Big Boy Bed

We are continuing to enjoy the boys and learn more about each of them everyday!!!
Both boys continue to do well.
Nathan is now 4 pounds 2 ounces and has weaned out of his isollete and into a "big boy" bed!!!  Benjamin is also doing well, he weighs 3 pounds 4 1/2 ounces and he has weaned in his isollete temperature (they will wait until his weight is closer to 4 pounds to take him out of the isollete).  The boys are now growing and wearing their preemie clothes which they are quickly filling out... they will be BIG boys before we know it!!! :)

Both boys are working on breastfeeding and will both get their 1st bottles tonight.
Before they go home there are a few things that need to happen
1. wean to "big boy" beds (maintain body temp)
2. Continue gaining weight
3. Eating all food from bottle or breast

4. pass car seat evaluation
I'm still hoping that both boys will be home for Valentine' s Day!!!
We are allowed two visitors a day for 10 minutes per visit... if you are interested in coming to meet the boys send me an email with what days would work for you and I will let you know if we can make it work.  Once the boys come home, we are looking forward to them meeting all the people who helped Brent and I while I was on bedrest and prayed for the babes to be healthy and strong!
Love,
Emily and the Boys!

First Bath and Cute Outfits!!!

We are all moved in to Special Care Nursery... back to Abbott we shall go!!!
All is well... the only exciting thing is that Benjamin has conjunctivitis in his eye... basically an irritated tear duct that may have an infection in it, he is getting eye ointment.  Both boys are starting to work on breast feeding.  We were able to give both boys a bath tonight and we dressed them in their cute (up to 5 pound) onsies!!!!  SO CUTE!!!  
All is well at home... mom and dad are really tired and working hard to get the house ready before the munchkins come home.  Oh and I pump all the time, Pump, Pump, Pump!!!  For all of you that have called and have not heard back from us we are sorry... we promise we have not forgotten about you and we will get back to you soon!!! :)
Love,
Brent, Emily, Nathan, Benjamin and the slightly neglected Berkeley

Go Vikings Go!!!

We just wanted to wish the Vikings good luck!!!!  Both boys are doing wonderful and will be moved to Special care nursery tonight after 7pm... I guess that is fitting since we were hoping that they would be in special care following their delivery which was originally scheduled for tomorrow morning (34 weeks).  Thank you again to all of our wonderful nurses and doctors, we will miss you!!!!
Love Benjamin and Nathan

Two Little Peas in a pod!!!

What a week it has been!!!!  The boys are both doing great!!!
Nathan: remains in room air and not having any A&B spells (dropping heartrate or stopping breathing... very common in premature infants), he is tolerating his feedings and they are slowly increasing how much food he gets every 8 hours.  Nathan is back under the bilirubin lights... again very common!
Benjamin: is now in room air, no oxygen and no nasal cannula!!!! Yeah baby Benjamin... you are such a little fighter!!!!  He is tolerating his feedings that are slowly increasing as well and he too is back under the bilirubin lights.  
Exciting news from yesterday is that we FINALLY got to hold both boys together.  It was so wonderful to rock them side by side... Nathan with mommy and Benjamin with Daddy.  We also took lots of photos of the two boys next to each other... we are thinking that they look a lot alike... let us know what you think.  Benjamin is still 1/2 a pound or so smaller and you can tell in their hats that are the same size!!!  I'm not worried though... he screams 30 minutes before his feeding because he is hungry, he has this whole eating thing figured out... so now instead of saying Grow, Grow, Grow... now all I think is Pump, Pump, Pump!

We also were asked if Benjamin and Nathan could be photographed with two neonatologists (baby doctors) for the cover of a publication called Children's Practice Update which Children's hospital sends out to 10, 000  physicians across the country... this quarters update will focus on neonatal practice.  So, Dr. Ferrara from Mpls Children's held Benjamin and Dr. Mammel from St. Paul Children's held Nathan.  The photographer was also nice enough to snap a couple of photos with mommy and daddy!!!  
So, all in all the first week and half has flown by, the boys are doing wonderful (they will be moving to level 2 care at Abbott soon) and mommy made her maiden voyage out to the grocery store (haven't been there since October)... LIFE IS GOOD!
Love, Brent, Emily, Nathan, Benjamin and Berkeley!
PS I will put more photos and videos on Shutterfly some time today!!!

Benjamin's little face!!!

Benjamin is adorable!!!! We finally got a good look at his face without so many tubes and pieces of tape!!! We are sooooo excited to say that he is doing well without the vent!!!!  We also got to hold him for the first time yesterday!!!!!  Nathan and Benjamin are both doing great and are tolerating their feedings so well!!!  The nurses all say that they are hungry little boys who cry when it is time to eat!!!!!  I better keep pumping because these little boys are HUNGRY!!!!!  Just wait until they get home:)  We can't wait!!!  There is a new video of Benjamin's "voice," on shutterfly!!!!
Love 
Emily & Brent
PS Ben is on the left and Nathan is on the right.  Photo of me holding Ben!

