Experts agree...

Hey folks! Wow, it's been two and a half weeks, huh? The craziest part about that? It's been more than TWO weeks and I would have SWORN up and down that I just wrote my last post two or three days ago. I have no idea where the time has gone. Everyday I look up and suddenly it's 9 o'clock at night!

First off, to update my last post, every baby meal lately I start singing "Dr. Brown you've got a lovely bottle...lovely bottle!" a la Herman's Hermits. It's possible that I know far too many songs and that my mind responds way too easily to suggestion. Wouldn't it be nice if I could re-designate the memory slots in my brain that are being used for song lyrics and melodies for something more useful?

Things are going well. We're exhausted but happy (my DH is whining about it a bit too much -- what did he expect?). Most of our time right now seems dedicated to feeding the boys or thinking about feeding the boys. They're eating about every 3-4 hours during the day and, on a few glorious nights, every 5 hours at night. Each meal takes about an hour or so to feed them back to back. We occasionally feed them simultaneously but that doesn't usually bode well for nighttime when only one of us is "on" and one baby just HAS to wait his turn.

So, after about an hour of feeding two babies, it's generally time for me to pump. (Unfortunately that means that even when they sleep 5 hours I get about 3 hours of sleep max...but, hey, 3 hours!) I'm pumping for around 30 minutes at a time about 6-8 times a day. Pumping for twins feels like a full time job. I use a hospital grade double pump which works well but can sometimes be painful and my boobs can feel it. I've tried lots of options to make it easier -- changing breastshields, lanolin, speed, suction, amount of time, time in between, etc. -- some help, some don't.

I sometimes feel like I'm pumping to punish myself or to alleviate my guilt. No matter what I tell myself, I can't quite stop feeling guilty that they were so early. If we hadn't transferred two embryos, the remaining twin probably wouldn't have come as early (although the thought of not having either one of them hurts my soul), if I had pushed to be on bed rest earlier, if I had gone to the hospital earlier, if, if, if, if. While I can't say there's any one thing I did that made me go into premature labor, I can say that the combination of being 37, having IVF, having twins, etc. all contributed and those were all things I chose to do. I did everything I could to counteract those issues, but the fact remains that my boys wouldn't have been in the position they were if I hadn't put them there.

I think, also, that I'm determined not to "punish" either one of them for being a twin. I feel like, if there had only been one, then directly breastfeeding would have been more successful -- likely he would have come later and fed immediately and I would be able to focus on him individually and breastfeed whenever he needed it. So, I feel like I want to get as much breastmilk into them as possible.

Right now, I can nearly keep up with them, depending on the day. I generally get about 32-43 ounces out a day. Which is really quite a bit. If I had a singleton, my freezer would be FULL. But, right now they're eating around 42 ounces altogether, so that doesn't really quite cut it... We're supplementing about 4 ounces of formula per baby split up over their nighttime feedings. And, sometimes we go into my dwindling freezer stash from when they were in the NICU. I have a profound sense of failure every time we have to go into the stash. On the days when I have an excess, I feel like I've accomplished something.

(I will say that the special "bonus" of pumping is that it is about 3-4 hours a day where I can't do much of anything but sit still and relax. It's when I check blogs or watch junk TV or read magazines or play games on my iPad. It's my special treat.)

I guess it all has to do with changing the image I had of myself as a mother. I always thought of myself as a babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby food making type of mom. But, preemie twins have changed who I thought I'd be as a mother. I know that I COULD potentially still do all of that but I'm feeling pretty good right now if I manage to interact with each baby individually each day in the middle of all the rest of it. So, I'm doing the best that I can and, if I have to punish my boobs and spend hours a day hooked to a machine, that's what I'll do.

I hate that this sounds so negative. When I'm pumping, I try to think positive thoughts about how I'm continuing to do the best I can for my boys. Please don't think I mean anything negative about formula -- I truly don't. We'll be relying on it more and more as the babies grow. I thank G-d that there's such a thing out there. The most important thing is that our children eat and grow. That is all that matters.

I do find formula companies interesting, though. The breastmilk collection bottles and NICU info packets we used in the NICU were branded by Similac. The breastpumping log books provided in the NICU were branded by Similac. All with "breast is best" information alongside the "oh, and just in case..." And, infant formula must be the only product I can think of (other than, say, cigarettes) that essentially has warning labels telling you that you'd be better off if you didn't use it. The Enfamil newborn formula that we got from the hospital and are using right now has "Experts agree breastfeeding is best" in a box on the side like a tobacco warning! While, yes, that's true, what a bizarre thing to have to put on your product. All the literature that comes with the free formula the companies give out discuss breastfeeding first and then finally slide formula feeding in at the end. You get the feeling that the formula companies realize that the only way people will support their product is if they actively campaign against themselves.

Can you imagine other products labeled this way?

Tropicana orange juice: Warning, experts agree that growing your own oranges and juicing them daily is best. But, if you can't, Tropicana is OK.

It's the "please, use our product but if you feel like a failure every time you open a container we'll understand" method of marketing!

Anyway, this ended up a lot more meandering than I meant it to! I'm impressed I even wrote anything cohesive given the current state of my brain. (Um, that assumes it was cohesive...) I have NO desire to get into a "breast vs bottle" type of debate here. I am FIRMLY of the "do what you need to do to make sure your children are fed and happy and it is no one else's business" camp. I'm just doing what works best for me and my family.

And, hey, my kids are growing big and strong! We have a well baby visit tomorrow (poor kids will be getting shots, I believe), so we don't have "official" weights, yet, but our measurement at home last week has D at 8 pounds and S at nearly 7 1/2 pounds! Yes, to those with full term-ers that may seem small, but it's HUGE to us. They're starting to get little fat rolls and it makes me so incredibly happy to see. We're nearly 12 weeks old and 3 weeks adjusted age and they're doing incredibly well.

See?




That's D in yellow and S in stripes. Love.