Carson feeding @ 23 days old

This photo just cracks me up! He looks so miserable as I try to burp him.

Ahhhh, much better!

He took the whole bottle and it wasn't too much of a fight. Can't you see Kate in his profile? I see it more everyday.

Kate @ 23 days old

Kate & I doing some kangaroo time last night. Kate and Carson are starting to look more alike every day...or at least they look more like siblings now.

A new preemie-sized dress for Kate...perhaps for Easter. She BETTER be home by Easter! :)

Much Better Night @ NICU

We had a great nurse tonight. And since all of the other babies in our area had gone home, we had her all to ourselves. It was a million times better than this afternoon. I seem to enjoy the evening visits with Mark more anyway.

The server is having problems letting me upload photos onto my blog, so the newest pics of the twins from tonight's visit are located at...

Kate & Carson on Flickr

P.S. Carson took his full bottle from us tonight.

New Kate Photos & an Update

Feeding time. She takes the bottle pretty well.

Checking out her world from the confines of her little plastic box.

Photo is a bit blurry, but you can tell how tiny she still is compared to my hand.

I realize I've been posting more photos of Carson lately and not as many of Kate. Since she is still in the incubator, it's difficult to get many photos of her. Whereas, Mr. Carson is easily accessed. Here are some new ones of little Kate.

UPDATE

• Carson is holding strong at 5 lbs. Kate is up to 3 lbs, 7 oz.


• Carson's feeding tube was put back in like I suspected. He just needs to build his stamnia up a bit more so he will be able to physically make it through a bottle feeding.


• NICU folks are telling us it will likely be another 2 weeks until one or both of them can come home. (That seems like an eternity!)

Carson's Hot Tub

In the three weeks the twins have been in the NICU, the nurses have never done bath time in front of us. For some reason they prefer to do it during the hours they are closed. I just happened to catch Carson getting a bath the other day though. So, technically this isn't his first bath, but it's the first bath I witnessed.

Pacing Nurses & Timed Bottle Feedings

If you thought I was crazy before, wait until you hear this...

I am having test anxiety...just a little bit. Carson had his tube feeding tube removed this morning because he had taken all of his full feedings by bottle for the past 24 consecutive hours. This is a MAJOR milestone for a NICU baby. Now he just needs to continue doing 100% bottle feedings for the next 48 hours (without failing any of them), and we could be taking him home very soon. Anyway, so the pressure is on. I gave him his noon feeding by bottle and he had trouble staying awake for it. He had 30 minutes to drink all of his 55 cc of milk. The nurse was practically standing over my shoulder reminding me of the time. I started to panic and felt like I was 17 again and sitting for the S.A.T.

The nurse was literally pacing behind me while I practically begged Carson to finish his bottle. I actually found myself softly saying, "Come on little Carson. Come on. Wake up. Just a little more." In all fairness to him, he had just finished his daily bath right before feeding time, so I thought it was incredibly unfair to expect him to eat after that. Whatever. He finished just in the nick of time.

The same thing happened today at the 8 PM feeding. Carson kept falling asleep, and I tried every trick in the book to get him interested in feeding. But he didn't finish. He drank 4/5ths of his bottle and was done. Technically he failed the stupid test, and I will be pissed if I see that damn tube in his nose tomorrow morning. (Good chance it will be back.)

I just thought the whole thing was ridiculous. I was stressing over this. It doesn't help the situation when I have a nurse pacing around and telling me, "Four more minutes." I should have asked if they pause the damn stop watch for burp times.

Enough of that...

Carson is at 5 lbs and little Miss Kate is 3 lbs, 6 oz. She is starting to pack on the weight quickly now. It's amazing how much she is changing now that she is filling out. For some reason the nurses have much better luck feeding them than I do. They hover over me, so I know I am doing it correctly but I can't seem to keep them awake. The nurses tell me this is common. Basically, the babies feel so relaxed and comfortable with me that they just fall asleep. I love that they do that...except when I want to get them out of the NICU and timed bottle feeding is one of the final hurdles. Grr.

I really sense that Carson will be coming home soon. Perhaps in a week. I can't wait!

I had a nice visit with my mom this past weekend, although it seemed like a short visit. She couldn't get over how much the twins had grown and changed since birth.

That's about it in my world. I hope everyone is doing wonderfully. Send me a line.

