If you feed them they will grow!

Chubby (aka Caleb) is pushing over 10 pounds now and Jackson weighed in at 7 pounds last Thursday. As of today I am sure they are almost another pound heavier.

They are doing good. Jacksons last appointment with the cardiologist showed that he is doing well and the PDA is actually getting a little smaller. That is good news because the doctor is now confident that most likely he can just wait until he gets older (1 to 2 years old) to close the PDA for him using a catheder.

The boys are starting to get on a schedule and are going to bed easier. Still arent sleeping more than 3 1/2 hours at night but we get up and feed them and they go right back to sleep. That has been nice.

We will start to be able to bring the boys out to visit with people and such after April 11th when they get the next set of shots. The flue and RSV season will also be in a decline by then as well.

Val is hanging in there. She is strong and is doing a great job considering the challenge.

Here are some recent pics:

Caleb and Tux hangin out.... So cute!

Jacksons Grin...

One of our Favorites (Caleb on the Left , Jackson on the Right)

Praise be to God that our Boys are doing well.

Eric and Val

One Month Old

Yesterday marked the Boys being 1 month old. We can't believe it has been that long already. They are growing all the time. Yesterday Caleb weighed in at about 7lbs 9oz. Jackson weighed in at 5lbs 4oz.
Jackson had his appointment with the Cardiologist and things look and sound about the same. The doctor said his PDA is still there and he could hear it pretty well with the stethascope. No Echo was done because he was pretty sure if it has gotten any better it was minimal. What does this mean? Well, most likely at some point Jackson will need the PDA closed for him. Whether it is via surgery or via a procedure that uses a catheder to close the PDA will depend on how he does health wise. The doctor said that either way has little risk. The catheder procedure is less invasive and he should recover in a matter of hours. The surgery would require them to make a small incision between 2 of his ribs on his side and they can close the PDA directly that way. This would require him to most likely be in the hospital for about 3 days to recover. The latter will be the choice if Jackson begins to show signs of fatigue or issues related to the PDA. If he does fine, they will wait until he weighs about 18-20 lbs and do the other simpler procedure on him.
He seems to be feeding just fine and still growing which is a great sign for us to shoot for the simpler procedure. He is on a medicine called Lasix that is a diaretic to help remove any access fluid from his lungs and such since his lungs are most likely working harder with the condition. He will stay on that until the procedure apparently.
Otherwise, things are going ok. Val is doing great taking care of the boys on her own during the day. I try to come home at a reasonable time to help her get some things other than baby duty done. We are starting to find that there isnt much time to all the normal things around the house without help. Night time is still a challenge. Usually one of them is fussy and needs to be soothed to go back to bed. Unfortunately Val usually takes this burden during the week if I haven't gotten enough sleep. On the weekends I am trying to take these shifts since I can nap on the weekend during the day.

Here are a couple new shots we took this week.

Jake loves the boys....

We had some friends over this weekend. Adam and Natalie. They came to see them for the first time and Adam made a mention in his blog of the boys. I figured I would give his Blog a plug. He had a cute picture of Val and one of the boys on there as well.

blog.atomjohnson.com

Thanks for all the gifts, prayers and support to everyone. Keep praying for Jacksons PDA to close on his own and for him to stay strong and grow fast.