The Pair of Scates: 39 Weeks

I would have been 39 weeks today. Since the girls would have come no later than 38 weeks per my doctor, I definitely would not still be pregnant today. Since the girls are still in the NICU, and they care about gestational age, might as well keep counting down.

There has been some turnover in the NICU3. For the longest time (perhaps around a month? hard to keep track of time), it was basically the same nine babies: three sets of twins in (us, Gonzalez, and Lopez); Sara the 4 month old; Mia (who we watched being admitted our first week in the hospital); and one other baby (in the back corner, and I never really saw the parents when I was there). Interestingly, all of the babies were girls! In fact, some of the nurses joked we should put up a "no boys allowed" sign on the door.

Last week the Lopez twins were discharged (separately, but within 4 days of each other), and yesterday the Gonzalez twins were discharged together. It was their mom that I had gotten to know pretty well, so while I was glad they were getting to go home, I was sad to see a friend go. She has my email address and phone number, though, so hopefully we'll stay in touch. And, of course, they couldn't leave without some drama. Their identical girls (now 36 weeks) were barely five pounds, and the carseat that they originally purchased a few days ago didn't pass the car seat study, so they found another which passed on Sunday. So they purchased a second one (and had to have it overnighted from Houston). Unfortunately, though, when Jennifer brought in the second one, the nurses couldn't get it to fit properly. When I left for the evening yesterday, she and her husband were still in the middle of that, but I guess they made it work since the twins were gone today.

The "back" baby was also discharged, so there is a new one there ("Imogen" - interesting name). In place of the Gonzalez and Lopez twins are two "half" twins (meaning one of the two has already been discharged) and two other babies. Mia's parents have brought in her carseat, meaning her departure is likely imminent. Thus, in essence, Sara (the four month old) and the Scates twins are now the veterans of the room. While I (now) like the room, in some ways it is not pleasant. When I first heard Sara had been in the NICU four months, I couldn't imagine being here that long. Yet we've been in the NICU a little over 10 weeks - almost three months. In fact, originally my maternity leave would have been completed on June 1st - which is next week. And the girls aren't even home yet! I know we are getting really, really close. And I've generally accepted our circumstances, but there are some moments again when I wish that things had happened differently and as originally planned ... the girls would have been born in May, and I would have been able to spend three months with them at home, like almost every other mom, instead of the last (almost) three months in the NICU. Fortunately my office allowed me to extend my maternity leave, so at least I'll get some time with them at home.

On the topic of the girls coming home, Dr. Breed and I had an interesting conversation about it today when he called to give me the update on the girls. Both are doing well and look good. Abby's last episode was May 20, so we are the midst of the five day countdown. Hazel, on the other hand, still has about an episode or two per day while feeding, and Dr. Breed noted that it was likely due to how tuned in the nurse was to Hazel's feeding patterns (e.g., the need to pace her). He asked me how good I was at picking up on her cues, as he suggested she could be released a bit early (and around the same time as her sister) with this issue. He also said it was likely Hazel's issues would probably resolve in about a week (still all due to prematurity). Interesting. I felt like he was feeling me out (not in a bad way) about how pushy we'd be in bringing Hazel home. Matt and I had already discussed something like this, so I told him while we would love to bring her home immediately, a few more days in the NICU wouldn't kill us if that's where she needed to be. I'd much rather bring her home, issues resolved, instead of with some lingering things.

We worked on breastfeeding again today - at least at the 2:30 assessment. Today it was Hazel's turn to be fussy - she breast fed for about 30 min, then had about 10-15 ml of bottle supplemented milk, yet still seemed hungry and anxious. After I finished up with Abby (who only went about 15-20 min on the boob, but that is the lesser producing of the two), I held and rocked Hazel, who finally went to sleep around 4:45 (about 30-45 min before we'd have to wake her up again). While this definitely put a crimp into my plans to pump between sessions, it did make me feel pretty awesome that I could get her to calm down and sleep. :)

Oh, and the other big news - our primary nurse at night, Rachel, just got back from a trip to the Bahamas with her boyfriend, and they got engaged! We had talked about it a week or so before she left, and she was hoping he'd ask (and seen several clues indicating he might), and then Cathy told me about it during the day. So I called up the NICU during the night shift to tell her congrats (and ask her to send Matt home with bottles). Can't wait to hear the story!

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