17 Days

(Technically it's 18 days now, but I started writing this yesterday and I like that it was at least partly composed on my "due date," so I'm leaving it.)

Okay, so a little miss Sue is fussing and I have about three seconds to post-- I just wanted to check in because YIKES, I haven't posted since the girls were born. We're all still here! This whole "blogging with newborn twins" thing is nearly impossible. It actually just took me four days to send a quick email... it's insane. Basically anything I can't do easily from my iPhone has gone temporarily out the window.

Oh, she's settling down... I might be able to squeeze a few more minutes out! (Jinx?)

Susannah and I came home on the 15th. Lulu had a hard time maintaining her temperature after dropped to 4 lbs 6 oz (just one ounce shy of 10% weight loss), but luckily my milk came in like CRAZY on day three, so I had a ton pumped and stored up for her while she stayed in the nursery for an extra two days. Those two days sucked... very bittersweet to get Susie all dressed up in one-half of the matching "coming home from the hospital" dresses and being wheeled past the nursery, seeing her skinny little naked sister lounging casually in an incubator... very, very hard not to cry. I don't know how people do it when they have just one baby who has to stay in a NICU and they go home empty-handed. Susie was very comforting to me in that moment <3

Lulu came home on Thursday-- my mom's birthday-- but on Friday morning at a doctor's appointment, her temperature dropped to 95.9. After half an hour of skin-to-skin under my fleece jacket while sitting in the waiting room, she was only up to 97.0, so we had to bring her in to another hospital for more testing. I got to spend the day there with her in the ER and experience things like helping to hold her down so they could give her an IV, exactly one week from the day she was born. That was horrible :( Lulu was a rockstar about it, but man, I really hope she doesn't have to go through anything like that again.

Ultimately, she was fine-- no infection, no fever (apparently newborns can drop their temperatures with a fever), just "she's still really small, just keep her bundled up." Like we hadn't been doing that obsessively anyways... anyways, as of four days ago she finally crossed the five-pound mark and her temps have been fine, thankfully.

Since then, we've had a steady stream of family through the house almost daily-- today was our first day without a single visitor, actually. My mom watched Susie for us while we dealt with Talulah's medical issues and visited her in the nursery, and she helped us drive the girls to doctor's appointments after Susannah failed her carseat test at the hospital and we had to buy a car bed for her, which doesn't fit next to a carseat because an adult has to sit beside it-- we needed three adults in two cars to get two babies to a building down the street. My aunt and cousin came to visit from Manhattan and stayed up literally all night one night holding the girls so we could sleep-- and they refused to put the girls down even when they were sleeping. Literally, my family is full of people who will hold the girls for hours, even my dad, surprisingly, who was never a warm fuzzy "baby guy" until now.

Breastfeeding is... going well enough, I guess. I've been mostly pumping, which means I'm tied to the pump every three hours. That part is the hardest thing so far-- washing and rewashing all the pump parts, dragging the pump and all its accoutrement with me every time we're going to be out for more than two hours, and getting up in the middle of the night to pump even when Husband is taking that feeding/changing shift. He gets a solid six hours every night because he can sleep through my 2:30am shift, but I have to get up with him at 5:30am anyways because I can't pump in my sleep! Boo. BUT, the girls have been growing and gaining weight fantastically, and for a million reasons but especially because of the season and cold and flu germs and people all wanting to visit and hold the babies, I'm really glad they're getting the immunity and extra benefits of breast milk.

They do nurse, as well, but it's mostly bottles. We started off just on the breast at the hospital, but the girls were getting too tired out and weren't eating for long enough, so I pumped and we added in supplemental syringe feedings. Then a lactation consultant helped us transition to finger-feeding so we wouldn't be re-filling tiny syringes over and over. Then Lulu had to stay in the nursery and they just use bottles there, so we tried Sue with a bottle when we got home... watching a baby eat in 5 minutes what used to take 45 minutes and two people to manage was amazing. So bottles it was. Although they eat a lot more now and it doesn't take 5 minutes to feed them now! I still try to get them to the breast a few times a day to stay in the habit so we can transition them to mostly breastfeeding, with bottles only overnight and when we go out. I'm not about to try and wrangle breastfeeding newborn twins by myself at the mall or in the car in the grocery store parking lot or something, no thank you. Let me figure out tandem feeds first with the monster breastfeeding pillow we spent $75 on and haven't used yet, lol.

At least my supply is good... we have 148 1/2 oz frozen right now, maybe 5-10oz in the fridge, and the girls eat about 2 to 2 1/2 oz each feeding eight or nine times a day. Only enough to get both girls halfway through the week if we needed to use it, but at least I'm making way more than they're eating for the moment so we can build up a stash. We almost can't fit any more in the freezer, heh.

Anyways. Want some pictures? There are about 20 below. Sounds like a lot, but I took over 300, so consider these the highlight ;)

In the hospital:

Susie on the left, Talulah on the right. She's a touch jaundiced there.

This is the face that had the nursing students in the nursery fighting over who got to feed Lulu. If we could package that face up and sell it, we'd make a MINT in Japan. She looks like a doll.

Susannah, looking a bit suspicious (bad Mommy did not notice the milky crust around her mouth before taking this picture, haha).

Daddy, snuggling Lulu (I think).

Okay, this one is definitely Daddy snuggling Lulu. That's Lulu's "pirate face," or what Nana calls the "Popeye face."

The milk stash by the end of the hospital stay (three days' worth of pumping, all the leftovers we didn't use) that went to Lulu in the nursery.

Daddy finger-feeding... hmm... Susie, I think? It was like feeding baby birds.

Susie's "going home" outfit. Lulu's matches, but with opposite colors. 

Susie at home, in ridiculous(ly adorable) things Mommy made her wear.

Visting Talulah at the hospital: 

Eating lunch with Daddy in the "family room." We were allowed to take her out of the isolette for a visit for only half an hour at a time every three hours.

Hanging out in the nursery. No idea why Lu Girl looks cross-eyed here! She was wrapped up in so many blankets to keep her warm...

This happened accidentally as I took the picture, how amazing is that?

We call this one "Suspicious Chicken." 

Bringing more milk for Lulu the day before her discharge.

Coming home! And not enjoying the carseat experience at all!

A sidenote: prior to the carseats, we planned to avoid pacifiers and told the staff we didn't want the girls to have any. Then the carseat test happened, which required the girls to sit in a carseat and maintain their head position and vitals for 2 hours, all in the middle of the night... they were not happy about the carseat test and Lulu came back with a binky in her mouth. I wasn't happy about that, but I stopped caring pretty quickly because the staff was generally pretty awesome otherwise and too many things happened (Susie failing carseat test, Lulu staying in the nursery) for me to put any energy into it. Now we use binkies, um, a lot. It's hard to get off them once you're on them.

At home:

Everyone finally all together! I was much happier than I look here... I don't smile naturally in photos; it always looks fake.

Daddy snuggling Susie, who has gone completely limp for some reason, haha. Milk drunk, maybe?

She is not amused, but Daddy is.

Lulu's second hospital trip:

Didn't even have her first ankle bracelet off before she got another one... just like Lindsay Lohan. (Zing!)

Did you know they made baby johnnies? I did not. So cute... so, so sad...

Poor girl with an IV in, which means they put the little pillow-board on their arms and strap it down with tape... when they pulled the tape off at the end, it looked like her fragile little arm-skin was going to come off with it. Horrible :(

But, the story has a happy ending... Lulu back at home that night, happy and milk-drunk :)

Life at home with the girls:

It's good. :)