Whats Up With the Walsh's: June 2012

Thursday, June 21, 2012

3 Weeks and surviving....

How did we survive 3 weeks with twins? Honestly, I have no idea! Its really all just a big blur at this point. The only thing I know for certain is we did it. We are doing it.

This week was our first week with house guests. My dad and step mom came for a week long visit to help with the girls. I must say that they did an enormous amount of cleaning, cooking, and holding babies! It was nice to have a couple extra sets of hands around here. The babies were very excited to meet their Grandpa and Grandma.

We turned a corner this week with feeding the girls. On Friday, last week I visited a lactation consultant. I must say it was the best $150 I've ever spent. Pat, my newest advocate in feeding our girls, is a grandmother to twin girls who were born at 34 weeks. With her guidance, her daughter successfully 100% breastfed their twins by 8 weeks! My hope and faith is instantly renewed. She is a sweet lady with a natural mothering instinct. Upon meeting her, we sat down and she instantly had me believing we could do this again. We could breastfeed our babies. We could be successful. We spent the first 20 minutes talking about the girls, their birth, and their feeding history. She explained to me that everything we were experiencing was normal and to be expected with 36 week babies. I found this a little frustrating and couldn't help but think, "Why didn't anyone tell me this is what we would be facing?" The type A personality in me, would have researched it, read about it, and could have convinced myself that I could control this too. (I would be horribly wrong, but it still would have been nice to know.)

Anyways, after she took my history and we talked she took Bria out of the stroller. She was so sweet with her. She gently woke her up and got her to open her eyes and look around. She undressed her and weighed her. I sat patiently in the rocker as Pat placed Bria on the scale. She explained to me that she would weigh Bria before and after the feed to see exactly if and how much she was taking. She brought Bria to me and she began to show me a new way to latch her. After 5 or 6 attempts, Bria was latched and sucking. Pat, took time to show me the difference between good active sucking and lazing around. Bria was capable of good active sucking but she fell right to sleep. After about 20 minutes, Nova began to wake up. I think she smelled the boob milk and wanted a turn, too! Pat took Bria and weighed her. I sat there holding my breath to hear how much she drank.... NOTHING! What? Talk about discouraging. I could feel the tears of defeat welling up in my eyes. Pat tuned into my feelings of defeat instantly and reminded me that this is all very much normal for this gestation. Pat said, don't worry, let's give Nova a try. After she weighed her, she placed Nova on my lap and we began to latch her. After about 12 attempts, Nova was finally latched and latched GOOD! This was a big milestone for us because Nova rarely latches for me. She was sucking but very lazy and weak sucks. We tried tickling her jaw, undressing her, and rubbing her belly and sides but nothing would wake her. Each attempt to wake her yielded us a scowl and a few baby sucks that did nothing. As Nova stayed latched, we chatted about the strategy, what to expect, and how to manage it all around the clock. As we were talking, Bria began to fuss. Pat grabbed her and put her on the boob. Bria latched instantly and began to suck. I looked down and my jaw dropped to see both of my babies actually breastfeeding. It worked great because Bria was able to help Nova. Since Nova has such a weak suck, when Bria would suck and cause a let down, Nova would also benefit. It was amazing. I couldn't believe it. I smiled at Pat and thought, "she is the boob whisperer". I chuckled to myself.

After about 20 minutes of the girls breastfeeding it was time to weigh them. I was so nervous since Bria got a big fat ZERO the first time. She weighed Nova and she had taken a little over a half ounce! OH MY GOODNESS... My littlest baby IS a GENIUS! She learned to breastfeed! I was doing a mental victory dance. Next up was Bria. I help my breath as she placed Bria on the scale. I couldn't see the numbers when Pat said, "Did you bring a bottle for her?" I felt defeated and said, "yes?" Pat replied, "Well, you don't need it! Bria took 2 ounces!!" I couldn't believe it. Instantly, I had tears rolling down my face. My little Bria Belle had just successfully done her first FULL feed from the breast. It was a victory. I knew then that my girls were capable of breastfeeding. We could do this! They could do this! Pat, the boob whisperer, was helping us make it possible! I left our meeting feeling renewed, hopeful, and anxious to share the great news with Joe!

Our new schedule with the girls would have me practicing breastfeeding them 2 x's a day each and only during the day time. Nights are for sleeping and pumping! She also told me we need to protect our feeding time. It's not a time for visitors or guests. It's a time for focused practice. First thing I did when I got home was set up a new feeding area in the house. I had Joe move the glider upstairs. I packed a shelf with water bottles and snacks. I brought in a blanket, burp rags, and my pillows. I felt ready for the new schedule. Over the week, the girls were doing great. I was getting the girls to breastfeed. Bria really took to it and we are now skipping bottles once or twice a day. Nova continues to struggle and toward the end of the week, started to pick it up. It''s definitely a 2 steps forward one step back type of process. But we just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And over time, we begin to see progress. So for now, I'm still trying in hopes of soon finding success.

