Life At Home

After the challenging days I typically had at the NICU, a day in the life at home is pretty wonderful, I must say.  There are still challenges, doctors orders, and nurses pricking their feet for blood, but most of the time, it's just relaxing and wonderful.

My favorite part is obviously going to sleep and waking up next to these 2...

So what is a typical day like?

Well the twins are still eating at least 6 times a day, predominantly from a bottle (blah). I am still doing the nurse, bottle feed, then pump routine for every feeding. They've gotten better at nursing but they still just can't get an entire feeding from it. Even when they nurse really well for 10-15 minutes, they'll still take almost an entire bottle, which makes me think they were a long way from full before we started with the bottle. It's gotten a little discouraging but I keep reminding myself that they still shouldn't be born for 3 more weeks so it's ok that they're not pros at everything yet. The important part is that they can do it, and once they get bigger and stronger, they'll be able to go to nursing full time. That will be a very happy day!

So when they're not eating, they're sleeping. Alot. Which is good, because that means they're growing! Jack has gained almost a pound in just the short time they've been home. Mia would probably have grown if she didn't have eating issues.

It seems like almost daily though they're awake a little more and more. It's nice seeing them awake and looking around. They're so curious about what's going on around them even though they can only see a few inches away. Last night was the first discovery of a toy. Amelia was fascinated with a little toy I hung on her car seat. I pull the ring down and it vibrates and moves and her eyes got so big, she had no idea what to do with herself. She's going to be an entertaining kid when she gets bigger.

We've had a few rough spots on our time at home though...

Amelia, who was never the best eater, decided about 3 days after being home, that she had had enough of food. She was eating close to 2oz before and suddenly, getting an ounce in her was rough. And what we did get in her, she would throw right back up. We started keeping her sitting up when she was done eating to try to keep the food down. Since we don't have a lot of baby things in Pennsylvania and don't want to buy a lot, we keep her in her car seat. She doesn't complain too much ;)

We took her to the doctor and he thought trying zantac might help. Jackson was on that when he was taking steroids and he didn't miss a step in eating. We tried it, and Amelia started to eat again! She's back up to 2 1/2oz and hardly ever spitting up! We still keep her sitting up for about 30 minutes after she eats, and don't do anything really upsetting to her until it gets close to the next meal (bath, changing her, etc), so things have turned a corner. She didn't gain any weight the first week she was home so I'm hoping on Monday at the next Dr's appointment, she'll have put on her weight.

Her brother, Jackson, would eat a gallon if I let him, I think. He will eat anything that gets in his path when he's hungry. He even tried to suck on my nose once when I got too close to kiss him when he was hungry. When he starts crying and looking for food hours before he's supposed to eat, I always tease and say he'll learn to walk so he can go find his own food and doesn't have to rely on me. He eats 3oz every feeding, easily, I keep giving him a few mL more and more and he keeps demolishing it. So he might be eating more than I pump very quickly here.

We have doctors appointments and a home nurse that keep up busy and keep up with their medical needs. They get weekly lab work, Jackson to monitor his sodium because of the diuretic and sodium he takes, and HNH for both of them since they are anemic. We give them both vitamins with iron and fortify their breast milk with Neosure to get more iron and other vitamins in them. Overall, everyone has been happy with how they've been doing at home.

We also have taken a few trips to not crowded places so we can get out. We take a walk every day, we've taken them to the dam where we got wedding pictures taken...

can't believe that was just in October! and we went to the school by our house to play in the playground. I used to go there all the time to play when we were kids, but the playground has gotten a major upgrade since the days when I went there.

We went out to eat a few local restaurants. The nice part about where I live is that things are pretty rural and quiet. In one restaurant we were even in a room all by ourselves so we didn't have to worry at all about people coming up and touching the twins, but it was still nice to go out and get out of the house for something other than a doctor's visit. Their favorite outing was probably to get ice cream...yummm!

I worked at this ice cream place in high school. So strange going back to all of my old spots, but this time, as a mom!

The twins have had a few visitors to stop in and say hi. A few family friends came up, some of them not even knowing the twins were home, just making their usual stops by the house or coming up to pick some fruit and the twins were there so we let them say hi. My great aunt and her daughter came by to see them.

 I'm sure alot more family will come to visit before we head back to California, but for now...the twins enjoy just hanging out with their uncles most days.

So that's our days for the past week and a half. Tom has been here but he's leaving again to go back to California. The next time we see him, he'll be here to help get the twins to California and we'll finally be all together again and settled in our new home!

