555th Post - The Family is Complete at Home

Things have been crazy at our house since Friday night. Liam came home and now we are all here and nesting. Although I'm going stir crazy by now, LOL. But I love kissing up these boys and watching them sleep next to each other.

It was getting really hard with Liam in the hospital, especially with concerns about him not eating enough and gaining weight. It seemed like he had turned a corner the last day, so they let him come home. I know I was getting concerned over the weekend and was worried that we'd end up back at the hospital after his first pediatrician appointment today. He was eating about 1 1/2 oz breast milk per feeding and could go about three to four hours between feedings. I had to wake him often for feedings, but once awake, he'd seem like he'd want to eat. I was still concerned that he might now be eating enough. Especially since his diapers were not that wet and he hasn't had any stool in his diapers. Not that he's ever been a big pooper. Even at the hospital it's usually a few days.

I am happy to report that Liam did great at the doctor's today. He's gained 5 oz since he was sent home Friday! I almost started crying with relief! So right now Liam is 5 lbs 6 oz and Tommy is 6 lbs 2 oz. Tommy's weight was last taken on Friday by the home health nurse that came by. She comes back again to check on the boys on Wednesday.

I'll post with some pics of the boys soon.

Sleep is for the Weak - Tommy's Home!

Tommy did come home on Friday. The doctor came in and told us at 5 PM on Friday afternoon. By 9 PM, we were home and missing Liam, but I do now see how taking one home first can make things easier. The doctor was very reassuring telling us that it is extremely rare for premie twins in the NICU to come home together. It was bittersweet going home without Liam, but telling ourselves that this was Step 1 of "Operation The New Normal" helped us. Plus having just Tommy around has helped us get to know his cues and routine.

The first night was tough, as when we went to bed, the apnea monitor alarms kept going off, saying there was a loose lead. We finally figured out that both of the pads on his chest needed to be replaced, but we were exhausted at this point. Note to self and others: the pads for the home monitors can only be placed once. After that the sticky is no good and will cause issues. I also learned that if the "loose lead" alarm is going off and you put your hands on the pads through their clothes and the alarms turn off, it must be that the pads need to be replaced. After that the first night was smooth sailing. Tommy slept unless he was hungry.

Last night was completely different. Tommy did decide that sleep was for the weak and I needed to toughen up. Between the hours of 3 to 5 AM, Tommy was hungry enough to be fussy, not awake enough to nurse long enough to be really full. So he kept waking up, crying his head off, nursing a little, falling asleep on me, I'd burp him and lay him back down to sleep, this would last all about 15 minutes, until he'd repeat the whole process. After 5 AM, he slept until about 7:30 AM and now he's been asleep for the past hour.

Believe it or not, I'm feeling fine. After he went back to sleep this morning, I made coffee, cleaned out the top drawer in the nursery and started a load of laundry. I need to clean out the drawers in the nursery as I have all the sizes of the baby clothes in there and now I want to make sure that I only have out what size they are wearing right now. I'll put the other sizes aside and make sure they are organized, so I can pull out the next size of clothes when I'm ready for it.

With Liam, we've been calling the NICU in the morning for an update and coming in for one of the care times later in the day. He's almost ready to be fed on demand instead of on a schedule and fully on bottles or nursing. Once that happens, he can be home in a day or two. So at this point, we're thinking he might come home around Wednesday of this week.

Update on Twins - 5 Weeks Old

Tommy and Liam are 5 weeks old today and there's a possibility Tommy may come home today. He's been managed with on demand feeding since Wednesday evening and they took the feeding tube out yesterday morning and didn't replace it. He nurses like a champ for his feedings and is taking bottles of breast milk when I'm not there. Both boys passed their car seat test yesterday. Liam was still tired for most of his feeds yesterday, so he never nursed when I was there, but he has been taking bottles well when I'm not there, so he is getting there. And Liam did nurse for one full feed on Wednesday. Tommy still has almost a full pound on Liam. Their current weights are as follows:

Tommy - 5 lbs 10 oz
Liam - 4 lbs 13 oz

And here's an updated pic of the two of them sleeping together which they absolutely love doing. They sleep much better when they are next to each other.

Twin Birth Story - Part 2

By Thursday evening, things were going well. Labor was staying away, even though I had a contraction every now and then. I had gotten two steroid shots into my system by this time, one on Wednesday morning when I was admitted and the second Thursday morning. I was taken off IV fluids and monitors and cleared to get out of bed to use the bathroom by Thursday afternoon.