Here's a couple pics from our 3rd week of life:

Friday, June 8, 2012

The first two weeks- The Feeding Frenzy

June 7, 2012

I cannot believe the girls have been with us for two weeks now! I’m absolutely amazed. I must admit that these last two weeks have been somewhat of a blur for us. But when I look back at where we started, I realize we have made HUGE strides in these two weeks. In fact, I really wanted to update after one week, but such is the life with twins, I’ve had no time.

When the girls were first born, I was given the opportunity to begin breastfeeding in the recovery room. I was so happy when Bria latched on right away. I thought for sure that was the start of our breastfeeding relationship. When I was moved to my “real” room, I tried to nurse Nova. She also latched right on but didn’t do any sucking. We continued to offer the breast to the girls and sometimes they would latch and other times they wouldn’t. But one thing was a constant, we never had any sucking or swallowing. Our nurses explained that preterm babies haven’t had the chance inside the womb to learn how to suck or swallow. We would now be charged with that task. We continued to try at the breast and see if they would get it… When we hit the 6 hour mark, I asked for a pump and I began my new relationship with the dreaded pump. I began pumping each breast for 20 minutes every 2-3 hours. It was tedious work to produce a whopping 1-2cc of colostrum. After I had the colostrum we would divide it in two. We sucked it up into a syringe and we began to syringe feed the girls. This was the most exhaustive and tedius thing I’ve ever had to do. We would put the syringe near their mouth to see if they would suck… nothing. We would squirt a little colostrum into their mouth to see if they would swallow… nothing. How do you teach a 36 week preemie how to swallow? I was so confused and was beginning to feel so defeated. We continued to try and with no luck. The girls were weighed and both had lost significant amounts of weight. Nova had lost 8% and Bria had already lost 12%. There was no time to mess around anymore. We had to add formula into the equation. As much as I really did NOT want to go down the formula road with the girls, I didn’t want to starve them either. I was so worried that this decision would be the end of our breastfeeding dreams.

25 minutes worth of pumping just to get this

Soon enough, the pediatrician that was on call, showed up for a visit. Luckily, he had a lot of experience and showed us how to properly teach them how to learn to suck and swallow. Once you fill your syringe, you place your pinky inside the girls mouth and massage their tongue down (they both have a habit of keeping their tongues at the roof of their mouths, which makes it impossible for them to swallow). After you get the tongue down, you put the syringe in the mouth and begin to massage the roof of their mouth with your pinky. This causes the suck reflex to start. And sure enough, it worked. Whenever they would suck, we would squirt a little milk from the syringe into their mouth and they would swallow! I couldn’t believe it, they were swallowing!!! Minor Victory #1.

The beginning of syringe feeding

Syringe feeding taking its toll on this momma

Nova working on the syringe

I continued to pump every 2-3 hours, every time we fed them. We would start with the colostrum and then we’d give them formula. Little by little, their weights were starting to go up! And little by little, my colostrum began to come in abundance. By day two, my milk was completely in. Not only was it in, but it was in with large quantities. And just like that formula was a thing of the past. Minor Victory #2.

WOOT WOOT, the milk is in!

Once we arrived home, we continued with the syringe feeding for the first 2 nights. It would take us just shy of 2 hours to feed both girls this way and then I had to pump afterwards. So, we would get an hour break and we’d have to do it all over again. After those 2 nights, we realized we’d never be able to keep that up and we needed to switch the girls to bottles. We made the switch and it cut the feed time in half! Minor Victory # 3.

Double bottle feeding

All during this, we continued to work on breastfeeding. Both girls have started latching and actually nursing. I wish I could say that we have some regularity to this but we don’t. The girls are still so sleepy. They are only awake for about 30 minutes of each day. They also have a hard time maintaining their body temperature. Because of this, they are burning more calories and weight loss is a concern. Luckily, we have had 2 weight checks in these two weeks and it IS going up. However, it is not going up as quickly as it should. It’s such a fine line to work on breastfeeding with babies who have weight and body temperature issues. They need to sleep. They need to be warm. In order to feed them, we need to wake them and undress them. I spoke with a lactation consultant who specializes in preterm twins and she was very encouraging. She told me not to give up. We are meeting tomorrow for her to help me with the girls. She is creating a schedule for us that will help us navigate the waters of feeding the twins with the emphasis to get them breastfeeding as close to 100% as possible. It’s been a long and hard two weeks but I’m determined to make this work. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll at least have the peace of mind to know that we did EVERYTHING in our power to try and breastfeed the girls.