Tuesday Two-fer

by Grant

   Now I understand why I find so many stupid puns on TV and in Newsprint. It's kind of fun in a "I don't get out much" sort of way. So, what's happening? Not much has gone on here. I mean, if you don't count life changing events or things like that. So, let me give you the 411 on the bouncing bambinoes.

We woke up @ 11:30, 12:30, 12:29 (yes, time did shift), and 12:30 again. After that, things got a little blurry. I was trying to sleep through the stupid alarms on the monitors (how can you feel good about taking your babies home when those  stupid things are freaking out constantly?). I actually had some hospital dreams because of the noise and stress. I finally got up for good around 6:00 AM because Rebekah was ready to garrot me in my sleep. Liberty was being very slow @ eating and the time that she finished Serenity was waking up. Well, needless to say we were very tired. Around 9:00 we put thegirls back in their NICU room and went over to the Ronald McDonald House. We spent two hours cleaning our room and hauling junk out. Our Durango, which is no little midget SUV, was pretty much packed to its gills. Then we went back over to get our girls and head home. Yeah, right. (I hope you can feel the sarcasm).

Well, after awhile somebody (no idea what her (mal)function was) came in and said that Liberty had lost weight. The unspoken threat was that they may not let her come home today. I was starting to get a little agitated when she had the foresight to rapidly vacate the room. Lacking a target, my displeasure had no choice but to sink below the surface awaiting for a better chance to strike. A few minutes later the nurse that was watching our daughters tried to console me. Picture bear trap and small squirrel. Luckily, the squirrel wasn't heavy enough to cause any bloodshed.

Well, finally the Dr. came and talked to us. This was actually the Dr. that admitted the girls. So, at least we saw somebody we knew. A little unenthusiastic, but still professional and friendly. She told us that Liberty had lost weight last night, most likely because she had some feeds that were four hours apart (I don't remember a baby sleeping for four hours) and Liberty had only taken in 30 CCs. So, she said that if Liberty was by herself she'd wait, but since she was a twin and we were informed parents she would go ahead and let us go. It took her about 45 minutes to get the paperwork done and the nurse that was working on discharging us (very promptly she said because she understood) managed to wander off and get lost. Finally, seeing the steam coming out of my ears several other nurses started working. Before we were done there were 5 nurses helping (two were also helping take care of another baby). Finally, at about 1:00 (two hours from when we started) we were strapping in the girls. Unfortunately, this prevented us from running any other errands (such as purchasing diapers and the like) because we had to go straight home so that they could eat.

I stayed home from work to help take care of the girls and the boys but I ended up w/ the stomach flu. I pawned our boys off on some friends and Rebekah was able to take care of the girls. However, I am the "go to guy" for getting Liberty to eat. She doesn't like to eat much so I manhandle her until she finally drinks 45 CCs. Lots of forced sit-ups and nose and ear tickling to get her to burp and stay awake.

So, Liberty is still having trouble eating enough. Both girls are having trouble with gas, but we've started using simethicone (gas-x) preemptively and that's helped. Serenity is eating like a champ (sleeping pretty well too) but she has a very hard belly. It bothers her sometimes, but the pediatrician told us to wait until our appointment tomorrow. Since the girls are doing somewhat ok, we will impatiently wait. Hopefully we'll have more info after our appt tomorrow (4pm MST).

Please keep praying as I don't want the girls to get my sickness (Rebekah can't let me bow out from helping) or anybody elses. Also, if Liberty hasn't gained weight they may want to put a feeding tube in her again. Not the end of the world, but frustrating.

Rebekah is too occupied to blog right now, but hopefully she can get a routine down soon.