Day Zero

That's right, we were officially at an adjusted age of zero yesterday -- i.e. yesterday was the boys' due date!!

It's a weird concept, this adjusted age thing. I mean, "term" for twins is generally considered about 36 weeks. So, if they'd been born at 36 weeks we wouldn't have used adjusted age at all. But, because they were early we count developmental milestones, size, etc. from their adjusted age starting from their actual due date. A date which they would definitely have been born before (my MFM would have done the scheduled C-section at 38 1/2 weeks or so due to my uterus issues).

It does make it difficult to figure out what "stage" they're supposed to be in at any given time. They're two months old but not really... But, it's not like they're really "one day" either. They are far more developed than a brand new baby but less than a normal two month old. I feel like we're just kind of guessing a lot at what they're supposed to be doing. I know there are a few of you out there who've had preemies -- do you have any book or website recommendations for any of this? My husband and I are "research" type people and we really feel like we're flying blind here. We've found a few possible books but we're not sure what would be most useful.

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I've also been thinking a lot lately about my lost spider baby. June 21st marked two years since we found out I was miscarrying and June 24th marks two years since the miscarriage. It's amazing to think about how far my life has changed since then and how these precious boys wouldn't be here if not for that loss. I'll never forget that first pregnancy. It changed me and made me appreciate these boys even more.

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Anyway, I suppose I'm going to go full-on mommy blogger here and record their milestones. This is mostly for me, though, so feel free to ignore...

At 2 months or 0 adjusted age, you're both changing by leaps and bounds.

We're going to start with sweet little S this time (just because you're "Baby B" doesn't mean you always have to be second!)




Our old analog baby scale puts you at 6 lb today! That's not a bad birth weight!! You're totally out of preemie clothes but you've still got a ways to grow before your preemie diapers or newborn clothes are too small. You are still our serious little guy. We love your little old man faces. Your grandma even commented on how serious and contemplative you look when she was visiting. You've been having more and more periods of wakefulness lately. Sometimes after a meal you stay awake for over an hour just taking in everything around you. I swear you smile at us. We'd really rather you didn't stay awake all the time, though, because then you get kind of cranky later and have "bad feeds" when you're sleepy. You still have a "witching hour(s)" from 9 pm to midnight or 2 am where you usually just won't be consoled unless you're being held. Sometimes nursing will put you right to sleep (although you have seriously got to remember that Mommy's nipples are not quite as resilient as the silicone ones and STOP BITING SO HARD!!). Usually, though, it takes Daddy holding you on his chest asleep while he watches the news. Is there anything sweeter than a baby sleeping on his daddy's chest? I don't think so.

You're still on all breast milk right now but that may change soon if you keep eating as much as you are! Your mom's boobs can only put out so much!! Your goal in life seems to be to hoard your milk. It ends up in all the adorable neck folds and even under your arms! You've got a case of baby acne (poor baby) but it seems to be getting better. You're not a big fan of bath time, yet, but it is the one time that you get to be a "free range" baby and are free of the annoying apnea electrodes.

Speaking of the apnea monitor -- you haven't had an event in a while! You do still have what we call "stalls" during feedings when you're not too awake. But, usually just quickly blowing on your face makes you come back around and start breathing again. We'd love if you could grow out of this soon, OK?

Other than some late night pouts, you're generally pretty easy going. When you're hungry or gassy, you fuss a little but are generally pretty easily consoled. You like to look at the pictures your daddy puts around your bassinet and the changing table. You've definitely figured out the connection between being changed and getting to eat as you quickly calm as soon as we pick you up off the table and get this excited look in your eyes. I love watching you chew your fingers in anticipation and clasp your hands around each other as you suck down your milk -- you're a STRONG sucker that's for sure.

You love your activity mat and have been rocking tummy time. You turned your head from one side to the other to follow me as I moved around. Nice neck muscles!!

We love you so much our sweet little old man!

Now for our darling little D:




At day "zero" you weigh in at nearly 7 lbs! How on earth did you get nearly a pound bigger than your brother? You're such a little chunky monkey!! (It's all relative...) You are still wearing your preemie diapers but they may not last for long. We've got a pack of newborns ready to go. You can still fit into all the newborn clothes, but the smaller ones are starting to look a little tight! We're going to have to go through our stash and set the bigger ones aside for you. Until a few days ago, you still were pretty much sleeping, screaming or eating. But, suddenly you've started to sit and observe calmly. It's great to see. For the most part, you're pretty good about falling asleep on your own. Sometimes, though, you just feel fussy for quite a while and will only sleep deeply if we hold you. I suspect you've been having some gas issues as you usually seem much relieved and calmer after some rather loud sounds come out of your bassinet!! (Daddy thinks I'm just blaming them on you... :) ) Sometimes, though, you just need to be held -- like right now when I've got you strapped to me in the Moby. You are also consoled by nursing at night. I'm not sure how much milk you actually get out of the process, but it at least relaxes you.

