Kemper Family: Blessings Every Day

Penelope was released from the hospital on Friday!!! It was so great for both of us to be able to sleep in our own bed TOGETHER! The bittersweet part is that the girls are still in the NICU, but we know that is the best place for them for the moment.

Abigail and Sophia are doing SO GREAT! As of Saturday, their 6th day, they are both completely off IV fluids. Keep in mind they never had any meds of any kind, only IV for nutrition while they worked on accepting more and more breast milk each day. This is a precautionary thing they do in the NICU to make sure their tiny bodies can process that food. Now they are consistently eating breast milk every 3 hours. Penelope had great success breastfeeding them directly this Saturday with the help of a very experienced, gentle, and patient lactation consultant.

The pictures you have seen with them glowing (literally) are because they were hooked up to billi-lights. (no idea how to spell) Billiruben is what builds up in many babies' bodies that causes jaundice. This light treatment somehow breaks that down. Any parents reading this are probably yawning by now because you're most likely familiar with the process. The great news is Abigail has kicked the habit and Sophia will likely be off the light before the end of the weekend. I just thought it made cool pictures. ;-)

The best news of all is that the neonatologists have finally given us an ETA for bringing the girls home. We hope to be able to have them home by Wednesday!!! Daddy and Mommy are going to be very busy putting the final touches on the nursery and getting the house ready for the big arrival. It's just so hard to tear ourselves away from visiting them in the NICU.

Once we get home we will need to settle in a bit and need to be realistic about how much stimulation they can tolerate, but stay tuned because we want to schedule time for visitors to come meet our little bundles of joy!

Speaking of pictures, I know that's why you're here, so here's some with Daddy, finally out from behind the camera...