Time to here from mom again!

Sorry for the side boob but it's the best picture of the complete family : )


I apologize for not posting in so long. Phil likes posting eye candy and fun stuff but hasn't given much detail otherwise, so I'm here to catch everyone up.

Me: I was discharged from the hospital after a 7 day/6 night stay. Let's just say it was a rough recovery that I wasn't expecting. I was so worried about making sure the babies were healthy throughout the pregnancy and preparing for their arrival that I failed to ever think too much about myself and the recovery. I figured since most women are sent home after 3-4 days from a c-sec that I would too. Besides the major anemia I faced from the blood loss I was in a lot of pain from the incision and then my blood pressure was super high and was the reason for the last two days I spent in the hospital. I was discharged with my blood pressure a little on the high side (130-140/70) so I don't know how much better it is now. One thing I noticed was that whenever I got visitors my blood pressure would spike up real high. I would get so excited and want to talk and talk and talk. So for my health I had to turn away many people and wanted to apologize to anyone I did that to.

I feel so much better now but still have to walk at a snails pace, can't pick anything up from off the floor still and am taking oxicodone for the pain. I feel guilty for taking it cause it's powerful stuff. I've never been a pill popper and am always leery of taking any drugs, supplements, or even so called "natural" products. It makes me dream heavily, been talking nonsense in my sleep and according to Phil I make weird noises.

I feel I should give a shout out to my doctor and the nurses who took care of me. I would without any apprehension recommend Dr. C. Clock to anyone faced with a high risk pregnancy. She was very respectful and cooperative of my beliefs and wishes. She has great bedside manner and showed extreme confidence during the surgery. She never made me feel like something was wrong so I wouldn't freak out and am still learning about what all happened (I'm sure it would have made my recovery a whole lot scarier had I known). Also the nurses where all wonderful and patient with me. I never knew what good bedside manner was until my stay at OHSU (the hospital). Here is a shout out to Oksana, Maribel, and Kristine! I'm sure I'll never again be complemented again for passing gas and for producing two drops of colostrum, they were always sure to cheer me on for all the little accomplishments I made.

Babies: They are champions, for a while I thought they would beat me out of the hospital. My milk came in later than normal, about day 4, since I think my body was in shock. But now I'm producing more than enough for one baby so they are being fed 1/3 mommy milk and 2/3 formula. I pump about 9-10 times a day and I'm making a little more everyday so I'm hopeful I'll someday make enough for all three. I never thought my baby's head would be smaller than my boobs (don't know if I want to post a picture of that but it looks pretty comical! I wonder if they'll get even bigger once I start producing milk for more than one baby. I was never offered and I never asked for donor milk since it just kind of creeped me out to feed my babies milk from someone I didn't know (no offense or judgement to those who prefer donor milk over formula though).

The doc's thought that for a while that the boys would need to be treated for jaundice since many preemies do. But they pooped all their myconium out thanks to my two drops of colostrum and never had elevated levels of billirubin (spelling?). So they didn't even need that : ) I am still in awe of how healthy they are.

The only thing keeping them back from coming home is their ability to take in all their feedings by bottle/breast. Developmentally they shouldn't be able to do this yet so it will take some time for it to set in. They are fed through a tiny little tube that goes into one nostril and down into their stomach, it's called gavauge feeding. So what ever they don't eat by bottle or breast goes into the tube so they get enough nourishment. They started off needing 30 cc's (or milliliters) and after a day or two the doc's bumped it up to 35 cc's and then again to 40 cc's which is what they will need to take in before they come home.

The Plan: The NICU has been really supportive of my wishes to breastfeed, eventually exclusively, if possible. So after talking to a few lactation consultants we've (actually mostly them) come up with a plan. I am present for three out of six feedings. They are fed every three hours so I'm at the NICU from 11am-6:30pm everyday, I wish I could be there longer but it's all my body can take for now. We practice breastfeeding for about 15-20min, usually plenty of time to tire them out and then they are bottle fed and whatever they don't finish on their own goes in through the tube. When I'm not there they are bottle fed and gavauge fed. Thanks to a nipple shield, that helps them latch on, the babies are taking in 2-5 cc's at every try, it's a tiny amount since they need at least 40 cc's to fully nourish them. I'll cut them some slack though since they shouldn't even be born yet.

That's all I can think of for now besides that they think they may come home in about one week.

JP