The twins will be 39 weeks on
Wednesday-just one week away from their original due date. With that due date
quickly approaching, I had hopes that we would all be together by this time- it
looks like all of us being together by 40 weeks may be a pipe dream.
Harper is still not on track with her
eating. The day Jack was discharged,
many of the nurses told me that once one twin leaves, the other one seems to
pull it together and they leave quickly too- that was 4 days ago and we seem to
be going backwards. Last week, Harper was attempting bottles 5-7 times a day
and completing 2-3 of those bottles and finishing at least ½ of another. When I
went to see Harper in her new Pod today, she hadn’t completed any bottles, nor
had she attempted any bottles in the morning.
The feeding in the NICU is “cue based”; the baby has to be showing signs
they are hungry and motivated to eat (sucking on pacifier or fingers, rooting
around, etc) before being offered a bottle. I’ve always had problems with
Harper either 1) Cueing for me and then, when offered a bottle, acting like she
no longer wants to eat by refusing to open her mouth or take her bottle or 2)
Not cueing at all, but suddenly cueing after the feeding tube has started.
Today we had an appointment with the lactation consultant. While Lactation was
in our bay, Harper was wide-awake, but would not sustain a latch. She would
latch on and then stick her tongue out, or push away and smile. She looked at
all the lights, stared out the window, did everything but nurse. So, the
lactation lady left and the nurse hooked up the feeding tube; the feeding tube
started while I held Harper and the tube had been going about six minutes when
Harper started cueing and rooting and decided to latch and eat.
You can imagine the frustration I felt
today when Tony got home from the NICU and told me that Harper’s new nurse,
trying to conserve the milk that we supplied her, only gave Tony ½ a bottle to
offer Harper saying, “she hasn’t wanted to eat all day”. Tony fed Harper the
bottle, which she completed (yay)! But then, Tony had to take the bottle away to
refill it with the rest of her feed, and she refused to open her mouth after
that. Tony also told me Harper had not even been offered the option to try a
bottle all day because the nurse said she wasn’t cueing. Harper has a window of
about 5 minutes or so to cue before her feeding gets put in the feeding tube,
so if she’s not alert and acting hungry in those 5 mins, her chance to bottle
feed is lost. I don’t know how, but we’ve managed to back slide and here we sit
with a little girl who is almost full term and will not eat. The nurse
practitioner that has seen Harper the least is on duty this week and told Tony
she was going to order a blood test to see if Harper is anemic and that’s why
she won’t eat, but she doesn’t think that’s the problem. It’s frustrating
because everyone’s answer is “when she gets closer to term, she’ll grow out of
it and will eat”, well, she’s got a week until she’s term and now she’s in
retrograde.
I’m trying to trust God’s timing and to
be patient and optimistic, but my heart breaks when I have to leave her– this
is such a helpless feeling.
In other news, Jack tried out the Rock
and Play Sleeper for the first time today; he seemed to like it and even let me
get in a quick shower. Here’s a pic- too cute not to share.
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