Pulomonology

Hello.
Today and Edwin Sr and I packed up the twins and headed to their first pulmonology appointment. I really like the Dr, he is very nice and down to earth. He is intelligent and practical and is very straightforward. I told him how the twins were doing, how Champ tends to be a little more unstable in terms of his sats than Serena, but that he mostly desats to the high 80s and is able to recover. He often does it while eating too quickly or during a diaper change. Serena tends to get ahead of herself when she is very hungry and will also dip into the 80s. Other than that Serena is normally 98-100 and Edwin is more like 95-100 when comfy. The plan is to turn the twins up by 200ccs while feeding to avoid these dips and encourage good weight gain(so Serena will go to 500ccs and Edwin will have to go to 750ccs because the regulator we have that goes past 500ccs only goes in incriments of 500, 750, 1000, etc.) Edwin weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces and Serena weighed 6 pounds 0.6 ounces. They weighed 5 pounds not quite 6 ounces the day of discharge which was 1/29. They were happy with this weight gain. We will be weaning Edwin's steroids first, before we touch his flow. On Monday I will begin weaning him by .5 MLs every week. I am happy about this because it makes me nervous that he has been on steroids for so long. Serena will be seen by a Dr from Mass General about her raspy cry to make sure her vocal cords are okay. We will wait 2-3 months for this appointment.
Other than that no changes, and we will see the pulmonologist again next month.
Both have significant CLD (chronic lung disease) based upon blood gases, chest x rays, and echos of their hearts. It makes me concerned of course but I know it's part of being 23 weekers and having the difficulties respiratory wise that both of them had. I am hoping as they grow, they will get better respiratory wise and they won't experience long-term issues related to their CLD.
We see the Pedi and the Optomologist tomorrow, so I'll update again. For now I wanted to post all of the newspaper articles that have been written about Edwin in which the twins were mentioned. Most are from the Telegram and Gazette and the latest one is from the Lowell Sun. We are very proud of Daddy and look forward to this summer to see if he can achieve the honor of making the 2008 Olympic team!