With both Emma and Caitlin in special care Duane was run off his feet. He went back and forth between the hospital and home, between me and special care and doing a marvelous job of it too.
Both girls together in an isolette
Caitlin
Emma
The second night after my C-section I woke up all sore and decided to go for a walk to loosen things up. The night nurse suggested I go down to special care and check out the babies. I was to call her when I wanted to go back so she could come and get me with a wheelchair. I did just that, and it was wonderful. The night staff in special care have far more time for you than the day staff - that is, if the babies are sleeping.
Up until that time I felt like I had to appologise for coming to see my babies, and I had to ask permission to pick them up etc. This nurse got that out of me (more-or-less). It was still all so foreign to me. Those little pieces of human being were aparently mine and Duanes and we were going to take them home at some point.
They were out of their isolettes on the second day, and besides some problems with holding down their food all was going well with them.
Day 3 they were improving even more, holding down their food even better, and even getting increased quotas for their food. Feeding was done through a nasal gastric tube. I also started to try and breast-feed on this day. The breastfeeding saga is long and I won't bore you with it, it is now all in the past, but it was not all easy-peasy.
On thursday we gave the girls their first bath:
Caitlin likes the water :)
And Dad is getting really good at dressing her
Emma doesn't like the bath as much
And getting dressed is definately more fun
On Friday the girls were tranferred to the Mater Childrens Private and Duane and I were rooming in with them. We moved across at approximately 2 pm. With some shuffling and re-arranging of the room we got setup with a workable layout and we were waiting on the lactation consultant who showed only a few minutes later. Lactation consultants are mid-wifes who specialise in teaching new mums how to breastfeed. They are amazing. The girls and I had been trying but with not much luck at all. After the first session with the LC Caitlin and I had an understanding and we could achieve latching on and feeding for approximately 5 minutes. Emma could latch but the feeding thing wasn't really happening. Both girls got "top-ups" via their nasal gastric tube.
The second day (saturday) the LC came back and introduced nipple shields. We haven't looked back since. Both Emma and Caitlin started feeding, shorter periods of time for Emma than Caitlin, but she is the smaller one after all.
One thing we (us and the girls) had to learn was how to drink from a bottle, it sounds simple doesn't it? Duane had the first go:
On Monday the pediatrician was happy with their progress and said we could go home. There was only a small matter to look into, Emma had movement in her hipjoint and he wanted to get that checked out. Off to the ultrasound and she behaved amazingly well. She has something called "immature hips". The deviation is minor. 55° is considered "normal". Her left hip alignment is 54.6° and her right hip alignment is 56.2°. There is a chance that this would resolve over time on its own, but to be on the safe size, the orthopedic surgeon and pediatrician decided to place Emma in a brace for 6 weeks. This is a velcro contraption which keep her legs in a frog-like posture. She can still move a little bit and is annoyed about the restrictions. She is getting used to it and becoming more herself again
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