More NICU information (written on Monday night, July 9th)

People are asking about why the babies are in the NICU, so I thought I'd answer that question.

They are "feeder/grower" preemies...essentially they need to learn to eat and be on a gaining trend.  The doctor and nurses refer to it as a "lightbulb" going on... all of a sudden the baby will be mature enough to understand taking food orally (as opposed to feeding tubes that go in through the nose and down to their stomach...it's called gavage feeding)  and will have the stamina needed to eat enough.  Once that lightbulb goes on then it can be literally the next day that they go home.  They just need to take everything orally for 24 hours.

The awesome news is that Nurse Jennie was our nurse today and she was giving me all sorts of "going home" information, and said her final goodbyes just in case we aren't here when she comes back to work on Friday!  She said that at least the lightbulb is blinking for both babies.

Nurse Jennie. 
Sadly, I didn't get a picture of Rebekah, who is a travelling nurse and I think she is gone....

At their last feeding they took about half by breastfeeding and the other half by bottle.  All of their feedings today had some breastfeeding (before they were just too sleepy sometimes and would get the whole feeding by gavage).  I don't know if Jennie is right and it will be that soon, but we are definitely making progress.

D.  And someday that tube will be out of her nose....

Other milestones: I'm producing enough milk to feed them both with just breastmilk.  If I'd known that we'd only need to supplement with formula for the first week and a half, I'd definitely not have freaked out so much about it!  Hooray for Fenugreek : )

Visitors this week:

Marisa and Melinda

Carrie

Last night it was discovered that D's length was mismeasured at birth.  Now she's at 18.5" and is pretty much the same length as E.  So they both were approximately 18.5" long, and D was 1/2 a pound heavier.  They're both 2 ounces above their birth weights now.  

I'm 5 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight...however, I'm not pre-pregnancy shaped.  It might be a really long time before the "twin skin" is gone from my abdomen : (  But I have decided that having twins is the best diet EVER...at least until they're toddlers and I need to self-medicate with chocolate!

I'm healing excellently.  The incision is barely even pink and doesn't hurt much at all (the only thing that hurts is the skin above it, and it's totally just superficial.  I've been able to go out for some nice walks in the past couple of days.  Way better than I'd expect at 1.5 wks post-partum.  I do have a stiff neck, though, from sleeping in weird positions (because I pump in bed at night and fall asleep while doing so).

Last week my Mom brought the older kids back down to our house and my sister Laura stayed the night and all the next day with them.  Plus she cleaned and cooked a ton (she just graduated from Bastyr as a nutritionist) and I have had delicious, healthy food to bring in my lunches all week : )

Laura.
You can barely see him, but I love how excited Moose looks!! 
These poor babies have no idea what is in store for them when they get home!

HH had the kids on his own for the weekend, and now my Mom is back down to watch them at our house for the week (and she made the traditional new baby dessert: homemade tapioca pudding! yum).  Friends from church are bringing us fantastic dinners and this week they started doing playdates in the mornings so that my Mom doesn't get burned out.  I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to have so much support and to not have to worry too much about things like dinners and who will stay with the kids.

Grandma N.

Grandpa N.

This picture was taken the day before the babies were  born...when I was having contractions & bed rest.
I love those crazy kids.  Outside of the Children's Museum with Aunt Diana.
(Moose's eye was still swollen from a mosquito bite...I'll have to put on some pictures of that sometime)

So now I just need to be able to drive again, and the babies need to start eating consistently so that they can go home.  And then we can begin finding our new routines as a family of seven!