The Twins are Here!

Some of this will be repetitive for some of you. I hope, going forward, to consolidate the updates and steer everyone to this blog...

So, Brickley Trajan (4 lbs. 4 oz.) and Oswell Magnus (4 lbs. 2 oz.) were born on March 21, 2010 (first day of spring!) at 7:34 and 7:35pm, respectively. Brickley and Oswell are both family names (Oswell is Skye's Mom's maiden name and Brickley is my maternal grandmother's maiden name). Though Brickley is the "elder" son's given name, we expect to call him Trajan (pronounced TRAY-jun).

Though it did not end up being an emergency, it became necessary to perform a c-section last night. Skye's water broke last Monday (at 31 weeks pregnant) and she fought hard to keep the babies inside her for another 6 days, which proved to be very beneficial to the boys. Both boys came out crying and breathing on their own. And they were both much bigger than anyone expected.

Both boys needed breathing assistance (via CPAP) and required help to stabilize for the first few hours. But by this morning, Trajan was doing well enough that they removed the CPAP. Oswell still needs a little breathing assistance, but they expect he'll be off CPAP within the next day or two. They'll both need tube feeding for a couple of weeks until their natural suck/swallow/breath reflex kicks in. They will be eating Skye's breast milk pretty much right away. They also have IVs and little probes to monitor their heart rates.

Both boys are in isolettes (clear plastic shells that are temperature regulated), but they decided Trajan was doing well enough to pull him out this morning and let Skye hold him (skin to skin) against her chest for almost an hour. The boys may be able to stay in regular bassinets within a week or so.

Skye is recuperating well and overall, everything seems to be very good with everyone. Thanks for all the well wishes. We'll keep you posted here on the blog with any updates...