Two less Chest tubes and a home cooked meal!!!

Hello

What a whirl wind of a week!!!  The boys are almost a week old I can't believe it!!!!  I'm home... free of the hospital... I'm sooooo excited!!!  Our house is beautiful... Brent did a wonderful job!!!  It was lovely to come... our house truly felt like a home!!!!  Thank you to Stephen and Christine for making us a welcome home dinner... it was great to have a home cooked meal!!!  
As for the boys...
Nathan continues to do wonderful!!!  He is still in room air, no A&B spells, he is tolerating his feedings and his bilirubin lights have been turned off.  We held him last night.  Gramma and Grumpy Kassekert got to hold Nathan for the first time last night... they fell in love with him!!!!  
Benjamin had a WONDERFUL day yesterday... both of his chest tubes were taken out!!!1 Yeah and early this morning he was extubated (breathing tube taken out)!!!  He is currently on 2 liters on a high flow nasal cannula.  He is also going to get a steroid to help his lungs called Decadron, and he also received a Nebulizer treatment after he was extubated to help open up his lungs.  We are so proud of him... what a little fighter... now I can't wait to get down there and to see his little face!!!!

I have lots of new photos but I'm having a little technical difficulty so I will post more photos once I get my memory card to down load!!!  
Thank you for all the thoughts, prayers, comments, emails and texts messages... they mean the world to us!!!  Now that I'm feeling better and the boys are feeling better we will slowly start letting all of our friends and family come and meet them... we will keep you posted!!!
Love, 
Emily, Brent, Nathan and Benjamin.... oh and Berkeley too!!!!  (she is so happy to have mommy home... her tail wont stop wagging!!)  PS.  photo #1 is me outside of the room that I spent 70 days on bedrest in!!!  Photo #2 is me sitting in my new baby chair!!!!  Photo #3 is Nathan next to his new Chocolate Teddy bear and Photo #4 is Benjamin next to his cute little tan teddy bear!!!!  I have also put two new videos on Shutterfly for those of you who are interested!!!

Day 4 update!

Hello to all... some how I had more time to update while I was on bedrest:)   Just wanted to give everyone an update.  

Benjamin....  He continues to wean on his pressures on the Vent he was on 33/5 (on the 14th) and now is on 19/5 (on the 17th)... he is also pretty much in room air, much better then the 90% he was in on Thursday.  Both chest tubes remain in and will for the next couple of days.  He is pooping and peeing like a rockstar.  Blood Pressure meds are off.  He will be on antibiotics at least through today.  His bilirubin level was a little high so he is now under phototherapy lights.  He is starting to wake up and move a little more each day.

Nathan.... He was extubated early Friday morning and has been in room air since.  No apnea and bradycardia spells.  Nathan needs to poop (Benjamin has one upped him in this area).  Nathan is also under photo therapy lights.  Brent and I have each held him twice and lucky Grandma and Grandpa Utech also got to hold him!!!!!  He was awake and alert and looking at all of us!!!!  Grandma and Grandpa Kassekert also got to hold him but only in his isollete. 
Mommy and daddy are hanging in there.  We are tired but are feeling more and more relieved with each day that goes by and the boys do better and better.  We are very much looking forward to the day when we get to hold Benjamin as well!!!!  I promise that I will try to get more photos on the shutterfly website!!!!!  
We will keep giving updates.
Love,
Emily, Brent, Nathan and Benjamin

Twenty Tiny Fingers and Twenty Tiny Toes

Surprise!!!!  As seems to be the pattern with these boys... they get to decide when things happen... we want to introduce you all to Nathan Andrew Utech (Baby A) and Benjamin Charles Utech (Baby B) who were born on January 14 at 11:44 and 11:45 am respectively.  Nathan weighed 3 pounds 13 ounces and Benjamin weighed 3 pounds 3 ounces. The morning started with our normal NST monitoring... all was well for the first 15 minutes until Benjamin decided that he was ready to enter the world!!!  He dropped his HR to the low 100's so Dr. Fairbanks had Emily call Brent (just in case), they started an IV on mom, Benjamin then regained his composure and put his HR back in the 130's with great accelerations and variability, Dr. Fairbanks warned me that I would be on the monitor for the rest of the day (just in case).... about 1 hour later (with daddy here) he decided that January 14th was the day.  It was a fast hour and 20 minutes of prepping mom and dad for surgery... calling Grandma, calling NICU and signing consents.  The surgery went well and we finally got to meet our favorite (yet slightly opinionated) little boys.  Both boys came out and mommy got to hear them cry in the delivery room... Thank you to Dr. Mrozek and the FABULOUS NICU team, both boys had central lines placed, both boys were intubated and placed on vents.  Nathan did well and needed minimal support.  Benjamin had a much harder time including two collapsed lungs and two chest tubes, blood pressure medications, 2 doses of Survanta (lung medication) and hydrocortisone (steroid).  Since Thursday evening, Ben has continued to improve... Brent keeps telling him to take "Baby Steps."  Nathan was extubated to room air early Friday morning and continues to breath all on his own.  We got to hold little Nathan for the first time and Brent got to change diapers on both boys for the first time.  