On our agenda for next week is another appointment with their pediatrician for vaccines so I'm sure it'll be a stressful week being on the look out for any bad reactions. And they have a follow-up with the eye doctor to see how things are going. We're hoping Mia has grown out of some of her retinopathy and won't require any treatment for it...fingers crossed! Keep the twins in your thoughts and prayers. Although they are doing better, they are far from being out of the woods yet.

Check...Check...Check...

Eating like champs-Check!

Gaining weight-Check!

Cold stress-Check!

Car Seat Test-Check!

Do I hear the word discharge in our future??

Come on babies! Keep up the good work for a few more days! Mommy wants you HOME!

34

34 is my favorite number you know. It was my number in basketball when I was growing up. 34 has a whole new meaning now...34 is 1 week away from the earliest the twins can be discharged from the hospital!

Now it's a long shot they'll get discharged at 35 weeks to the day, but they'll probably be home by the time they turn 36 weeks, or so is the rumor around the NICU. We can't say for sure, I probably won't know until a day or 2 before when the exact discharge will be, but just the fact that as soon as they're healthy, they can leave makes me happy. No more waiting for that August 2nd date I've had in my head since they were born. It used to seem so far away and now it's just 1 week! I can't wait.

For right now, the twins are both breast and bottle fed. They won't be able to master breast feeding until closer to term so I breastfeed them and then we bottle feed them their real feeding. They can't go home with NG tubes so it's important that they can eat somehow, and gain weight doing it. So far, so good. Jack is a champion eater. Mia is watching her figure...or trying to win an award for most stubborn baby in the world. Either way, she takes a little convincing that eating is a good thing before she'll eat. But she's getting there ;)

Later this week (or probably more like this weekend, to early next week) they'll cold stress them and get them out of the incubators. I think they'll be fine because I have them out a lot to feed them, hold them, kangaroo them, and they're temps stay up. But they need to keep their temps in a healthy range for a few days and still eat for them to pass their cold stressing. Apparently a lot of babies stop eating during cold stress because they're not used to being cold. We'll see how they do.

A day or 2 before discharge, they'll car seat test them and make sure they can keep their oxygen saturation up while in a car seat for over an hour. We'll see how that goes. I'm not really sure how they'll handle that one.

They also spend a night with me, an no monitors, in the back in a little hotelish like room. This is more for me, to make sure I can take care of them on my own and if anything comes up, the nurses are there to help. We'll see how I do ;) I'm not too worried about it though since I spend all day, every day taking care of them myself.

The nurses are really just helping with a few things. Mostly, I take care of the babies during the day when I'm there and we've all been doing great. I feed them, burp them, change them, bath them, rock them, cuddle with them, put them to bed, and everything I would be doing with them if they weren't in the hospital. I'm excited to get them home and see how things go when they're not at the hospital...and I can't call a nurse if I get stuck with something. :)

I'll keep ya posted on things. By this time next week I should have a pretty good idea of how soon they'll be coming home. I'm hoping sooner rather than later :)

A Day In the Life Part II

What do you do when you have your babies 3 months early?

Attempt to decorate their nursery when they're 1 month old. Obviously.

This makes me think of everything I need to do yet to get ready to bring these babies home! And as if getting everything we need isn't enough, we have California things that need to get done and Pennsylvania things, since they're most likely going to be in PA for a few weeks before we take them to Cali. So that's 2 nurseries...or at least 1 legit nursery and 1 makeshift nursery.

We have cribs, a dresser/changer and some basic decorations in their real nursery. Their names will hang there when I finish them. But we still need things like a changing pad, sheets for that, extra crib sheets, a pack and play, sheets for that, maybe a bouncer or swing or both, and many other miscellaneous items.

To bring them home we have to have some basics that the NICU requires like car seats, clothes, and receiving blankets. All of which we have, so as far as the NICU goes, we're good to go home in Pennsylvania.

To keep them in PA, we need somewhere for them to sleep, clothes, diapers, blankets, stroller, and many other little trinkets. We have some clothes, blankets, a few too big diapers (we'll get smaller ones when we see what size they are at go-home time), and a stroller. We're begging, borrowing and stealing the other things we need. Ok, mostly the borrowing, but I would beg if I needed to. Probably not steal, I have 2 babies I need to take care of. Jail would be a bad idea. We have 1 bassinet, but it looks like one baby is sleeping in a dresser drawer for right now.

So one day at a time, but now, a month into their lives, we're slowly getting together everything we need to bring them home to PA and then bring them home to Cali! Hopefully, we'll be using all of these things in a month or so!