Day 6

Our friends, Jake and Angela, or "Jangela", brought us dinner tonight and we had a nice time sharing the events of our past week with them. They are pregnant with fraternal girls and due in January! So we all know very well what each other is going through. Due to a little pregnancy scare themselves, they weren't able to visit us in the hospital, so tonight we walked them through the history of our children's lives by photograph. Looking back at those photos from Day 1 to Day 6, it amazes me how much they have changed already! No one wants their babies to grow up, but in our case, we certainly want them to grow. And growing they are doing!

They are up to 40 mL of milk now, which is the amount that they need to be at when they go home, so this is wonderful! Although their little tummies are getting used to that volume, they still need to practice taking it all by mouth. Some feedings go very well, and both girls finish without a problem, and for some feedings it's just too hard to stay awake and/or use the engery to drink, so they take the rest through the feeding tubes in their noses. One criteria for discharge is to complete a few days without needing the feeding tubes at all, and we're just not quite there yet but working on it!

They are also both less puffy than they were when they were first born. This is probably the number one thing that is making them change so much to me. Lucas and I have a great time inspecting them and identifying where / who they get certain physical traits from. This is a blast!

Features already identified:

• Margaret has dark hair like Daddy, although it seems to be lighter and lighter every time I see her.


• Nora has golden hair, really like nothing I've ever seen. My hair was very blonde when I was born, but Nora Girl's is thick and golden.


• Both of their hands and fingers come from me.


• All of their toes come from Daddy.


• Both girls have long feet like many of the women in my family - poor things.


• Margaret definitely has Daddy's eyes, and Nora kind of has Daddy's eyes


• Sometimes Margaret's lips wants to look like cousin Ava's a little bit.


• Lucas thinks Margaret has his calves. uh oh.


• Overall, Margaret seems to be a Shook Baby through and through.


• Nora is a little bit more of a melting pot baby. She has many different facial expressions, which sometimes look familiar and other times don't.

When they're asleep, you just want to plant kisses all over their sweet faces. They are perfect.

I guess from the observations listed above, I've concluded that these two are as fraternal as the day is long. :)

Please enjoy these snapshots from today, their sixth day of life: