The babies have had their feeding tubes removed and are taking all feedings by mouth!!
Tonight Nick and I are spending the night with our babies in a parent-child room which is attached to the NICU. (That's how the hospital transitions babies out of there who are being discharged. I guess they feel that new parents might need the nurses nearby during the first night "alone" with their special-needs kid. Seeing as my husband IS a nurse, that's kind of a pain in the butt, but hey, whatever gets them home, right? I can deal with it.)
Tomorrow, we will bring the twins home for the first time!! I'm jumping out of my skin with anticipation. (Stories and photos will be on their way soon, I'm sure. I haven't even been able to blog about my birth story yet, so I hope to soon.)
2008-02-01 (baby has arrived)
TWIN UPDATE
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
TWIN UPDATE
The twins are doing great... they have had their oxygen tubes and IV antibiotics removed, although they are still getting fluids by IV and still have to be fed enterrally (that's the tube you see in their noses, which leads to their tummies). They will be able to swallow on their own soon. They are no longer receiving formula supplements and are being fed only with mother's milk now, which she is pumping like crazy. The pediatrician says as soon as their body temperatures can self-regulate, they will be moved out of the warmers and to a crib they can share. We are up at the hospital every day holding them. We can't wait to take them home.
* * * * * * * * *
Friday, February 1, 2008
TWIN UPDATE 2
Well!! Happy news, the twins have had their IVs removed completely and are no longer receiving any extra fluids, just good old-fashioned milk. They still have their enteral (feeding) tubes in, but we have also been breastfeeding every day, and they are getting better at sucking and swallowing (and are especially good at spitting up on mommy and daddy)! They're doing so well we hope to bring them home in a week or so, but we're trying not to get too excited in case the pediatrician decides to keep them a little longer. It's hard to be away from them.
Nick and I are practically living at the hospital so we can hold them and feed them as much as possible. I get up in the middle of the night to pump milk so that I will stay on the same feeding schedule as the babies. We're going on about 4-5 hours of sleep per night (maybe!). If you have called our phones and we haven't answered, that's why. We're sorry and will call everyone back at some point, hopefully soon!!
xx
2008-01-28 (baby has arrived)
THE TWINS ARE BORN!!
Ryan Nicholas Jones, 5 lb 4 oz, and Gabriel Michael Jones, 4 lbs 11oz, were born at 10:12 and 10:14 AM on Saturday, January 16, 2008, by c-section at WRMC.
See our pics!
Don't let all the wires and tubes scare you-- they are healthy... just a little premature, having been born at 34 weeks' gestation, and will be in the NICU for a week or two to help them get started breathing and swallowing on their own.
Mitzi is now home from the hospital and doing fine. We will be up there every day taking care of the babies!!
Birth story to follow soon when I have more energy.
Lots of love from us both.
2008-01-24 (34 weeks)
So, the answer was no....
...........And they sent me home again, after another 5 hours spent in Labor and Delivery, having received a Demerol IV that knocked me out for a while but didn't stop or even slow my contractions.
They said that my waters hadn't broken and my cervix wasn't open enough for them to feel that they should deliver the twins. It was only barely dilated to 1. So they offered to either keep me overnight for "observation" or send me home. I recalled my recent 3-day stay (and the $6700 bill for it) and quickly chose the latter. So Nick took me home, with horrible, crippling contractions still 2 minutes apart. They were so bad I had to have a wheelchair out.
The most ridiculous thing EVER was receiving a printed handout from the nurse which read, "return immediately to Labor and Delivery if your contractions have been 5-7 minutes apart for over 2 hours." I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill people. The irony was not even funny. What the f**k???? ("Hi, welcome to L&D. We confirm that your contractions are two minutes apart and very painful. Sorry, your cervix hasn't opened and your water is still intact. Here's a printed handout with signs and symptoms of real labor. Come back if you have contractions between 5 and 7 minutes apart. See ya!!")
So we went home very disappointed. The rest of the day was hell. So was the next day. Here we are now three days later. The contractions are still coming every few minutes. And my cervix still isn't opening. And my water still hasn't broken. The doctors have been completely unsympathetic to my misery and have ordered me to just "wait it out" and "take a Tylenol".
I am extremely irritable as you might imagine. I have been sobbing and/or screaming at Nick and Lauren with no warning. Everything is upsetting me. Various members of my family decided to show up unannounced at my door yesterday as well, "just to visit", which didn't help, as it generally occurred JUST as I had finally fallen asleep. So I would have to get up, get dressed and make myself look presentable. I did not want any visitors.
When my dad dropped by, and saw my condition, he STILL had the gall to ask me how soon I could come back to work (even though we had planned for me to take a yearlong leave... it's not my fault the new secretary quit on him after two months!!) After the visits, my phone rang off the hook. I wished a painful death on pretty much everyone. Since when was this all about other people and their precious schedules? I want to be left alone!!
It's Thursday, and back for more NSTs this morning. I dread it. Nothing is happening. I'm going to be pregnant forever.