Thank you everyone for all your prayers, thoughts and phone calls.  Due to the strict NICU visiting precautions only the grandparents and aunts and uncles will be allowed to visit the boys for now. Emily remains in her same room on Station 54 visiting policy remains the same as it has been the last 9 weeks... you are welcome to visit but please call ahead. Emily will more then likely be discharged on Monday! We will do our best to post as many photos as possible.  We are looking forward to the time when the boys are healthy and will be able to meet the rest of you as well as our little puppy dog Berkeley.

Much love,

Emily, Brent, Nathan and Benjamin

P.S. We have started a shutterfly website, see link at the top of the blog.  We will try to post as many pictures as possible.

32 Weeks

Yeah for 32 weeks???  We have less then 2 weeks to go.  We had a biophysical profile on Monday.  Baby A was a little stubborn and would not show us his breathing skills (the MDs are not worried because they have seen him practice before) so he received an 8/10.  Baby B also received an 8/10, he lost points for fluid... he almost got his points this week... his deepest pocket was 1.8 and it needed to be 2 to get the 2 points, bummer so close Baby B!  We are all hanging in there and starting to get excited about the arrival of these little men... and getting myself geared up for the C-Section!!! Brent has been hard at work putting the nursery together (he is keeping some of the final touches for me to complete when I get home).  I'm sooooo excited to see our new additions to our house as well as the nursery!!!!  Good Job honey!!!!  Thank you to all of our continued visitors and helping us pass the last two weeks of this journey.  
Love 
Brent and Emily
PS Happy 1st Birthday to Berkeley!!  We love you!

Growth Ultrasound!

Baby A weighs 2 lbs 15oz and Baby B weighs 2 lbs 12 oz.  The boys have 2 1/2 more weeks of growth before they are born... I'm hoping for 4 lbs.... GROW Babies GROW!!!!!
Dopplers both looked great, both babes were very wiggly, Baby A had his legs resting on his brother, Baby B was sucking on his fingers and both babies were practicing breathing.  
Thanks for checking in!!! 

Biophysical Profile and 31 Weeks

Hello and Happy 31 Weeks!!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we had our 1st BioPhysical Profile today.  The boys both did great.  A biophysical profile is done by ultrasound and they are looking for 5 different elements 1. reactive heart rates from their NST (2 points) 2. Breathing for 30 seconds (2 points) 3. Tone  (2 points) 4. large movements (2 points) 5. Fluid level (2 points) .   Baby A got a 10/10.  Baby B got an 8/10 (that darn fluid volume)... we knew all along that Baby B would not get his points for fluid.... so his normal will be 8!  B did a wonderful job with his breathing .... he was "just showing off" said the nurse. We also saw Baby B knee Baby A in the head... again my life with twin boys!!! :)  We are so happy that the boys continue to do so well... we just have to get them 21 more days!!!  

Last night we had our annual Odeen/Kassekert/Utech/Everson Christmas Extravaganza!!!  For those of you who don't know, the Odeens' and the Kassekerts' have been friends for a very long time and each year we get together to celebrate the holidays... as tradition goes... we take a photo every year of all the "kids" in front of the Christmas tree... this year was obviously different. This year is also special because both Katie and I are expecting babies and we are both 31 weeks pregnant. Thank you to everyone for making the trip down to the hospital and thank you to Katie and Mike for the very cute dinosaur blankets for the boys!!!
We will update on Thursday after the growth ultrasound!!!!
Love, B, E, B and the Boys

Happy 2010!!!

Happy 2010 to everyone!!!  We hope that you all had a wonderful New Years.    We spent a quiet night in my room on station 54, Hannah joined us for a while as we enjoyed some sparkling juice and take out from Green Mill.  Brent and I stayed up until midnight to welcome the baby boys into the new year... for so long we have hoped and prayed to get these little munchkins to 2010.... and here we are, finally!!!  3 1/2 more weeks to go!!  All is well here and we will update more  on Thursday following our next growth ultrasound!!!!
Much love,
Brent, Emily, Berkeley and the Baby Boys!!!!