If you think that not having babies at home leaves me time to get my nails done and write the great American novel, you are sorely mistaken. Chances are I am attached to my breast pump cheering those mammories on.
M-I-L-K!
Apparently, I'm supposed to massage (read- squeeze the shit out of) my ta-tas until they are dry every 2-3 hours. That looks a little like this:
10:45pm- Commence milkage
11:15pm- Terminate milkage and measure how much was produced. This number dictates my mood for the next hour and a half
11:20pm- Spill milk and commence hormonal break-down in kitchen. "Don't cry over spilled milk" may have initially been intended for a breast-pumping mother of a NICU baby.
1:15am- Wake up and start all over again.
Yes, the 2-3 hours does not dictate the time between feedings but rather the time between starts. This.is.miserable.
On the baby front (yay! I luuuurv babies!)
Finnegan is kicking ass in the temperature department and graduated into a crib today. Yes! Yes! Yes! That leaves one hoop left before he comes home. Ole boy needs to get it together and start feeding like there's no tomorrow. That means no gavage and lots of nipple time (mostly bottle- breastfeeding is a bitch for a preemie). Finn is suuuper laid back and mellow. He sleeps a ton and often has a hard time waking up long enough to feed.
Cassidy is still our little feisty girl. She is much more alert than her brother and the doctors have said she is "advanced." She eats like a champ but is still not nippling all her milk. And because she's the size of a little peanut, she still can't regulate her body temperature enough to move our of her isolette. Le sigh....2 hoops for our little girl before she can come home with us.
Oh yeah, and in a move of parental brilliance or incompetence (you choose), we decided to change the spelling of Finn's name to "Finnegan" over "Finnigan." This has really fucked with the NICU nurses who made him a name sign with "eg" and then changed it to "ig" so it would be correct. I think they might be plotting against me now that we changed it....Oops.
Oh, how I feel you on what that number does to my mood! I hate the breast pump.. hate hate hate. Loathe, even. But you're right.. it's the life of a NICU mom! And it will be at LEAST two or three more weeks before my son even attempts a breastfeeding (got to get off of CPAP first!)
ReplyDeleteYour babes are adorable.. and don't worry.. the best nurses are the ones with a sense of humor when you change your mind about something.
SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL!
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