As hard as she tried, little Oneta Simone just couldn't bring her oxygen levels up to an acceptable level, and the doctors made the decision to transfer her to the Anaheim facility Monday afternoon. It was a gut-wrenching experience watching her being taken away from us. The reason they wanted to transfer her to the other facility stems from the chance that her condition may worsen and require surgery. Only that facility is set-up to handle such a procedure. We are happy that her condition has stabilized already, her need for the oxygen is decreasing and the doctors hope to extubate her Tuesday evening. If that's the case she will be transferred back to Irvine to be with her brother (and closer to us). Her breathing is also less laborious for her, and it seems as if her PDA condition is healing.
The hardest part is having our babies in two separate locations. Monday afternoon I stayed with Robert while Mandy and her mom went to see Oneta. We met for dinner around 7 and exchanged stories. What an exhausting experience.
And her brother! What a champion! He was already on a steady pace to full recovery, but he has even begun to impress the nurses here with his progress. By Tuesday at noon, he no longer needs IV treatment. He has finished his antibiotic medication and if he shows stability we'll be able to remove the IV connection from his body either late Tuesday or early Wednesday. He still has his feeding tube, but every nine hours they increase the amount that he ingests. It is a process of him laboring to take all his food via bottle. At present, he usually is able to take 3 feedings from a bottle each day, and finishes 90% of his bottle. The rest of his food is then given to him through his feeding tube. As he works on taking all his feedings, his next steps are to wean him off the incubator. His setting is already down to 29 (degrees Celsius) from the original 36. After a discussion with the head nurse last evening it became clear that although he is doing very well, he will not be coming home anytime this week. It is important for him to have full mastery of his feedings before we can even think about his homecoming. We often forget that he should still be in utero for at least a few more weeks in order to fully develop, and is having to do all this work on the outside. It's difficult to tell ourselves that the best place for him is exactly where he is, under great care and supervision.

Mandy did get discharged yesterday and, although in some pain, enjoys the freedom and fresh air. Most of all, she is glad that no one is constantly asking of her to "what is your pain level on a scale of zero to ten?" Although she had complained about the comfort level of hospital beds, she now understands that their ability to raise the back is extremely useful, as getting out of bed can be challenging.