Days 2 through 4

Day 2 was frustrating.  I'm tired of talking about it, so I will suffice it just to say that there was a lot of miscommunication among all departments (OB, nursing, pediatrics) that left me upset.  We spent most of the morning getting angrier and angrier (that we didn't know the babies had been moved to the "step-down nursery" - a good thing!, that the nurse in that nursery seemed more interested in using us as warming blankets to keep the babies' body temps up rather than making sure we were bonding with or feeding them, that nobody had talked to me about how I was proceeding post-operatively, and that nearly thirty hours after the babies were born I still hadn't pumped or been given an opportunity to try to breast feed, that the babies had gone a day and a half without eating more than half a bottle).  We then spent the better part of the afternoon having a parade of doctors and nurses apologize to us.  By the late afternoon, I had gotten a pump and learned how to use it and had visited with the babies and was starting to feel better.

We had a few visitors, which was nice.  Chelsea, who is about 27 weeks pregnant, came by to see the babies and teared up when she met them - obviously the work of maternal hormones!  She and her husband brought beautiful flowers and got to hang out with Caroline while Joe and I did "skin-to-skin" holding of the boys to try to raise their body temps.  Then our friends Tom and Carla stopped by and met the kiddos, and even more importantly took Joe out to dinner!  I had started to worry about what he was going to eat - especially since I still hadn't graduated from broth and jell-o to anything more substantial.

Day 3 was entirely different - like night and day (or day and day, I guess).  I woke up at 4:30 and went to check in the nursery.  Caroline had just been fed and the nurse was waiting for Max and Daniel to wake up to feed them. He promised to call me so I could feed them when they got up.  Back to bed until 5:40 - but there was no call.  The nurse came in to give me medication and mentioned that the nursery was just about to get in touch with me.  Off I toddled to the nursery!  There I found the babies had already eaten, but the pediatrician was talking about how well the kids were doing.  Later, during rounds, it was decided that their IVs could come out and, most likely, they could be allowed to "room in" with us for the night.  Only problem - the room is not big enough for three babies and two adults!  It's barely big enough for two adults!

While I was taking a nap (pain from the C-section was starting to catch up with me), Joe got the news that we were being moved to another room, on the 6th floor.  This new room is huge and the floor is entirely different.  Our previous room was on the Labor & Delivery floor, filled with women in active labor and home to the Intensive Care Nursery.  The sixth floor is the "well baby" maternity floor (though there is no "well baby nursery").  The room we're in has plenty of room for visitors and babies.  Friday night LeeAnn, Nathanael, and Grandpa stopped by and visited the 'teenies, each taking one for feeding and holding.

By eleven, Joe and I were on our own and the babies were going to make sure we felt every instant of our first night as a family.  To make a very long night as short as possible: scream, scream, cry, cry, scream, cry, diaper change, food, scream, cry, cry, scream.  I'll leave it to your imagination who among us was doing the screaming and crying (baby or parent, hmmm...)  Oh, and there was a little snoring thrown in there too...needless to say, I didn't get any sleep.

On Saturday we were worried that I would be discharged.  Having not gotten any sleep Friday night,  I was not in a good mood, and when the OB came in the room I snapped at her that I wasn't anywhere near ready to go home.  So they said they'd delay the decision.  The babies got all sorts of attention on Saturday - a hearing screening (which they all passed), a billirubin check (to make sure they weren't getting jaundiced) with a little heel prick blood test, vital signs (heart rate, temperature, and weight), a check of breath sounds and eye reactions, and visits from Grandma and Great Aunt Laya, the Linert family, and Auntie LeeAnn and Uncle Kelly.  Anjali proclaimed that Caroline is her favorite baby - obviously sensing a princess kinship between them.  She also recognized, once Daniel's eyes were open, that he looks a lot like Joe.

It is true - Daniel is almost a mini-me version of Joe at times...and Max, being a smaller version of that is almost like a cartoon of Daniel as mini-Joe!

