First Christmas

This year things are more hectic than usual. On top of the usual pile of errands and routine to run, we also had to prep for family and friends to visit. Gifts to buy, cookies to bake and people who haven't been seen to greet. It's been rather tiring since it means our orderly schedule has been shot to bits but oh, so much fun!

The twins are so very huggable and kissable right now that people come flocking to us, which simplifies things.
Some of the best memories of the season:
- putting them in Christmas dresses to take a pic with Santa
- laughing and cooing very loudly with (Great)Aunt May Young, esp Sophie
- Olivia rolling over for the first time
- the way their eyes light up from the Christmas tree decorations and light
- Uncle Scott playing airplane with Sophie
- Olivia getting better all on her own, no help from meds or docs (a lot less spitting up!)

The cooing for both has really progressed lately! From a simple "ahhs" to "ohhs" and "boos" and "goos."

Victory?

Feeding any baby is a challenge. Proper nutrition while making sure all the mechanics is always worrisome to parents. However, feeding twins is doubly hard, especially if one of them has feeding problems.

Now, we haven't had many issues with Sophie when it comes to eating. What can I say? The girl likes her milk. However, breastfeeding is another issue. I needed her to drink from me to keep up my milk supply but getting her to breastfeed was hard. I not only did not have enough time to feed her and deal with Olivia's ever-more complicated feeding process, when I did, she would tire too quickly and want a bottle.

However, I've been feeding her more lately and today came a turning point. She refused her bottle. And held out for quite awhile. When I fed her, it was like she was starved.

Two thoughts ran through my head: "Yay, she only wants to drink from me!" and "oh no, she only wants to drink from me!"

Oh boy, am I chained to them even more?

Good news, bad news

Since she's come home from the hospital, Olivia has been on a nasogastric (ng) tube for feedings. She's been going to an occupational therapist every week to work on her suck/swallow coordination to drink correctly. She took another x-ray and did another swallow study to see how she was progressing. Turns out that she no longer had a collapsed lung since we did all respiratory therapy at home (yay!) and also didn't inhale liquids if they were thickened and sucked through a slow flow nipple. Basically, she was ok with those because she hardly got anything out of the bottle, but (and it's a big but) the little she did get, she was managing juuuust fine!

The therapist says volume isn't the key here - its how well she drinks the little she gets. Good thing because she currently only is able to suck out about 2 ml only! That's like a drop or two for you and me. But quality over quantity.

The bad news is the tube stays in. For an indefinite period. It is so hard to say how long it will be only because she is currently taking 75ml every three hours by tube and needs to work up to that amount by mouth. We got a long way to go.

This situation isn't the ideal. It's so hard, emotionally and physically. People say having two, it must be so hard, and it is. But having one with such problems is even harder. But then again, look at where we started. They were tiny little things, 3 lbs each and we just hoped they survived. God truly wanted us to have these miracle babies so he's helped them come so far.

We've been praying for Olivia to get better for a long time. She just needs love and support, and slowly but surely, she'll get there.