When Can The Boys Come Home?

We are asked this question a lot so I thought I would devote a post just to that. The doctors and nurses hate to speculate on that kind of thing because they don't like to give false hope, not to mention it is based on several things (not just simply how much the boys weigh) . They look at 3 main things when determining whether a baby is ready to go home:

• Body Temperature - All babies have to be able to stay in an open crib (and not a heated isolette) and regulate their body temperature on their own. One of the other parents in Pod E told me a few weeks ago that they tried to put their baby in an open crib but he had to go back to an isolette after a day or two because his body temperature wasn't staying high enough, and when their body temperature is low they expend a lot of calories trying to increase their temperature. As I mentioned below they are hoping to move the boys to an open crib in the next couple of days. Let's hope Brandon and Colin are able to regulate their temperatures pretty well by then!
• Spells - As I've mentioned in the past these "spells" occur when either their heart rate and/or respiratory rate drop too low. It's not uncommon for them to have a spell, which the nurses are alerted to by an alarm, but then their heart rate/ respiratory rate climb right back up within a few seconds. "Official" spells though, which they chart in their records, are when they don't come back up on their own and the nurse has to pat their bottom or feet and provide physical stimulation before their heart/respiratory rate goes back up. Both Brandon and Colin still have these spells, maybe one or two a day. Generally preemies start outgrowing these spells around week 34 (which is where they are at now) but if they continue to have these spells then they will investigate further and try and determine what is causing them. Nurse Dee said that they will have to go 8 days without having an official spell before they will be sent home. So if they've made it 6 days without a spell, for example, and then they have a spell, well then they start counting up to 8 days again from that point forward. This is because statistics show that if a baby has a spell then the likelihood of having another spell usually occurs within the next 7-8 days.
• Feedings - As mentioned below they will need to be able to take all of their feedings via bottle or nursing, AND continue to gain sufficient weight, before they will be able to go home. And their feeding volumes will keep increasing (based on a specific mathmatical formula the doctors use). This is basically moving the goal post, so to speak, so once they master taking 40ml by bottle, for instance, well then its increased to even more milk, and they can't always get the ever increasing milk down. Also Brandon and Colin are at a disadvantage there because of a well known thing the NICU nurses call the "Whimpy White Boy" syndrome. For some reason most white male babies take longer to master bottle and breast feeding, whereas minority babies (especially little black girls) hit the ground running in that department. Now maybe Brandon and Colin will learn to feed quickly and therefore go home sooner, but statistically that is often times not the case. We'll just have to wait and see.

So we still don't know how much longer the boys will stay in the NICU. It is all going to depend on them and how well they progress with the things mentioned above. It's possible that they will only be there another 2 weeks, but 3 to 4 weeks is probably more realistic :-/ We would love for them to come home in a couple of weeks, but not if there is any possibility that they would have a spell then. I've witnessed a few spells before and it is very scary to see your baby listliss and pale and need to be jostled around a bit before they start breathing normally. So we'll trust the doctors and nurses, who have our boys' best interest at heart, and we will just patiently wait until our babies can come home HEALTHY! :-)