Test follow up

This post will be difficult to write because a) the medical stuff is over my head and b) it's not the news we wanted to hear. 

On Wednesday, they performed a follow up echo on William for his heart and cranial ultrasound on Ryan. The results came back yesterday and the doctor came by to discuss them with us. 

William's echo still showed a small PDA, but the doctor was not overly concerned at this point. William will have another echo follow up in a month to see how his heart looks then. Hopefully the PDA will be gone! :)

Ryan's ultrasound still showed some bleeding in his brain. We were really hoping and praying that it would have cleared up on its own over the last week. The good news is that it hasn't gotten any worse, but the radiologist is leaning towards calling it PVL (periventricular leukomalacia), which is damage to the brain. It's still a grade 1 bleed, so if there is some brain damage, it could be very minor. It just scares us that Ryan is at an increased risk for developmental delays. The doctor told us that they will do weekly scans on him and follow it closely and involve therapists as needed to help him out developmentally. Please pray for our sweet boy that this will not affect him and that he will grow up to lead a healthy life! 

I got to hold Ryan yesterday and I read two books to him, told him all about his name (which family members it came from) and we prayed together. 

The strange thing is that Ryan is still on his high flow oxygen tube and is really doing well with his breathing. Out of all three, he is breathing the best and you would assume he is the healthiest. I hope his breathing success translates to healthy brain function!

William and Stokes are still doing well. They are working on gaining weight and doing better with their breathing. The respiratory therapists and nurses give them breaks off their CPAPs multiple times per day and they aren't able to stay off the CPAP very long before they start displaying episodes of brady-ing and desat-ing. They need to get better in this area before we can upgrade them to high flow. Other than that, they are sleeping and hanging out! I can't wait to see their faces better once they are off CPAP and onto high flow! 

Thank you to all our friends and family who have been so supportive, encouraging, generous and prayerful with us. We are blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives and we take comfort in knowing that the boys will have an awesome "village" that will be surrounding them. 

More updates to come. Please continue praying for the triplets! :)