New adjustments

Our family is complete! With Olivia home, that means we don't have to go to the hospital every day, back and forth. This was wearing on me, not because I had to drive to the hospital all the time, but because I constantly felt guilty. Every time I was in the hospital, I felt like I immediately had to go home and take care of Sophie. Every time I was at home, I felt wretched that I left my baby Olivia in the hospital all by herself. Sure, there were other people to help take care of them (our mothers, Denver, nurses...), but it wasn't the same. Who else was going to nurse Sophie so she learned to breastfeed? Why would anyone else kangaroo Olivia, skin-to-skin, so she could get better faster?

Now Olivia is back home, we just are working on her getting better. She's still on a feeding tube. But Sandra, you say, how can she leave the hospital with one? Normally babies have to learn to feed by mouth completely before leaving the hospital. However, this past month that Olivia had to stay longer than Sophie proved to be a big indicator of prematurity. She stopped drinking entirely from a bottle with nary a hint of what was troubling her. An MRI, a chest X-ray, a swallow study, and one or two occupational therapy sessions later, it was found that she was aspirating liquids into her lungs. Every time she drank from a bottle, she couldn't get her sucking and swallowing to coordinate right and it was going into her lungs without her choking. The main reason no one could figure out what was bothering her without expensive tests was because she was doing all of it SILENTLY. Girl does not complain. Her twin does enough for the both of them.

As a result, her lung on the right side was partially collapsed from all that liquid. She was immediately taken off of oral feeding and only receiving nutrition through a tube that snaked through her nose down to her stomach. To take out the tube, there were a lot of IFs coupled with AND statements. We'd be able to remove the tube only IF her lungs were re-inflated AND IF she stopped allowing fluids into her lungs AND IF she got her suck/swallow pattern correct. This will take awhile (like weeks, possibly months) so she had to go home on the tube. Which meant that Denver and I had to learn to insert the tube! (gulp)

On top of it all, it seems she is starting to have reflux after eating and then the contents of her stomach may also aspirate into her lungs. Which, of course, burns and compounds the issues. The docs seem a bit baffled as to why all these things are happening. Prematurity, most likely, they say. She might just grow out of it. It not super reassuring, that's for sure.

God help Olivia since no one else seems to be able to.