And Then There Were Two

Charlotte is slated to join her sisters here at home tomorrow! She's been progressing well with her bottle feeds and continues to be pretty strong and stable from a respiratory perspective. She still seems slightly more delicate (albeit larger) than Audrey but not so much so that it's scary to be bringing her home. That said, I have a feeling that it's going to be more than twice as hard as this past week has been... She is significantly slower with a bottle and has also seemed thus far to be a bit feistier than her siblings. We'll still be traveling back and forth to the NICU to see Thomas too. Thankfully, my parents arrived today (just in time for Hannah's 2nd birthday!).

Oh, and Charlotte is still colonized with MRSA, so there's that. But all hospital protocol sort of goes out the window at discharge. Clearly, we don't plan to keep her in an isolette and wear a gown and gloves every time we go near her. However, should she ever be hospitalized in the future, she will be back on contact isolation (unless/until she has three negative cultures). 

Then there's Thomas; he might actually be going back to Children's Hospital of New York. Although all three of the kiddos still have PDAs, Thomas is being markedly affected by his, and the perspective of the neonatologist at Stamford is that he needs to have a ligation (surgical procedure to cut the PDA). Stamford isn't equipped to do the procedure, so back he goes. That said, the NICU there is packed beyond capacity, so we'll have to wait and see when a bed opens up for him. The procedure isn't insignificant (risk of hitting a nerve related to the vocal chord, need to collapse a lung to get to the heart, etc.),  but it sounds like it's needed. The miracle would be for him to make huge advancements during this waiting period that negate that need. Here's a picture of him getting his most recent echocardiogram at the bedside in Stamford. 

Thomas is still in need of respiratory support because of his large PDA that is basically sending too much blood to his lungs and causing his heart to work harder than it should.