Pumping

We had some issues with Waverly on the feeding front. Sam’s milk didn’t come in right away and then Wavy was not terribly interested in switching from bottles and formula. Wavy’s lip tie did not improve the situation, either.

This time around has been very different so far. Of course, the girls aren’t at a point where they are taking food by mouth, but Sam’s milk was coming in immediately. We were able to get a little with just hand expression at first and quickly moved to pumping. We’ve rented a pump temporarily while we work with insurance to get our own.

Last night (Sunday) we had enough milk from the day’s pumping that we had just enough to feed both of them their evening meal.

Feeding

If you remember both girls struggled with blood sugar at first. They’re both still getting IV sugar, but they’re also getting increasing volumes of a combination of Sam’s milk and donor milk. It seems that every day they get more. The more milk that they’ll tolerate, the sooner than we’ll be able to wean them off of their IVs.

They’re both also getting closer to not needing additional help with breathing. Once they can have their IVs removed and no more air, they won’t have any more tubes connected to them. Of course there will still be leads attached for monitoring, but those will be big steps. We’re hoping that will happen in the next day or two, fingers crossed.

IV

As I mentioned in The Unicorn, Aspen got her IV put into her forehead. Apparently even that only lasted for one 12-hour shift. It was still in when we got there in the morning, but apparently got switched out soon after. So, when we arrived Sunday evening she had one in her arm.

While the nurse was doing her cares¹ that evening she observed that even that one had gone bad.

At this point, it was getting more difficult to find open veins. Our nurse decided to call in the ringer. It took her a while to find a vein that she liked, but once she had it, she made it look easy. We’re hoping that will last long enough that it will be her last one. As of this (Monday) morning it was still in, we’ll find out tonight if it made it a full 24 hours.

Cuddle Time

One thing that has changed is that they have been taken off of phototherapy, at least for now. They do have another test scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday), but we’re hoping their bilirubin values will stay low.

What this does mean for us is that we can hold them between cares. Currently, they’re on 3-hour care cycles. So, for example, Elizabeth gets hers done at 8, 11, 2, 5 (and so on). We try to show up right before one of those is started and then get to hold that girl as soon as they’re done. Previously, because they needed to stay under phototherapy, we’d get about an hour each time (going twice a day). Now we can hold them for that whole three hours (minus the actual time it takes to do the care).

We will, at least for the week (barring any other changes) do that for their morning cares (8AM for Elizabeth, 9AM for Aspen). Those “cuddle” times are the best part. They typically sleep for most of it, but we’ve done some skin-to-skin time and sometimes they’ll be looking at you. Even just holding them while they sleep is a pretty special experience and we look forward to it every time.

A Few Random Pictures

Because I said I’d get some of these.

This one is just a random picture of how they had them in their isolettes when we arrived last night.