Tom and Phoebe came to visit me Thursday evening and I sent them home at 8:30 PM for her to go to bed as she had school the next day. Myself, I went to bed around 10 PM. I was getting sick of watching House reruns on TV and getting tired too. I woke up at 11:30 PM out of a sound sleep with the worst contraction ever, but this feeling that I had to go to the bathroom. This will be TMI, but I knew I was constipated since I had been admitted to the hospital and that is very unlike me when I'm on my normal diet from home. I went into the bathroom and tried to use the facilities but I quickly became aware that I was concerned I'd be pushing out my first baby as his head was so low in my pelvis for the past few days. The new nurse that just came on shift came to check on me and do my vital signs. I told her I'd be done in a few minutes and she asked me to ring for her when I came back to bed. Well, considering how I was feeling about the first of our babies being ready to come out and then I started having more strong contractions, I decided to quickly get back to bed. I rang for the nurse while I tried to continue breathing through my contractions and explained to the nurse that I'm not a wuss and that I knew this was "the real deal" of labor. She got me on my side, started the IV fluids again and hooked me up to the monitors. When she realized this was not stopping she called for the rotational OB doctor to come look at me. She examined my cervix and we were all shocked for her to say I was fully dilated and that the baby's head was at station 2 and did I feel like I wanted to push??? I confirmed that I did, but she asked me not to until we could get me to Labor and Delivery and get my doctor to the hospital.

Before the doctor even examined me, I started trying to call Leo and tell him to get himself to the hospital immediately!!! My SIL was at our house, so I knew Phoebe would be OK staying at home. No one at the house was answering any of their phones. I tried the house line and cell phones. Finally I broke down and called our neighbor across the street to wake up my family and send my husband to the hospital. I owe my neighbors big time.

After I got through to Leo, I was moved to a gurney, to an operating room in Labor and Delivery, moved to the table in the OR and everyone in the room started introducing themselves to me. BTW, I had an anesthesiologist at my head. They didn't have time to give me an epidural and I'm thinking that if anything went wrong, they were going to put me out directly. My OB (or really another doctor from her practice that I know really well) and Leo came in at the same time. This was exactly when they were starting to have me push. I remember Leo grabbing my hand really hard and saying "I'm here. I'm here." I was so worried he wouldn't make it. I remember working on pushing but having a hard time, as my mind was mentally telling myself, "It's not time yet. This is too soon." But I pushed through and Thomas was born at 2:09 AM on 5/29/09. I heard Thomas cry right away and they whisked him over to the baby cribs to check him out. Dr. B immediately had me get back to work pushing and Liam was born 11 minutes later at 2:20 AM. She placed him directly on my stomach and I remember grabbing at him with my hands. He wasn't crying until later, but I knew he'd be OK and I just wanted my hands all over one of my babies at that moment. I thought if you're going to put Liam on my belly, I'm going to hold him for all my worth. A minute later he was taken over to be looked at as well and Dr. B cleaned me up. I had some tearing that needed to be repaired, but not that bad.

Leo and I got a good look at our babies before they left for the NICU. They asked us to give them an hour or two to get them admitted to the NICU and setup for us to visit. I wasn't sent to the Maternity Ward until that afternoon as they were very full at the hospital. I was in quite a bit of pain from the postpartum contractions, which were really bad. The nurses gave me some serious meds that made me sleepy and woozy, so I sent Leo to check on "the boys" and let me know how they were. He came back to let me know that Liam was on a respirator, but that Thomas was not needing any respiratory help at all.

Fast forward to a month later, and hopefully they will be going home in a week or two. All we have left to work on is for them to be nursing for all their feeds and gaining weight. Liam moved to an open crib this weekend and both he and his brother are doing great keeping their temperatures better than great when they are together. They are both doing well with nursing when they are not too tired. And both Leo and I each bathed a baby yesterday!!! We've been forgetting to bring the camera to the hospital the past two days, but we have it packed for today and plan on taking lots of new pictures.

Twin Birth Story - Part 1

It's been almost a month since Thomas and Liam were born, so I better get started on the story of how they came into this world. As I had mentioned in my blog the weekend before my water broke, the boys definitely dropped and I was feeling better about breathing and eating. I didn't really think this meant they would be coming soon, as I know when you get to that point it can still be several weeks before labor. But it was a sign of things to come....