You, my dear, have got quite a set of lungs on you. You've continued to live up to your pterodactyl nickname. It amazes me just how loud and high pitched you can be! We can hear you start to build up to full on shrieking and we rush to get to you before you get yourself into a tizzy. Diaper changing time continues to be the ultimate form of torture. I try to talk to you in a calm, soothing voice and hold your arms close to your body to calm you down. Sometimes it seems to work for a second. But, man, you'd think we were stabbing you repeatedly on the changing table!

You're also still on all breastmilk and sucking it down! The doctor was amazed at how much you eat at each session -- guess that's where all that extra weight comes from. I love how you pull my hand toward you with the bottle. But, woe onto us if we are moving a little slowly in getting the food to you. Or if we take too long switching between bottles (the first one has your meds in it -- shhh, you didn't hear that). You've finally gotten better at burping but we still can't quite control the spit-up.

Your apnea monitor is MAKING US CRAZY. We've had two "real" alarms -- one while I was holding you and one while I was burping you. We're not sure, though, that either was actually accurate as you seemed fine both times. We know that your shallow breathing sometimes isn't picked up by the monitor. And, for the burping one, it seems like burping you changes how the monitor picks up your heartrate. The annoying part, though, is that we keep getting line and signal faults. We can't figure out if it is the electrodes or something with the monitor itself. It's starting to be the monitor that cried wolf, though. I can't wait until we can chuck the damn thing!!

I can't tell you how much I love holding you. You lift your head up and look around -- your neck is getting so strong! You're just such a solid little chunk and the weight of you on my chest is so reassuring. Your breathing calms down and so does mine. I just feel so relaxed and certain. I love looking at how peaceful you look in my arms.

We love you so much our adorable pterodactyl!

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And, now? The Itzbeen says it's probably time to feed you both and to pump. Shocking, I know!

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A post 3 years and 9 months in the making

We're home!!!

(That's screaming D on the left and angry S on the right.)

There are babies in our house. Our babies. In our house. At home. With us.

Take home babies.

It's incredible.

We had a little ceremony to celebrate the removal of our battered green NICU bracelets (there was strawberry shortcake and sparkling cider involved):











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Thank you all so much for your comments on the last post. And, seriously, practice CPR. We're going to arrange another course for ourselves and anyone who might take care of the boys. Right now, I try not to think too much about the details of what happened or what could have happened. I can think of it as an "event" in the past but not of the specifics. The details bring it all back and I start to feel the panic again.

Everybody is doing well. We got home late Wednesday last week. D was finally released from the hospital after 6 weeks and 6 days. I am so thankful to be in my own home after 48 nights of living out of a suitcase. We're settling into a routine with the babies that is working pretty well for us. We are incredibly lucky that we are both "off" for the summer, so my DH and I are able to rotate nights "on" with the boys. They generally sleep for about 2 1/2 to 4 hours at a stretch. As much as we can, we try to keep them on the same schedule. Otherwise, we end up feeding one or the other pretty much 24 hours a day!

Right now, they're still exclusively getting breast milk. More bottles than nursing, though. Which, of course, means that when I'm not feeding or holding one then I'm likely pumping. My supply right now is just enough to keep up with them -- it's not increasing much anymore, though, (lack of sleep seems to be the most likely culprit) so we're probably going to have to start supplementing with a bottle or two of formula a day relatively soon. Which I'm fine with. I want to continue to pump as much as I can for as long as I can. It is practically a full time job to produce enough milk for twins, though.

Here's an official update on the boys at 7 1/2 weeks old. Today is, after all, 39 weeks! :)

D -- Last week, D was 5 lb 13 oz. We have a check-up tomorrow and I'd bet he has crossed the 6 lb mark by now. He looks huge to us! He has a round face and solid little body and looks out at us with giant eyes. After nearly 6 weeks of breathing difficulties (he still breathes a little faster than he should), he finally came off of all oxygen support and now likes to let us know that his lungs are perfectly fine thankyouverymuch as he SCREAMS at an incredible volume when he's upset. I swear he sounds like a pterodactyl (as if I knew what that sounded like...) Generally, though, that's just when he's hungry or suffering the outrageous indignity that is a diaper change. He's starting to be awake a little more and looking around at everything. He loves to be held on his tummy looking over our shoulders.

