When can they come home?

Don't know.  Lots of people have been told that babies typically don't leave a NICU until they have reached the equivalent of their natural term.  That would put us at September 20th.  However, we're told that this benchmark is not actually used.  What we were told by the pediatricians at CPMC is that they need to meet three benchmarks for release from the NICU:

• Ability to moderate own temperature.  This is an unknown for our girls.  It's typically related to weight.  Our girls are about half the size of many term babies, so this might take some time.
• Ability to gain weight from nutrition by mouth (i.e., no feeding tube).  Again, technically an unknown, but we have reason to be optimistic, since both girls took a bottle today.
• No apneas.  This means that the babies will have to prove they are able to suckle a bottle and swallow the milk without any pause in breathing.  Preterm babies are known for sometimes forgetting to breathe, since at this stage in the womb they don't need to breathe at all and the breathing they do is a matter of practice.  Now, of course, it's a matter of life and death.  However, the girls both began breathing spontaneously at delivery, which is encouraging.  They also haven't shown problems on their monitors.  So we're hopeful this will not be an obstacle for long.

On the other hand, this does not seem like a good area in which to be overly ambitious and to press for early release.  The purpose of the NICU is to simulate additional development time in the womb, and they will benefit from that.