On Wednesday, May 27, 2009, I was getting out of the shower and Leo and I were getting ready to get Phoebe on the bus. As I was drying off in the bathroom, a trickle when down my leg and onto the floor. I immediately knew what was going on. I didn't want to freak Phoebe out or make her worry all day, so I discreetly called Leo to the bathroom and asked him to get Phoebe on the bus and that my water broke and we needed to go to the hospital. I finished getting dressed and getting my act together, packing a bag and such for the hospital stay. I also called my OB's office and let them know what was going on. When Leo came back in from getting Phoebe off to school, we left for the hospital. Needless to say, I was extremely scared. I knew this was too early and wanted to get steroids into me to help the boys get ready to be born. Before we left for the hospital, I had started feeling contractions. It was just one or two, but it was scary to feel this so early.

I went to Triage at the maternity department of our hospital. The doctor said my cervix was completely closed, but that my water had broken and most likely it was just one of the twins who's membranes had ruptured and not both. They gave me my first steroid shot and confirmed that they would like to keep labor off for a few weeks and I would be admitted to the hospital for the rest of the duration of my pregnancy. I was put on IV fluids, antibiotics to keep away infection since my water broke, and monitors for the baby's heart rates and my contractions, which I was still feeling every now and then. I was also put on strict bed rest and was told to even use a bedpan instead of the bathroom. That didn't go over very well with me. I was also restricted from eating until they could confirm that I was stable. I was given a promise that maybe I could eat dinner that evening.

I was sent upstairs to the high risk area of maternity, monitored some more and then sent to Maternal/Fetal Medicine for an ultrasound. The ultrasound confirmed that the membrane that ruptured was Thomas, Liam's was fine and both boys were doing well. Even though Thomas's membranes had ruptured, there was still plenty of amniotic fluid for him to be fine for the duration. I was told that I would have an ultrasound every other day until delivery.

So for the next two days, we tried to keep things normal at home. My SIL came to stay with us to help with Phoebe. Phoebe came to visit me at the hospital with Leo and we made sure she got her homework done and home to bed at a decent time as she still had a few more weeks of school left.

I'll get to Part II tomorrow, which should be the finale, as I'll cover when we realized that labor could no longer be put off....

Happy Father's Day and 35 Weeks Gestation (3 Weeks 2 Days Old)

Hope everyone had a Happy Father's Day. We had a very good one. Tommy is now in an open crib, instead of the incubator and is nursing very well when he's not tired. Liam also had his last dose of caffeine yesterday and he also is good at nursing when he's not tired. Liam is still in an incubator, but I hope that as he gains some more weight he can regulate his temperature better. I'm making sure that even if Liam nurses, he still gets his full feed from the feeding tube which includes the 2 packets of fortifier. He needs the extra calories as on Saturday, they both nursed very well so we chose that we didn't think they needed the feeding tube that day, but Tommy gained weight while Liam did not. So we won't make that choice with Liam until he gains a bit more weight. Tommy is now around 4 lbs 10 oz, while Liam dropped back to 3 lbs 15 oz.

Here's some updated pics. One of the boys side by side (Liam's head is so small!) and our official Father's Day photo of Tom and "the boys". In both pics, Tommy is in the dark blue hat and Liam is in the light blue hat.

Twins Update, Yoga and the End of the School Year!

Tommy and Liam are doing very well. I was starting to get frustrated for a few days as it didn't seem like anything was getting any better. But they turned a corner and both are starting to regulate their own temperature better and are beginning to gain more weight. After that one night that Tommy nursed so well, we hadn't had a repeat of that until last night. Now I need to see if I can get it to continue, but I think it will. Next I need to work with Liam, but he's still been very sleepy the past few days and I think it's because he's working hard to gain weight and regulate his temperature. Liam is now off the pulse-oximeter and the temperature lead to the isolette, so he now has the same number of wires that Tommy has. I'm thinking it still might be another two weeks at least before they come home since they haven't transitioned yet to an open crib.

I'm also feeling pretty good as I got "back to the mat" yesterday. I was very kind to myself, but it felt very good to get into Triangle Pose and Downward Dog as well as my other favorite poses. Very relaxing and it felt so good to stretch!!!

And last but not least, yesterday was Phoebe's last day of school. We took her out to Friendly's for dinner and then went to visit the boys. Today is the first day of her Freestyle skating class and back to her private ice skating lessons, both on the same day. So I'll be spending the afternoon at the ice skating rink with a break to McD's for dinner in between.

And it's a rainy, dreary day here in PA today. I'll want to make sure I bring an umbrella when I go to the hospital this morning. I wonder if I can fit into a pair of jeans yet? Probably not.