Major Accomplishment

Jack latched for the first time today! No nipple shield. No hitting me with flailing arms! Just a good, solid latch. And then nursed for about 15 minutes. I was in shock!

Now, if we could just get him to burp more regularly and hence have less gas. Any suggestions other than the big three - shoulder, lap, and leaning forward????

Week 1

Technically, the boys reached the 1 week milestone on Friday, but who has time to post every day?! They celebrated by staying up late, way way late.

We have the boys on the same feeding schedule. As of now, we bottle feed pumped breast milk during the day, bottle feed formula at night, and nurse Will whenever his little heart desires. It's amazing how close I feel to him and how much I enjoy that part of our relationship. I'm hoping the pediatrician will take care of Jack's little 'tongue tie' issue and he can nurse, too.

Thanks to all of you who validated my concerns and new path. I've been wondering if I don't even mind having to pump as I can't imagine finding a way to nurse them both day and night. I picture various scenarios and think I would be uber-exhausted and that this little setback is actually BETTER for us in the long run.

My incision seems to be healing fine, but my body is in such sad shape. Do all mothers get this droopy belly syndrome? Is it the c-section? Is it all the oreos I ate? Seriously, my skin, in this area of which I speak, is like raw chicken skin. Tough. Yellowish pale. Large pores. Did I mention tough? It's so freaking disgusting!

Today is our last day 'alone' without visitors actually staying in our home. My brother and his family arrive tonight. My mother on Tuesday. I'm mourning the loss of alone time already. And instead of pumping and typing this in the living room, I'm going to have to AT LEAST move the pump to the nursery. Wouldn't want to scar my dear brother for life!
DH and I have commented several times how simple it must be to just have one. We are surviving life with twins and without sleep very well, I think. We definitely make a good team. We are very happy with our double blessing, and grateful for every moment.

We have had several more run ins with DH's parents. They are normally very rational, loving people, but seem to have lost their minds this week. I won't bore you with the details, because I'm trying to emotionally move on. But the final straw was when DH's mom stayed home SICK FROM WORK on Friday, but yet thought she was going to come over and visit that night. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?????? Yes, they are 7 days old, please help us celebrate by bringing your germs into our home. SELFISH. SELFISH.SELFISH. Anyway, after the week we've had, I am feeling a lot more free to be honest, direct and vocal about my concerns with them. But with my family coming to visit this week, I'm sure they will back off and I will get some relief from the stress with them. Bring on the stress of fighting with my own mom ;o

At least my mom will actually be helpful. Sure, she will say hurtful things and scold when she should validate (check back regularly for ranting about her!). She will smother me with physical affection that doesn't match her behavior or words, and that I don't feel in return, she will talk incessantly and she will reek of chain-smoking. But she will wash her hands regularly and she will clean and cook and fold laundry, too.

Probably should reward you all with some pics. We haven't been good about taking pictures, but hopefully with my mom here this week, we will. Actually, I haven't found my way into a photo since the delivery, so yes, we definitely need to remedy that this week.

And as soon as those little umbilical nubs fall off, we are SO scheduling the photographer!

Jack

Will

Homecoming

We were released from the hospital mid-day today. I'll post a pic of the boys in their 'newborn' sleepers which are obviously entirely too large.

I've backed off of any worries I had about bottle feeding them. It is just so much easier than fighting to get them to latch. Correction: easier than encouraging Jack to slow down and attach. He is an aggressive eater! Little Will has a great latch.

But since they had lost more than 10% of their birth weight in the hospital, we were supplementing with formula in a syringe with the nipple or a finger. Which was effective, but took a lot longer than just a bottle. I was even pumping and then sucking that into a syringe for the finger feeds.

Now that we're home, they can eat what I pump out of a bottle. And we're using the formula supplement with a bottle instead of the syringe. If they get nipple confusion, then they can just have my pumped supply from a bottle from now on. Pretty much 99% of the people at the hospital (doctors, nurses, pediatricians, etc.) said they had never heard of one true case of nipple confusion, so to do whatever worked best for us.

I would like to give the boys the best nutrients my body has to offer, and save the cost of formula, so this is working for me now. I do have a fear in the back of my mind about the latching, and about how I should have given it more time. But maybe now that we're at home and can settle into a schedule without the interruptions of hospital life, and now that my milk appears to be coming in, maybe now I can work with Jack to latch.

Sidenote: the formula we are using is what you typically see people come home from the hospital with - premixed formula in tiny little 2 oz bottles. We got about 50 extra of them, because one of our nurses used to volunteer at the church camp where I was the director. She had twin boys who were some of my favorite campers ever. She came in to write her name on my white board yesterday morning, and I asked her if she recognized me. Then, all day long, she was bringing people in to meet me and the boys, and totally loaded us up with the formula, diapers, wipes, and a bunch of other great stuff. It was so nice to connect with her, and to talk about old people and times. The best part was that by the time she was our nurse, the worst of my recovery was over, so I didn't have to ask her to clean my privates, or hold my puke bucket!

I'm so tired, my eyes will barely stay open. And yet, I need to go check in on everyone's blogs. I don't want to get behind!