Suck, Swallow, & Breathe

After a Saturday of finishing up taxes (meh) and doing some general house work (laundry, gathering up clothes for Goodwill, etc), Matt and I headed up to the hospital, said hello/goodbye to the Diffens (in the process of getting discharged), grabbed a "romantic" bite to eat at the hospital bistro (...mood lighting, (plastic) flowers on the table, made to order food, classical music in the background, Saturday night ... could it get any better?), and went to visit the girls.

BIG developments today!  

First, Abby had her nasal cannula taken out last night (around 11:00 pm).  And was doing really well breathing on her own.  At her weigh-in tonight, she was 3 pounds 12 ounces.

Second, Hazel was down to only 1 liter on the oxygen, so she'll be getting off the cannula soon too.  She weighed 4 pounds 1 ounce tonight!!!

Third...we were able to attempt oral feedings for both girls tonight!  Can I say I was nervous when we found out we could attempt to breast feed?  I was not sure what to expect.  Gotta say, for the little time it worked, it was pretty awesome.  I started with Hazel; we put my right nipple in her mouth and after some nudging took to it, and sucked about three times total.  We also had to add a nipple shield, since apparently I have flaccid nipples (ha ha ... nipple joke).  That seemed to tire her out, though, so she got the rest of her feeding via tube while Matt held her.

We then tried with Abby, on my left side, and started her off using the nipple shield.  It was kinda funny - her big eyes were open, we stuck the plastic thing in her mouth, and she just looked at me with an expression that said "now what?"  The nurse put some milk on the plastic shield, and Abby licked it off (basically - not any sucking I could tell), so then we switched to the bottle, and she ate about 10 milliliters!  The nurse then burped her (which took a bit).  During the bottle feeding, the nurse asked how Abby was doing, and I noted she would suck, suck, then breathe for a period, and then suck again (with some prompting on occasion).  The nurse said she was "pacing herself," which Matt thought summed up Abby rather well.  :)  After about 20-30 minutes with the bottle, Abby received the rest of her feeding via tube while I held her.

SO...very exciting day!  And we'll work on oral feedings again tomorrow, too!