The Journey to Parenting: 1 month old

Sheeww!! Who knew our lives could change so drastically in just one short month! Things have been crazy at the Powell house! Xander came home from the NICU on 9/20, and we've been getting tag teamed ever since. I'm only half kidding :-) We try to keep them on the same schedule, so if one baby fusses, we wake the other up to feed and change at the same time. This works pretty well in allowing us to get a good 3 hours of sleep/housekeeping increments. I will say this though, there is NO way I could do it alone. Having Will home for his 11 week paternity leave has been crucial. We usually each take a baby and feed/change so they start/finish at the same time. If that's not possible, one of us will feed/change one baby and immediately feed/change the other afterwards. I've gotten brave a few times and fed at the same time, but that's kind of scary because if one starts choking, it's hard to immediately sit them up when you have another baby laying there eating. I guess I can mention that they are formula fed babies. My entire pregnancy, I was convinced I would breastfeed. I had read the books, I bought the essentials, I went to the classes, I rented the pump. I was ready!! And then Xander went to the NICU, so I pumped milk for him instead. Then Londyn wouldn't latch. She would scream and scream no matter what we did. The one time we did get her to latch, she fed for 30 minutes.. then the nurse checked her blood sugar and freaked because it was so low. Apparently she didn't get anything from that feeding and hadn't eaten in like 5 hours. Then I had the blood pressure issues and had to be put on medication. Then the Bell's Palsy and the stress. I wasn't eating, and my milk supply was dwindling. Every drop I produced went to Xander in the NICU. The lactation consultant said that Londyn was just too premature to latch and encouraged me to pump and feed until they reached full term, then try breastfeeding again. So I rented the hospital pump to try that. Well, after 4 weeks of pumping, I still only produced about 2 ounces every session. And now the babies are both eating about 4 ounces each feeding, so I would pump for an entire day and still only make enough for one feeding per day. It was so painful and it got to the point where I would start crying before I ever even turned on the pump. I was so unhappy and stressed, and still couldn't provide enough to even make it worth it. So I made the decision to gain back my sanity, stop pumping, and go strictly formula. This was definitely NOT an easy decision and not at all what I had planned. But, as the NICU nurse said, FED is best.

Another interesting thing that happened in the twins' first month is this weird rash they passed to each other. About 2 days after X came home from the NICU, we noticed a bump on Londyn's eyebrow. We thought she had been bit by a mosquito. Well then Will gave her a bath and we noticed many more bumps all over her body. I thought it was baby acne, but it kept getting worse, so we took her to the doctor. The doctor kept using words like "strange" and "interesting". He said it looked like a normal newborn rash... but the weird thing was she wasn't a newborn. She was almost 3 weeks old when it appeared. He said "Frankly, I don't know what it could be." ...... wait what?! So he popped one of the pustules and sent it to be cultured. Turns out, it was an extremely rare bacteria called Acentobacter Lwoffi. It's so rare, the nurse had to google it. Apparently it's common in intensive care facilities and occurs in immunocompromised patients. We are thinking she got it because A) she's a preemie and B) she's not breastfed. So she probably picked it up from the hospital, it stayed in her system for a while, and her little immune system couldn't solve it on its own. So she had to take oral antibiotics and an antibiotic topical cream 3X/day for 7 days. She finished the treatment and now just has little scabs on her that we are waiting for to heal. But in true twin fashion, a day or so after Londyn finished treatment, guess what we noticed on Xander. That's right: the same weird bump that was on his sister. The next day he had more. So here we go back to the doctor!!! They didn't biopsy any on him, they just assumed it was the same infection. He doesn't have to take oral antibiotics but he is currently 2 days into the topical cream treatment. His bumps look pretty gnarly right now but we are hoping they run the same course as sister and are gone in about a week.

Thankfully, most of my health issues have resolved. My blood pressure is back to normal and I am off medication. My swelling is gone and I am only 3 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. The Bell's Palsy is about 95% healed. The only lingering effects are my smile is still slightly lopsided and my eye is still a little slow to blink.. but you would never notice it unless I told you. I am still hopeful that it will heal 100% but I am extremely thankful that I healed as fully and as quickly as I did.

Well, that's our first month in a nutshell! It's been stressful, exciting, scary, interesting, and so so so full of love!! Here's to month #2!