Day 7

Not much new to report today. Sean is up to 30ml of food through the feeding tube so he should start bottle feeding soon. The doctor says at 33 weeks (which would be a week from now) but the nurses think sooner. Apparently he does have a mild sucking reflex so they have been offering the pacifier to him (and to Evan) to encourage sucking. Evan had to get a new IV today (the old one was leaking - probably because he was kicking it) so I didn't get to hold him. Hopefully tomorrow. However I did hold Sean skin to skin today. I was so nervous having him on my chest because it didn't look like he could breathe but he was fine. Evan went back on the cannula but just 1 liter of oxygen. They were hoping to bump up Evan's intake of milk but he is not consistently digesting it so they had to back it down. Apparently two steps forward and one step back is the mantra of the special care nursery. Sigh...♦

I have been depressed over the idea that the majority of my maternity leave would be spent at the hospital and not at home with the twins. I was talking to another mom whose daughter had been there a month and every time they are close to her coming home something happens. It was a sobering realization for me that they could be there so long. Steve has had the worst case scenario time in his head but today was the first time I really believed it. I didn't think I would spend all day at the hospital but now I am wondering if I shouldn't just spend more time there since it's all I'm going to get.

I am hoping to get some better sleep tonight. I haven't slept well at all and am so physically exhausted that I am not sure at times how I am still standing upright. I saw my doctor today to discuss this and other ailments. She says I will be fine - just give it some time....

I will probably start updating less if there are no significant changes. I know people are checking the blog for updates so I will keep posting stuff but it might just be pictures some times since I make sure to get a photo of each of them every day. I think at the end of all this we can compare the pictures and see the growth in them just at the hospital.