The discharge

The above two ladies are direct decendents of John and Ellen O'Connell (as is the little lady in the second photo) who left Cork all those years ago. First is Gigi's Mam Marge holding Tighe earlier today. The next photo is her sister, Auntie Shirley, the shoe lady. Shirley visited today and gave each of the three lads a new pair of shoes. And not to be left out, Clara is proudly showing off her new pair of sandles that Shirley bought her today.

Well, after 3 weeks and 2 days in hospital, Gigi is finally being discharged tomorrow morning.

She is very excited about going home. The unfortunate part is that Michael, Tighe and Cian won't be coming with us tomorrow. There is a certain set of criteria they need to meet in order to be discharged, and although they are close, they are not quiet there yet.

The criteria they need to meet are

1. Reach a gestational age of 35 weeks

2. Maintain their body temperature between 36.5 and 37.5C without the assistance of an isolette (or incubator as they are called back home) for 24 hours.

3. Be gaining weight

4. No cases of infant apnea (when newborns stop breathing)

5. No other major issues

Thankfully none of the three have had any cases of apnea and none have any major issues. All three will reach the 35 week gestational age tomorrow. So that just leaves maintaining their body temperature and gaining weight.

So far Michael is probably the closest. He has had no assistance with maintaining his body temperature so far and he continues to eat well. Both Tighe and Cian have been in a warming isollette but the temperature inside is barely above that of room temperature, so they are probably going to be out in the open like Michael tomorrow.

As most of you probably know, pretty much all babies lose some weight in the first week or two and then start gaining. All three had lost about 5-6 ounces in the first three days but all three are eating well and if they continue to do so they should be gaining back the weight very soon. So we are hopeful that they will not be in the hospital for too much longer. But you just never know, initially we were told not to expect them to leave until they reached their full 40 week gestational age, which would be September 3rd.

Until all three come out of the hospital we will visit them daily. Gigi will be there to nurse them as much as possible. It might get a little tricky if they don't all come home together, which is very likely. We had a very kind offer from Peter O'Riordan, a friend from Waterford, to let us use his house as a place to rest/sleep in between nursing sessions now that Gigi won't have a room at the hospital. Peter lives just minutes from the hospital, we unfortunately live around 25 miles away. So that is very nice.

Tighe, who is the image of his uncle Eddie back in Dublin, is a voracious eater. He was the smallest of the three but if he continues like this he'll pass the others out quite quickly. He's a very focused lad, he seems very aware of the fact that all he should be doing right now is eating and sleeping. And he does those two things very well. He is also the most alert of the three, with his eyes open more often. He likes to try to raise his head and look around.

Cian is the image of his uncle Jason, Gigi's brother. Cian's the one with the blonde hair, the other two have darker hair. He was the biggest of the three at birth however he seems to be the laziest eater of the three now. He really likes his Mommy's touch, perhaps he's the sensitive one.

I'm not quiet sure who Michael looks like yet. He has the most hair of the three. It is thick and dark. If sleeping was an event at the olympics, Michael would be a lock for the gold medal. But he's eating well, and he gives us a few precious moments of alertness every few hours.

Clara came by the hospital today to see her brothers for the first time since the brief glimpse she got on Saturday just after they were born. She brought a little gift for each guy, a little art work she did with the help of marge in the last day or two. She was very excited about taping the pieces to each of the three cribs. She was very surprised to see that each of the three boys had a little gift for her in return at the side of their crib. She was very excited by the whole thing. She loved touching them and gave each a kiss. Getting her out of the nursery was a huge effort, she really didn't want to leave.

Ann-Marie, those chocoloate covered strawberries were PHENOMENAL. Gigi and I really enjoyed them this evening. Thank you!