Wow, it seems a it's been so long since I last posted. Guess that is because so much has happened in the last week or so. I don't even know where to start, so many thoughts have been swimming around in my mind and they are all in the deep end of the pool playing marco polo. I just can't keep up with them all-ha!
So, the big change that occupies many of those thoughts is how great a feeling it is to feed my babies!!!! After more than two months of being a mommy, we are finally able to hold and feed them. Although it is one bottle a day so far, it is the highlight of my days no doubt!
While feeding them Thursday, I felt I got to know them even more. So much of how they handled the feeding taught me more about their personalities. Jenna's scheduled feed was first. I observed the Speech Therapist while she initiated her feed so that she could assess her stage of development. Boy! We thought she was a little spitfire before, there's a lot more where that came from. As soon as she realized that something was coming out if that "paci", she went to town!! She was so excited that she couldn't control herself from gulping. So, the trick with her is to help teach her the pattern. We will have to let her suck on the bottle 3-5 times and take it out in order to make her breath. Through time she will pick this up. But now, she will gulp gulp gulp until she turns blue if we let her. She would much rather eat then breathe-haha. Sounds like she loves food like her mommy. She even continued to make the sucking motions when I tok the bottle out of her mouth. She didn't quite realize that there wasn't anything there anymore, that or she didn't have enough control to stop the motion. That just shows that her development is a bit premature-understandably so. She has strong mouth muscle tone which is great and throughout the 30 minute session, she was NOT giving up. She knew she liked it and although it was taking a lot of her energy to practice this new skill-suck, swallow, breath,-she was not going to let something like being tired get in her way! Even after she was finished, when we layed her back down in bed, she rooted around for more. Luckily, she took the paci for a bit. Although when presented with the paci, it was almost like she could've swallowed the thing whole if we let her. Too cute. All in all, with some more practice and reminding her to breath, she will do just fine. She has lots of vigor! Way to go Jenna!
So, while I was feeding Jenna Blake was giving out his little warning calls to tell us he was hungry. April told us that they are quite different in that respect. When Blake gets hungry he gives out a few little warning "ehh"s until he gets angry and hungry and then he will let it all out. Jenna on the other hand, when she gets hungry, she is angry and hungry right from the start and utilizes those lungs to tell ya all about it. So, once it was Blake's turn Elizabeth (Speech Therapist) started him off and assessed his development. Well, many nurses predicted that Blake might be the gulper out of the two. Well, he surprised many. He began looking around and was very alert. It was as if he was trying to figure out why we were all four looking down at him while Elizabeth presented him with this "foreign" object. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "Hmm, this kinda feels like my paci". Then he decided to test it out. A look of confusion crossed his face and he fluttered his eyes and pulled back a bit. Apparently he had enough strength to get some milk from the nipple. We let him settle down a minute then offered it to him again. He kept looking from side to side and really put some thought into what his next move would be. It was so darn cute! Throughout the feeding, he didn't forget to breath at all! He was very cautious the whole time but with what seemed to be much thought put into what he was doing, he did fantastic. He may need a little stimulation from time to time since he does pause to, what I like to consider, think about it.
Sooooooo, I am wondering if Blake will be one to think about things before making decisions. Maybe be a little more cautious before jumping right into things while Jenna may be a bit over excited and jump right in. Hmmm, impulsive maybe? Oh boy! We are in for a real surprise with these two.
Well, time to work on the babies' room. I'll post more later.
Blake and Jenna are doing well today so far. They are both on 21-23% oxygen. Great job!
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