S -- At last measure, S was 5 lb 3 oz. It's funny what a big difference 10 oz will make when it's such a large percentage of your body weight! He looks tiny compared to his brother. S is still our silent observer. He's actually fussier than D in general. But, he's usually more easily consoled. He has been dealing with some reflux but smaller, more frequent meals and a little zantac seem to be helping. And, even when he's upset, he's never as loud as D. S likes to look at everything around him. He looks very concerned when he's checking things out. We call him our serious old man. He loves to lie on our chests.

S is still dealing with the issues that led him to the ER. Essentially, he hasn't quite mastered the SSB (suck-swallow-breathe) cycle. Usually, he's fine. But, at almost every feeding, there's a point where he just kind of drifts off for a bit. Either he's sleepy or he's just distracted or overwhelmed and he just stops breathing. Sometimes you have to pace him and can get him going again just by taking the bottle out of his mouth. He'll stay paused a few more seconds and then suddenly start to breathe again. But, other times he won't and we'll have to poke his foot or blow in his face to jar him back into breathing. The apnea monitor will go off if he hasn't taken a breath in 20 seconds. Most of the time we get him going before then. Sometimes he gets a little dusky gray before he goes again and makes a terrible choking sound as he starts to breathe again. D actually does it, too, but he tends to re-start himself a little more easily.

At this point, it doesn't really phase us to have to get them breathing again (although I do have a little adrenaline rush of anxiety every single time) because we realize what's happening. The first day we had S home after the time in the pediatric unit it was happening at every feeding (and the doctors hadn't realized it was an issue, yet, because it wasn't happening at the hospital since he was on the pulse ox monitor and everyone was subconsciously using that to cue into when he needed to take a pause). I was having anxiety attacks over feeding my son because I was afraid he was going to die every time. That's not really a good thing. He's getting better and doesn't have "stalls" as frequently. And, we're more confident.

Right now, though, it does mean that we're the only ones who can feed either one of them. Probably true for another 5 weeks or so until they really grow out of this.

My husband has been incredible. I mean, I always thought he'd be a good father but he's never been great with changes to his routine or mess that wasn't under his control. But, yeah, he's more than stepped up to the plate and has been amazing. And, I love, love, love watching him holding them and feeding them and talking to them lovingly. I can't help but smile and cry with happiness.

Anyway... I should probably post this before it becomes even more epic. I've been trying to write it since last week. Or the week before. Or something like that.

But, yeah, I'm home and my babies are home and I'm exhausted but I'm INCREDIBLY happy.

And, then, we had to give our son CPR

I will start this off by saying everyone is fine. It has a happy ending.

But, I will also say, that there has never been a time in my life where I was more afraid. Terrified. So scared that, when it was all over, I nearly passed out when the adrenaline left my system.

This will read like a public service announcement. I never thought this would happen to me.

Learn infant CPR. Practice it.

We "roomed in" with S on Thursday night and he did really well. He didn't let us sleep much -- but that's to be expected. We spent Friday night with him at the Ronald McDonald House and he did great.

Anyway, Saturday morning we moved out of the RMH (due to our 30 day kick out) and moved into a friend's mother's house. We visited D at the hospital multiple times. S hung out in his old bassinet next to his brother. At 10 o'clock, we took S "home" for the night.

I tried breastfeeding him but he only seemed interested in playing with the boob. He was obviously hungry, though, so we warmed up a bottle after some time of trying to get him to latch on. He was sucking down the milk (he is a champion sucker) when I looked over at him and realized that he had stopped sucking but had a mouthful of milk. I sat him up to try to drip it out and he just flopped over. Completely limp. A rag doll. I looked at his face more closely and he was blue (we were in a dimly lit room so I hadn't noticed before). I screamed for my husband and asked him "is he blue?" He screamed "yes!" and we started to panic.

We started to do everything in the hospital mandated Infant CPR video. We tapped him on the foot. We turned his frighteningly limp body over onto my leg with his head down and started hitting him on the back (at the time we thought he was choking). Nothing. He wasn't breathing or even gasping. His eyes were open but glazed. He was still blue. We turned him back over and started chest compressions. I put my mouth over his nose and mouth and breathed for him. We turned him over again. And again. He twitched. He started to move. Somewhere in there he took a few gasping breaths. And then stopped. And then a few more breaths. And stopped.

Finally, he started to breath consistently. Finally, he regained his color. Finally, he made a sort of gasping cry. Finally, he started to really cry. Finally, he went back to normal. Completely normal.

