#11. Look Who's Awake Now?

This morning, we headed over to the hospital around 11:00 for Visit #3...'The Bathing'.  We stopped in to pick up some flowers for our surrogate as we wanted to check in on her today.  When we arrived, Clare was already cleaned up, but the nurse showed us some pointers on how to give Luke a bath (can we bring her back to Chicago to help us out?).  Suddenly, he reverted to his first minute of life mode, turned red, and was none too happy.

He settled down after he was swaddled and never shed a tear thereafter.  Once the bath was done we headed into a 'feeding room'.  After the nurse helped us get started and comfortable,

The nurses at BNH are great...this one is our favorite

we were left to be alone in the room for almost an entire hour.  I fed Luke and Chris fed Clare.  Yesterday, Clare was our 'zombie child' and had trouble staying awake for the bottle.  Today, that title went to Master Luke (Chris likes to think it is his golden touch since he is 2 for 2 on feeding the kids so far)!  He flashed his big blue eyes for a few minutes, but soon fell asleep with bottle in mouth.

Going,

Going,

                                                         

                                                                       Gone!

Even when he's asleep, he's still fun to hold.

Me and 'Buddy'...his first of many nicknames

Today was Clare's day to show off.  She slugged down her bottle,

Clare going to town

but ultimately paid the price with the hiccups.  

                                      

Clare kept her eyes open for the rest of our visit.  It was nice to interact with her and see her looking around with her own pair of blue eyes.

Thanks for letting us see those pretty eyes today!

We tried for the day's sibling shot.  This time it was Luke who couldn't stay awake.  One of these times we will get them with both eyes open.

They switched things up on us!

We are loving these kids more and more each minute we have with them.

Proud Papa

Seeing Double

After leaving the babies, we met up with the hospital pediatrician.  She brought us into her office and it immediately felt like parent-teacher conferences (I've only been on the other side!).  We were very anxious to hear about Clare and Luke's progress and were thrilled to find out they are doing very well.  The doctor shared a thorough report with various recorded statistics.  Their weight drops have been normal and their blood sugars are fine.  She said that tomorrow (Tuesday) she will test the blood sugars again in the morning and if they are at a certain level, the twins can come home with us!  Wow, now it's really getting real.  If the numbers aren't quite where they should be, they will come home Wednesday.  The doctor was great with her explanations, and we had no further questions (well, Chris became curious about where we have to pay!).

Before we left the hospital, we took some flowers to our surrogate's room.  One of the nurses tagged along to help with the communication.  Our surrogate was sleeping and we felt bad for waking her up, but she allowed us to enter the room.  Her mother was with her in the room as well.  While we didn't know what to expect in visiting, it was important for us to convey our genuine thanks for what she has done.  We will never know completely the circumstances for why she chose to become a surrogate, but we will always think of her and be thankful for carrying Clare and Luke.  We are happy to report that she is doing great with no complications whatsoever.  We will see her again in a couple of weeks when we go through the process of 'gaining custody' for Clare and Luke and all of the necessary steps to come back home.

Tomorrow could be a very big day!