60 Days Old!!

Today the twins are 60 days old! Gantt continues to do well and he has his 2-month check up this week. Brett is doing a little better every day. Today his oxygen was at 36%, and the doctors are talking about beginning to "challenge" him a little more with his breathing. That means turning down the settings some on the ventilator and seeing how he will tolerate it. Tonight he did not do so well, so they turned it back up, but not quite as high as it was before, so he is still making some progress. The goal for this is to get him back on a conventional ventilator - two reasons, one is that they are more familiar with the conventional kind, and the other is that he does not have to be quite as sedated on the conventional kind. Of course as little sedation as possible is best, and that way he could also move around more, and that's good for his body as well. He continues to release the fluids the way that we want, and today he was back down to about 8 1/2 pounds. At one point he had gotten over 9 1/2 pounds because of retaining all the extra fluid. 

Also, now that it's 10 days post-op, his surgeon gave the OK to start feeds again! He is on continuous feeds of maternal breast milk at 1 mL per hour. They started this afternoon and he has tolerated it well so far the couple of hours he's been on it. Tomorrow we have the meeting with the doctors.

Today was Mark's last day of kindergarten.  I made it through the "celebration" with minimal crying! I must brag on him a little. On his standardized tests he scored very well.  What I am most proud of, though, is his score on Bible assessment. A score of 565 or above is considered advanced on Biblical knowledge, and Mark scored a 633! This means "exceptional mastery of biblical facts and principles with a strong understanding of how to apply them." We pray that Mark continues to grow in his knowledge of the Bible and in his relationship with the Lord. We are so proud of what he has accomplished this year at school.