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.

1st Thanksgiving

Momentous day - not because the girls can really enjoy this day (they get the same food everyday) but because it's the first time they are going to Grandma and Grandpa's house! Also, their first family event! Very exciting... but mostly for the family who passed them around and around. Here's a picture of them ready to go.

Cheese!

When is all this sleepless state worth it? For me, it's when a child makes eye contact, knows who I am and smiles. Today, Sophia smiled at me!

Now there's a difference between smiling randomly and smiling because they know you are messing with their toes. She definitely was the latter and I have witnesses! Too bad my witnesses (husband and mother in law) are jealous that she smiled at me first and therefore, would never admit it.

Here's a pic of her smiling in her sleep.

Happy Halloween!

First Halloween. I didn't have the energy to hunt down costumes that would only be worn once so I made these instead.

Also, we devised a system to have Cody bark less when tricker treaters rang the doorbell and thus scaring the kiddos less. It didn't really work. He just got a lot of treats.

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.