Our four day stay in the hospital felt like a week and a half. One of my goals while there was to get tandem nursing down so that I won't have to feed twenty hours a day. Things were going well and the twins looked like they were on the same schedule. Then two days later, they had their pediactric appointment in the hospital. I was shocked when the nurse returned to tell me that Carter had lost 10.8% of his birth weight and Ainsley had lost 12%.
First setback:
I was so stressed when I found out and was so sad to think that the twins were exerting so much effort this whole time only to not get much for it. I only had colostrum at this point and turned to formula to get their weight back up since that wasn't enough. The hospital sent a Medela Symphony to help get my milk in quicker. Their weights came back up a bit on the day we were discharged and we immediately made appointments with their pediatrician.
Second setback:
The two visits with their pediatrician showed that the twins were gaining weight so he wasn't concerned. Jaundice levels were low and low/intermediate. He told us to keep supplementing formula or expressed milk with nursing and thought that their weights should reach their birth weight in four days. Then we could rely strictly on nursing afterwards. I wasn't comfortable that that the twin's next doctor visit wouldn't be until their monthly visit. What if they don't gain their birth weight back? How would we know if they will continue to gain weight if we stopped supplementing? So we purchased a HealthOMeter baby scale to alleviate those concerns.
My sister told me a test that a lactation consultant did with her daughter where they weighed her before a nursing session. Then the consultant stayed during an hour long nursing session and weighed her daughter again afterwards. Her daughter had only drank 2 ounces during that whole time. We implemented the same test with the twins and to our utter dismay, Ainsley gained half an ounce and Carter didn't gain any. Pause. Mini breakdown. Breathe. Next.
My friend referred us to a great lactation consultant who had twins herself. She informed us that some twins who are born before 40 weeks actually were not born with the instinct to feed since they are still supposed to be in the womb. It's not all twins but that seems to be the case with ours. So new regimen consists of trying to nurse the twins for practice 2-3 times a day, bottle feeding, burp, change and pumping session to keep milk production up. I was lucky that my milk production is decent due to my mom's secret soups and fenugreek.
These marathon long feeding sessions are a lot of work and barely leave time in between for anything else. (Maybe a catnap or a blog post.) Ainsley drinks from the bottle like a champ and gulps down 2.5-3 ounces in less than 10 minutes. Will likes to joke that she has her daddy's chugging skills. (He'll regret that later) Carter, on the other hand, drinks at a snail's pace. At one point when we switched to Avent bottles (closer to nursing), he was taking an hour for 2 ounces so we had to switch him back to the Medela bottles which were the equivalent of pouring milk down his throat. He would take rest breaks in between drinking where I would have to burp him and most frustrating, he'd just fall asleep. We've tried tickling his feet, rubbing his head, tickling his hands & neck, undressing him as well as changing him. Recently, Will found another trick to get him to eat.
Will loves to play music for the babies. In the hospital, he would play Billy Joel's "Goodnight My Angel" lullaby to signify that it was time to sleep.
Feeding time required something more upbeat so Will would play Jon Schmidt's "Love Story Meets Viva La Vida". This song has special meaning for us since it was the song I chose to have in my wedding for my bridesmaids to walk down to. There was actually no sheet music for it and huge thanks to some really talented friends from church (Gary, Ian and Jeff), they figured out how to play this for my wedding. I got choked up hearing this because this song reminded me where Will and I once were and where we've come. The twins wouldn't be here if not for that day, our desires for them and God. I thank God every day that they are here with us.
Last night, Will thought of another song to play to Carter to motivate his hunger. It was a funny song that I'd listened to during my pregnancy called "Four Chords" by Axis of Awesome. After 30 minutes of sleeping after only drinking half his bottle of milk, Carter woke up and chugged the other half. So thank you, Axis of Awesome.
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