It may have been 30 seconds. It may have been 5 minutes. We really have no idea. Just writing this out is bringing it back to me and I'm starting to panic just thinking about it. At the time I remember a lot of screaming and a lot of yelling "no, no, I don't know what to do!" at my husband. We both did CPR but I truly don't know what I would have done if I had been alone. I was so incredibly scared that my brain was starting to shut down.

We talked to the NICU resident on call who, after I explained that we'd just taken him from the NICU the day before and that he was a preemie and that he'd stopped breathing and we'd revived him with CPR, said to me "is this your first baby?" in that obnoxious tone reserved for overreacting mothers. We were not overreacting. If we hadn't breathed for him, our child would have died. Plain and simple.

We brought him to the emergency room (with my hand on his chest the entire way afraid he'd stop breathing again) where they hooked him to a monitor and he was perfectly normal. Normal pulse ox, normal heart rate. Everything. We talked to the doctor and she confirmed our suspicions (now that we were calm and able to think about what was happening before) that he'd had an apnea event -- it wasn't that he choked, he just stopped breathing. Preemies do this sometimes. It's actually called "Apnea of Prematurity." They won't let you out of the NICU if you've had an "episode" within 7 days. S hadn't had one for more than 3 weeks.

After a chest x-ray, we were back in the exam room, and they said we could go ahead and try to feed him since he was obviously hungry (it was about 2 am and this had all started at 11 pm). My breasts were engorged and he was starving, and he latched on immediately and started going to town for about 15 minutes. Milk was everywhere.

Then, the nurse came into the room and noticed that they had forgotten to put him back on the monitor. As she reconnected him, I noticed that he'd stopped sucking. I looked down at him and he was turning gray. His pulse ox plummeted and his heartrate dropped. Again. He went limp. Again. We flipped him over. Tapped his foot. He gasped then stopped. The nurse started waving oxygen in front of him. After about 25 seconds, he started to revive and breathe normally. Then cry. All his numbers leaped back to normal. It had happened again. (Yeah, we were overreacting. Dumb-ass resident.)

They readmitted him. Apologizing to us that they needed to. Uh, yeah, at this point we're fine with that, thank you. Because he'd left the NICU, they couldn't bring him back there because of the infection risk. Of course, that's silly because they'd already allowed him in and out several times to visit his brother. So, now he's upstairs in the pediatric wing. Other than making it incredibly difficult to be with both him and D, it's actually a nice place to be. We have our own room with pull out sofas. I have my own rocking chair to hold him and my own breast pump. We "went to bed" around 6 am Sunday morning.

They kept him on NG (tube) feeds for the day and then let us start PO (oral) feeds Monday. The speech pathologist gave him his first PO feed and declared him a champion feeder. (Speech pathologists specialize in speech and swallowing -- who knew?) Saw him "desat" (pulse oxygen goes down) a few times, but nothing too scary. Said we could go back to feeding him on demand. They put him back on caffeine which they use to stimulate breathing. He's breastfed and bottle fed with gusto now with no issues.

Why did it happen? NO idea. It never had happened before. He'd never had any issues with feeding orally which is why they'd pushed us out the door so quickly after he started. The only thing we can come up with is that he was overwhelmed and overtired and had one too many things to do -- feeding and breathing is difficult and the "suck-swallow-breathe" rhythm is a skill that has to be learned. (His brother is just starting PO feeding now that he's finally off the oxygen (YAY!) and is struggling to remember to stop sucking occasionally to breathe. We usually have to pull the nipple from his mouth every three sucks or so to make sure he breathes.) They don't think he aspirated or choked or anything like that. He just stopped breathing. There might have been some reflux. Or something. Or nothing. They just don't know. Not particularly confidence inspiring.

He'll be given an apnea monitor to take home when he leaves again. (Tomorrow we believe.) Since all of his "events" have been associated with feeding, it will be most useful in giving us a bit of warning if he's doing it again and giving us peace of mind. Although, one doctor we talked to said it goes off so often when nothing is wrong that it actually makes you more paranoid. D will likely get one, too, when he is released (not sure when -- we're hoping by the weekend) because he'll still be on the caffeine, too, and they won't let you leave while being on caffeine without a monitor.

So, yeah, I can't emphasize enough -- learn infant CPR. We had set up a session to learn it but I went into labor before we could do it. Thank G-d that the hospital requires all new parents to watch a training video before discharge. I had learned it 20 years ago as a lifeguard, but that was a LONG time ago. No one will ever be allowed to watch our children who has not been trained in infant CPR. We're not paranoid. We've seen that it CAN happen. We didn't do the most "textbook" version of CPR, but we did it and it worked.

As I said before, everything is fine. I've never been more scared in my life. But, we reacted in an emergency and everything is fine. I really don't want to think about what could have happened.

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