Day 19, 730 grams

Day 18, 720 grams

Day 17, 730 grams

Day 16, 760 grams

Day 15, 750 grams

Day 14, 750 grams

Day 13, no weight recorded

Day 12, no weight recorded

Day 11, no weight recorded

Day 10, no weight recorded

Day 9, 730 grams

Day 8, 670 grams

Day 7, 670 grams

Day 6, 660 grams

Day 5, 640 grams

Day 4, 600 grams

Day 3, 600 grams

Honeymoon Period

Day 1, Oliver 750 grams, Andrej 720 grams

This is what they call "The Honeymoon Period." It's generally the first 48 hours immediately after birth where things appear to be going all right. But in reality, our bodies still think that we're in mommy's womb, and haven't adjusted to the real world yet. Daddy compares it to stepping outside in the winter wearing only a T-shirt. At first you notice the cold, but you can tolerate it. Then little by little your body starts to react to the new situation. That is kind of what we're experiencing.

We're glad that we finally got to meet mommy overnight. She's very uncomfortable from the operation, but I'm sure she would take all our pain on herself if it meant us getting better. There seems to be a lot more work going on over at Oliver's incubator, so unfortunately we couldn't get a picture of him with mommy.

My Oma and Opa arrived today from Ottawa to see us. Oma is going to stay for a few days to make sure that my parents are doing all right. Thanks for all the support--we sure need it!


AIV

Welcome to the World

Hello world,

My brother Oliver and I were born today, much earlier than expected. Mommy was only 24 weeks along in her pregnancy when, for some reason, we started being born. A few days earlier she had gone to the hospital for a routine ultrasound where they found out that she was already dilating. For those of you who don't know about obstetrics, that is bad. Really bad. At that point the doctor checked her into the hospital right away, and ordered her on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. Unfortunately that ended up being less than a week later.

We were born by cesarean delivery. Oliver John came first at 9:27pm, and I, Andrej Ilija, came two minutes later. Right away we were brought to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in order to save our lives. Mommy never got to see us or hold us or hear us cry. Meanwhile, my Baka (which is Croatian for Grandma), my uncle Zlatko, and mommy and daddy's friends Adriana, Antonio, James and Hugh were outside, anxiously waiting any news. Daddy came about an hour later to take these pictures to show everyone. That's me on the bottom, and my big brother on the top. He was bigger, at 750 grams, whereas I was 720. Even in the womb he was the bigger guy!

At this point we are both hooked up to ventilators that will breath for us, intravenous lines that will supply us with nutrition and medicines and other various sensors to monitor our heart rate, breath rate and oxygen saturation.

This is going to be rough ride, everyone. Hope is all we have.


AIV