Thursday, October 25, 2007

The first few days postpartum

The stay in the hospital was a blur. I have never been so tired in my life, and in all the exhaustion and pain after labor I had a little baby to take care of (Leah was still being cared for in the Nicu). Between going up and down to see Leah and juggling the family visits, I was exhausted and emotionally drained. But Matt and I created the most beautiful babies in the whole world! (argue with me - I dare ya). My recovery was relatively well. I just had a lot of residual back pain and of course pain from where I tore, but it could have been worse!

Leah was officially admitted to the Nicu because her blood sugar was borderline (40) but other than that she was fine. She got the smallest cast in the world and on Thursday I was finally able to hold her and try her at breastfeeding (she did very well). I was forced to supplement with formula for both the girls because they were born premature and it was important for them to keep their blood sugar up. This was against my wishes, but now I am so glad that other people can help give a bottle. I dont think I could keep up with them even with pumping!

We got to go home on Friday, after watching a car seat safety video (Nicu requirements for discharging a patient). The car ride home was completely surreal, with both babies in their little car sears asleep. We were going home as a family of 4! (plus 2 dogs of our own, my sister and her dog of course).

I have to admit that when we got them home, I had no idea what to do! Its like, what now? What do we do with these two babies who are completely relying on us for everything? I got in the shower that night and bawled from the pure emotion of everything. Again, postpartum hormones are wonderful - lemme tell you. I continues to cry for the next week over everything, but thankfully that is over now...

Leahs little arm posed a bit of a challenge but we managed. It was awful if she spit up on her clothes and we had to change her or had a diaper blow out. We struggled to feed them as well, since neither really acted like they wanted to eat and according to the pediatrician we HAD to get an ounce and half in them every 3 hours - they are eating over 3 oz every 3-4 hours now.

Things are getting easier! I am still not getting much sleep but the time it takes to feed them has dramatically lessened, so that helps (really need to work on Matt feeding them both at the same time, but I cant complain because he has been awesome). I am ok seeing people again... for the first few days I was anti any social interaction. :) And now that Leahs cast is off they can both get baths which is a HUGE plus over the wonderful sponge bath and squirmy child with broken arm.

Im sure Matt will post his humerous stories since he has been the one to have most of the bodily fluids spilled over him.... For now I am done for the children are now screaming!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't ask me why I was googling "The McCay Twins" Other than We are McCay's too and also have twins. We have two girls they are 2 1/2. Good luck ... It gets a lot easier.