drinking the whole thing.

Another first was tonight, Lauren gave Carter his first tubby time. That's right our chubby little six pounder got his first real bath. Take a look at this pic...

Carter continues to get half of his feedings by bottle, while the rest go in through his G-tube, after all it is a lot of work for such a little guy to drink a full bottle every three hours.

Easton Has made some progress too, The opthamologist Came in this week and said that His left eye looked much better, and that his right eye looked like it was making progress but still needed more improvement. Hey I'll take that any day, my little man can see!!! and he coordination to boot... The other night We had bought Easton a little toy, a zebra with bright colors and rings on it. Needless to say he was wide awake when the Doctor came in and as she was watching him he reached up and grabbed the rings. We thought it was a fluke thing but for almost 10 minutes Easton sat there batting at the toy grabbing and the rings. WOW what a tugging on your heartstrings, to watch your son be able to make his doctor speechless with how well he was seeing.

Easton has also made some steps forward and some steps backwards, he was doing well on the Si-pap machine when they wanted to try a new mask on him to see if it would be a good investment for the hospital to go towards, needless to say after three days we are back to the old mask and Si-pap.

Easton continues to struggle with his lungs/diaphragm. I say lungs/diaphragm because the Doctors are not sure which is the greater cause of  his breathing difficulties. We are still hoping his lungs get stronger and the diaphragm corrects itself before the need of intervention is required.

We love you all and thank you for the positive thoughts and desire to follow our boys and their Journey.