Mr. Carson

Here are some photos of Carson after the session with his sister. The nurses took Kate back to her bed quickly because she was so fussy, so I could only get some solo shots of Mr. Carson.

The Twins Finally Meet...

...and it was a nightmare!

Carson immediately LOVED it, and Kate immediately HATED it. She was kicking, hitting, and pulling on Carson's feeding tube. Carson, in return, sucked on her fingers and shoulders, and just stared at her. All in all, it was funny! You can really tell their size difference in some of the photos I have. (She gained 3 oz overnight!...now 3 lbs, 3 oz) I still don't have a photo of the two of them together worthy enough to go in a birth annoucement, and since Kate was being such a diva today I'm not sure the nurses will be up for another try at a photo session. Oh, and in case you can't tell...Kate's on the left, Carson's on the right. (Notice their crossed legs in the first photo? haha)

Rationalizing my irrational rants...

I strongly felt the need to post this...

I am not a psychopath! :) I am generally not a moody, emotional, angry person...even though my posts for the past month or so would indicate otherwise. I suppose I just vent out all my anger on my blog so I can put a smile on my face and go about another grueling day at the NICU.

In all honesty, I have a lot to be thankful for. Some of the babies in the NICU are really bad off. I don't know how those parents handle it. My babies are not sick or struggling. They were born too early, they are stable, and they are only there to grow a little bit more. We could be in a much more horrible situation.

Kate finally hit the 3 lbs mark today. Yippee! That's a big milestone for her. Carson is 2 oz short of hitting the 5 lbs mark, and he will probably make that this weekend. Neither were at all interested in bottle feeding again today. Grr! They take a few sucks and then they look at me in such a way that I would swear it had become a battle of wills. If it wasn't so irritating, it would be funny.

I had to call my OB again this afternoon and personally begged him to prescribe a drug they told me about in the NICU. It is to stimulate and promote milk production, and this is my final attempt at it. He called in the meds but did not give me a very big supply. I take it he doesn't have much faith in it, but I am desperate. (I hope he got a good laugh at my 'Oh please make them work. They have to be more than just decorative, right? I want to be a Jersey milking cow!' pleas.)

I don't know what the deal is with my boobs! It has become so frustrating because I am doing everything the I was told to do...drinking a ton of water, getting good sleep, and most importantly, I am pumping every 2-3 hours around the clock for 15 minutes each session. Frankly, it's a pain in the ass, but it would all be worth it if I was producing more than a tablespoon or so at every session.

I hate NICU life!

I am so ready to hijack the twins out of the hospital! I am getting a little frustrated that Mr. Carson isn't taking to the bottle like I want him to. That is what is keeping him in there. I know bottle feeding is a learned task and that he just needs to mature a little more. The nurses tell me that one day a light switch will go off in his head and he will feed like a champ...but that it could also be weeks away before that happens. The neo doc told me yesterday that he thinks Carson could stay in the hospital for another 2-3 weeks, and Kate will be in there much longer than that just because of the weight she still needs to gain. A week ago, he told me 2-3 weeks before one of them comes home, and now he is extending that time frame. I was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to hit him...him being the neo doc, not Carson.

Perhaps 2-3 weeks doesn't sound that long to someone who hasn't had babies in the ICU, but trust me...it's an eternity! This NICU experience has been one of the toughest things I've ever had to deal with. It is such an incredibly unnatural way to start motherhood.

And I am so sick of people telling me that this is a good thing because it allows me to recover from my c-section and get plenty of rest before they come home. Gimme a break! It's damn near impossible to "rest" when you have babies in the ICU. Also, I was recovered from my surgery before I was even discharged from the hospital. I don't need a month or two to bounce back from that. I am also sick of people calling the NICU my "expensive babysitters." That implies that I want them there.

I hate, hate, hate this! I feel like I am missing out on things. I go up to visit them and the first things the nurses tell me is Kate did this, Carson did that, etc.

I'm just frustrated and desperately missing my babies. I am ready for this chapter to be over with. Now.

Oh, and it hasn't escaped my notice that today is March 1st. Today was my big goal day. Today was the day I focused on throughout my entire pregnancy as the day I desperately needed to hold them in to. I still don't think I'm over the fact that they were born so early. I think as long as I am visiting them in the hospital I will always have it stuck in my head that they are there because they came so early.