Requests

When I asked Ray's nurse today if there had been any changes in orders from yesterday since I didn't really get to talk to the night nurse last night and the doc hadn't been by before I had to leave, she said let's review them together. Good thing we did as one of them was to bring in Ray's car seat for the car seat test. Of course, I still don't have the results back from the 24 hour test (they actually call them "studies" for some odd reason), but one of the nurses said he had clearly failed (I hadn't realized it was a pass/fail type thing for the 24 hour one). Getting mixed messages about how and when he will be ready to go home. However, car seat is wiped down and ready to take with me tomorrow. Ray is 3 g shy of 5 lbs. He is eating via nipple 50 - 70 ml every 4 hours.

Nora's nurse asked for a bouncy to be brought in. She is 2 g shy of 5 lbs. She and I are both loving skin to skin cuddle care. And, she was more awake and alert today (presumably why they asked for the bouncy). She is being increased from 40 to 43 ml via gavage every 3 hours. She is not taking any meals via nipple. They were trying for once a day, but it was pointless really. The OT lady and I talked the other day and both agreed it was just too much for her so OT lady talked to doc. End result is that we are giving her the weekend as a break, then OT lady will stop by at Nora's eating time to see if she is awake and if so give it a go and see how she does.

Needless to say, with the request for a bouncy and car seat, I had to venture into my garage. It was a scary, hot ordeal. But, I found 3 infant car seats, 5 infant car seat bases, 2 bouncy chairs, the cover to the co-sleeper, and a few other things that I will need as soon as the babies come home or shortly after. It almost makes the whole thing seem real (like I may actually have babies in my house soon and not spend every day for the rest of my life going to, from or at the hospital) and makes me wonder what else, exactly, is in my garage that may be useful now rather than later. I think I need to make some time to sort, organize, and rearrange things (even more than I attempted to do tonight) so that I know what is there and where to find it.

Ray's nurse put in a request for a lactation consult for me for next week. I've been breastfeeding him for one meal (with him eating every 4 hours, the rule that doesn't let me go back and forth between the babes with Nora in isolation, and needing to also be home for Max I am usually only able to be at the hospital for one feeding) and it has gone great sometimes and been a disaster others. But, I think I know what the problem is thanks to an off hand comment from one of the docs the other day asking if I let down too fast and he choked on the milk. I knew he hadn't choked, he typically saturates much better and hasn't had any brady's while breastfeeding, but I didn't know how to respond other than I didn't know what my let down was and then started to pay attention. What I realized is that it is the opposite, my let down is typically very slow. When I pump, often milk doesn't come out until after the 2 minute let down phase is over. Even after breastfeeding Ray, it is often a full minute before it starts to come out. The times that it has worked well, I think it has been a very long time since I last pumped and I was very overdue/full and the milk came down faster. The times it hasn't worked well, Ray is hungry, the milk isn't right there and today he was flat out pissed off over it (as opposed to just disgruntled a few days ago). He is so used to the milk coming out fast and ready with those bottle nipples. The nurse today took a small syringe with my milk and put it in his mouth by my nipple so he got enough milk to keep sucking until my milk came down and from there it was good to go. Milk production is still good. Even after feeing Ray today I pumped about 150 ml out.

As to the comment requesting to talk about how I've dealt with the daddy question, we haven't really gotten deep into it. There is a picture of me, him 1 day old in the hospital, with my OB that delivered him, and my OB's husband who was my fertility doc and we have talked about how Dr. N helped momma get pregnant with him and how Dr. P delivered him. One day we were at a friends house and Max started calling S daddy like his friends did and one of the friends said, he's not YOUR daddy, he's mine. My friend and I were in the other room when this happened and we just kind of looked at each other and let it go for them to work out. Shortly after that, Max started saying I was his mommy and his daddy and I agreed. I have on occasion, but realized today not in awhile go through who is in our family and talk about how all families are different. For example, we have a momma, Max, Ray and Nora in our family. There is Aunt T, Uncle J, and CC in CC's family, etc. So, I did that today and then asked him why he was asking about a daddy and he said because he wanted to see him. I said, oh, well, we don't have a daddy in our family. And, then went with what I has worked well for others that have gone before on this and explained that momma didn't get married, but a nice man donated a seed to help momma get pregnant with him, but because momma wasn't married, we didn't have a daddy in our family. To which he replied that it was his turn on the computer and he wanted to play a game. And, that was that for now. I'm sure he's just thinking about all of that and it will come up again, but I made a mental note to talk about it more often and more openly with him and to point out more often about different kinds of families.