Two steps forward, One step back

They told us to be prepared for this in the NICU....

Yesterday, I was told to bring Norah's car seat so she could take her "Car Seat Challenge" (maintain vitals while in the seat for 90 minutes) and that we would be given our CPR training. When I arrived at the hospital, the nurse had a check-list of all Norah's "going home stuff" and she told me to be prepared to room-in with her tonight and make an appointment with our pediatrician for the end of the week. The neonatologist told me that the plan was to room-in with Norah on Monday, room-in with Audrey on Tuesday, and have both girls home by Wednesday--or maybe Thursday at the latest.

Today we arrived at the hospital and the NICU was so full, our girls were moved into a "transitional nursery"-- basically an overflow room behind the regular nursery with porta-cribs and portable monitors. While the good news is that our girls are stable enough to be moved, the bad news is that now they are under the care of a whole new set of nurses (plus, I miss all the nurses I had made friends with in the NICU). Each nurse has a different way of recording the girls' vitals, and without going into much detail because I'm too tired to write about it, Norah is stepping back a couple days and Audrey may be stepping back as much as a week. The other neonatologist said he still hopes to have both girls home by the end of the week....

It's frustrating and disappointing to get four different stories from four different caregivers. We certainly don't want the girls to be sent home too early, but I'd like some consistancy in what we're being told. We were told to be prepared for day-to-day changes...but I didn't think it would be shift-to-shift or nurse-to-nurse changes!

To end on a couple happy notes---
Both girls passed their hearing screen. They can hear us tell them how much we love them and hear our prayers over them!
Both girls ate SUPER GREAT (50-60 ml) for us today
Norah passed her car seat challenge with flying colors
Both girls are maintaining their temps in the open cribs ("big girl cribs", as the nurse described them)
They are both gaining weight well

In other good/bad news---I officially dominated and overflowed the nursery's freezer. They applauded me for my wonderful supply, then kindly asked me to stop bringing them milk. The nurse gave me a box of 100 bottles less than a week ago, and then I got another 25 or so two days ago. The box and bag are empty. I guess we need to buy a mini-freezer. Or maybe not so mini.