Thriving!

The best words you can hear from your pediatrician when you have preemies is that they are thriving at home. We have 2 thriving girls! They are gaining an ounce a day and the doctor usually hopes for 1/2 to 1 oz. so they are right on target. We saw the doctor yesterday. They are both still suffering from reflux and gas. We are going to add oatmeal cereal to their milk, keep up the zantac and I'm suppossed to eliminate dairy from my diet. That last one may be impossible. That being said, my new goal for nursing is to make it until December 2. That will be 3 full months of giving the girls breast milk. If we make it to that day, I will not feel guilty about stopping. The girls only actually nurse about once a day. They need supplemented afterwards, so the whole process is just too long and all 3 of us get aggrevated. I do, however, think I will miss it. It does provide a closeness that just isn't the same as bottle feeding. I've been pumping less and less because the girls always seem to fuss right when I need to sit down and pump. At night, I'm just too tired and it takes away from the 2 hours that I might get to sleep between feedings...

The girls have heart murmurs, which was a new diagnosis as of yesterday. The pedi says they are quite common in newborns and they will most likely grow out of them as their anatomies change. Madelyn has to go to a dermatologist to have her hemangiomas looked at. Overall, the doctor is really happy with how they are doing.

I asked about when I might get them to sleep a little longer at night. Bad news for us... the girls will not sleep through the night for another 8 - 12 weeks. Even though they are 2 months old, yesterday was their due date, which means they are kind of starting from zero now. Their brains are not developed enough yet to send messages that they can sleep longer! I really hope they pull through earlier, because I can't imagine being back at work with this schedule.

She also brought up Thanksgiving and our need to "protect" the girls. She just wanted to make sure we would not be at any crowded holiday get togethers or around any children. We'll be going to my parents, where it will just be our immediate family.

GO STEELERS!

Original Due Date

Today is the day the girls were originally to arrive. It's amazing to think that instead of today, they were born 11 weeks ago.

Yes, it's 3:30am and I'm updating the blog so that I don't fall asleep while Madelyn rocks in the swing... my last attempt at getting her into a solid sleep for a few hours. In addition to reflux, the girls have horrible gas. I have not slept more than 10 minutes since I took a quick nap around 9pm. Today is going to be extremely difficult to say the least, as we have a doctors appt in the morning and I have a doctors appointment for myself in the afternoon. That leaves no time for the three of us to sleep at the same time. My milk supply is not keeping up with the girls demands and I think I'm okay with that. It's so hard to take care of 2 and find the time to pump. I'm setting a goal of Dec 2, which will be 3 solid months of the girls getting my milk. It's essential that preemies get the most amount of breast milk that they can, but it's also essential that they have a sane mother :) We are slowly working more formula into their day.