Brooke has been doing fantastic with her nippling (bottle feeding) and has finished her last few bottle feedings within the time limit of a half hour. (If anything is left after that point, it’s fed through their NG tube.) Claire is making good nippling progress, too, but hasn’t caught up to her sister. That’s not surprising, since Claire is smaller and a lot of these things improve a lot with size. She’ll get there. Speaking of size, Claire is big enough that we expect the girls to finally get co-bedded today.
We found yesterday out that both girls are anemic. That’s fairly common for preemies, and while it’s something we need to take care of, the doctor says it’s manageable and not cause for great concern. The treatment options are blood transfusions (one for each), or a course of an anemia drug called epogen. Obviously, we’d give either of them our blood in a heartbeat, but that kind of donation, called a “directed donation” can’t happen as fast as ordering anonymous blood from the blood bank. On top of that, Kate can’t donate and I’m a match for Claire, but not Brooke. What we ultimately decided was to start the epogen now and run labs again in a few days. If the epogen is doing the trick, we’ll continue that, but if it looks like they could use some blood to help them out, we’ll order some from the blood bank.
If anyone reading this is wondering, “Can I help Claire and Brooke by donating my blood?”, the answer is thanks, but you probably can’t in any direct sense, because of the blood typing, logistics, and bureaucracy involved. However, donating blood can help lots of other people, maybe even other preemies, so if you’re up to it, I encourage you to see about donating at a local blood bank or with the American Red Cross. If you become a donor, you might even get a card with your blood type on it, which is handy to know if you or someone you love ever needs blood. If you happen to be O-negative, you’re blood is in high demand because you’re a universal donor, meaning any other blood type can be transfused with your blood. If you’re interested, but not sure if that time when you petted a monkey in Bali a few years back disqualifies you, the eligibility requirements are available online.