Lee Ann took Joe out to dinner again, which was wonderful as he was going a little stir crazy.  About five minutes after they left, Daniel started screaming at the top of his lungs and thus began my first true new-parent-without-a-clue moment.  Because he was crying, he was bright red.  Because my internal thermostat had been set to a zillion degrees since delivery, I assumed he was overheating.  I stripped his swaddle blankets off and wandered out into the nurses' station area, where I was stopped and told that hospital policy didn't allow me to bring the baby out of my room unless he was in a crib.  I replied that he was too hot and I was trying to cool him off, and the

Saturday night we had a chat with our night nurse, Xochitl, about the many things we'd been told - including a suggestion by one lactation consultant that we needed to bring in one of the car seats to "test them out".  Xochitl had never heard of this, nor had any of her co-workers, and it turned out not to be accurate.  Grrr.  She did, however, track down our releases to give the kids their Hep B vaccines and brought in the shots for them.  Our brave little children didn't cry at all when they got their shots!

We prepared for the worst Saturday night, even though the babies had done an excellent job of eating incfeasing amounts and then sleeping for about 3 hours throughout the day.  As soon as we turned the lights out, Max and Daniel started to cry.  But then they settled down and rested until it was time to eat around 1am.  The new night nurse, Malissa, helped out and took their vitals.  Max and Daniel's body temps had dropped again. In fact, Max's was so low that Malissa suggested I cuddle him in bed with me, which I did, and he warmed up.

Sunday we were waiting around for doctors so we could organize ourselves to be discharged and sent home.  They are going to take out my stitches/staples Tuesday to wait for my uterus to shrink down a bit more, leaving less chance that the weight will rip my incision open.  With that news, all that remained was a final check from the pediatrician and we would be good to go.

Not so easy.

I had just finished taking my shower and getting dressed in my "going home clothes" when the pediatrician came in.  While she was checking the babies over, she explained that they were worried about the boys' inability to regulate their body temperatures and so they were going to keep them in the hospital for one more night.  Now, granted, given all the risks we were quoted at the beginning of the pregnancy, and everything that can possibly go wrong with a high risk situation like this or with babies who are delivered four weeks "early", one extra night in the hospital waiting for a layer of fat to fix the babies' internal thermostat is far from the worst thing in the world.  However, it would mean that Joe, Caroline, and I would go home, and Max and Daniel would stay.  And so I burst into tears (we'll blame the hormones).  The doctor explained that we hadn't done anything wrong, that they were just a little skinny and still learning how to handle everything.  She wasn't sure where the babies would be placed, but asked our nurse to find out if there was any way they could wait to discharge me until Monday so we could all stay together.  Otherwise, the boys would either go back down to the nursery or off to pediatrics for observation for the night.

About an hour later, the doctor returned saying she'd called all around and while OB really didn't want to keep us in the hospital a day longer, she understood why we were upset.  So, she made a deal with us - they babies would have their temperature checked every two hours for the next six or seven hours (through 5:00pm) and if they were all in the safe range and relatively steady, they could go home.  The flipside of this is that they would have to come back on Monday for their "well-baby" check and if there was any concern at all, they would be re-admitted to the hospital.  If things did not check out, they would stay, probably in the nursery.

We spent the rest of the day packing as if the outcome would be positive.  Mama and Laya came by with new little outfits (including long sleeved shirts and onesies) and they got a surprise visit from my high school Spanish teacher (who also snuck me in a piece of very yummy apple pie!)  The room was really full when my friend from college, Diana, stopped in to meet everyone.  She'd come up a day early for a work trip just to meet the Salvateenies, and they were quite honored, though they may not have shown it.  In fact, they weren't that social at all, since we had them all double swaddled and covered in multiple blankies.

The end result was positive - we'd bundled the babies enough to keep their temps in the safe range and we got to head home with them!!!  At home we completely collapsed and took a quick nap while my dad and brother watched the babies.  Then we had dinner, fed them, and waited for the night doula to show up.  Another hour and a half or so of going over where things were and what the concerns were and it was off to bed!

And now the Salvateenies are officially "home".