Due date

At the time I write this our beloved Eliza and Olive should just be about to arrive. Yes today, the 28th of December, is in fact their due date. And so instead of meeting them for the first time, Megan and I know our little cherubs very well indeed by now as we approach their 10th week on earth. For the statisticians amongst you, they are now respectively 2.0kg and 2.9 kg, and the last week has been one of their busiest.

Our girls' 9th week in NICU began in pretty typical circumstances. Olive was feeding well sometimes and not so well at other times. Eliza was doing really well without CPAP and low-flow at some times and not so well at other times. They were both making steady progress in the established "two steps forward one back" theme that we have discussed repeatedly in these posts.

Megan and I have long ago given up any thoughts of influencing the pace of this timeline... the girls will be ready to come home in their own good time, and we'll be happy so long as they are healthy... yada, yada, yada!

"Rooming in" - the second trial

Then on Friday night (the 23rd of December) we were surprised to be told that it would be a worthwhile experiment to trial Olive on "demand" feeding that night. For us, this works by Megan providing the initial feed on demand, via her prodigious bosom, followed by a bottle top up, once she gets super sleepy, to get enough nutrition into the hungry wee thing.

Megan is in charge of supply and delivery

With a bit of help from Hudsie

Olive needs plenty of the good stuff to grow.

Well Megan had already roomed in for a number of nights a few weeks earlier, and with pretty disappointing results, so we weren't holding our breath. I frantically finished my last stint of work for the year and joined Meggy at the hospital Friday night about 8.30 pm. Megan's Aunt Mani, who is staying with us from Auckland, made us all a delicious bacon and egg pie for dinner. After Mani headed back to Karori to look after Zizou (our fur child), there we were for the first time alone, a wee family in a room (with Eliza down the hall) and it was just great.

Bacon and Egg pie deserving of a picture

Tasty stuff, thanks Mani.

Olive fed exceedingly well from the breast at every try, and took increasing volumes from the bottle with every successive feed. She went from "top-ups" of 20mls to 48mls over the course of 4 feeds! Even better after an unsettled start she settled in to longish sleeps of 3-3.5 hours between meals. We woke on Christmas Eve feeling a bit rough, but very positive about how well it had gone.

Success!

There was no chicken counting going on mind, until we saw the home care team, who upon hearing of our night said... "if it goes equally well tonight, you can have her home for Christmas day". This was freaking unbelievably great news for us because by now we've been programmed to expect the worst while hoping for the best.

The only glitch was that we had already planned a large Christmas Day gathering for 15 at our house and we thought introducing a just released baby into the mix would be pushing our luck. So the plan was amended, if we had another good night on Christmas Eve then we'd go home for Christmas and return for the best present ever on boxing day.

Xmas at Tisdall St, note this was our bedroom 8 weeks ago.

And it went entirely according to plan; an even better night rooming in at the hospital, waking up to all the NICU babies dressed for the season (down to their bed linen!) with presents galore from the staff, Hospital and Neonatal trust. A sad farewell to the girls. Home to a fabulous Christmas feast with all the family including my much better Mother Janice, Megan's outstanding Aunt Mani on chief cook duties, with many, many talented sous Chefs - Katherine (my sister), Winifred (Megan's Mum), James (Megan's bro) and Aya (James's partner). Then so many - some would say too many - presents in an orgy of gift giving, particularly for our lucky girls. Then a great night's sleep, followed by the best present ever....

All  of the babies wore this splendid outfit.

From their boots...

To their heads.

But few had Olive's "blue steel" pose.

Eliza was in on the Xmas cheer too.

Amazing generosity from NICU.

On Boxing day we headed back to NICU for the 65th day since the girls' birth to collect Olive. We fed her and her brave sister Eliza, then Olive was given the all clear by the on duty Doctor. We were then given car seat instructions by nurse for the day Achama and we were off. The only sad thing was leaving Eliza behind which hurt like hell, particularly for Megan.

Where's Olive?

Ready to go!

Teary goodbye.

I'll see you tomorrow Mum.

Yeah I told Eliza I'd to a reccie.

Pulling herself together Megan.

Then we brought our beautiful girl home, introduced her to an unconvinced pussycat, and started family life at home. When I said best present ever before I should have added a disclaimer, which is UNTIL Eliza comes home. That will be a day to look forward to indeed, although we still have no firm ideas of when that may be.

Family wagon in action at last.

Very precious cargo.

The 65 day journey home is done.

Worth every day of waiting.

Until we are all home, we have lost our "twins" stripes in NICU. They kindly provide a bed for Olive to visit her sister but she is counted as a guest of the ward like everybody else. This means we are down to 2 visitors at a time (including us), which will require more careful managing until Eliza comes home. So if you are planning a visit if you are still in Wellington be sure to text Megan (021 377372) or me (021 476007) to discuss logistics

All of our love, Christmas and New Year cheer to all of you reading this. Our roller coaster ride is going through a very heady patch right now.

Finding their voices.

Well our darling girls have reached another important milestone. They are now 8 weeks old, and are in every sense bigger, stronger and healthier than the two wee dots who we met on October 21st. And Megan and I are most certainly 8 weeks more in love with them.

Eliza.

Precious little dot!

Stats wise Olive is now a whopping 2.8 kilograms, and Eliza is 1.8kg. So each week they continue to impress us with their progress.

Olive.

Precious bigger dot.

The Nurses around NICU have started bandying around the term "Term" to describe them. This is because they are now 38 weeks old... the full term for twins and about the age we might have expected to meet them in less dramatic circumstances.

As "term" babies their behaviour is appreciably different. They are more alert and curious about their surroundings. They have their beautiful eyes open for more time and (obviously) they are sleeping less. They are much more responsive to other humans, particularly their doting parents, who are called upon to do more comforting, cuddling, feeding and dummy inserting.

Megan is such a natural Mum!

Olive loves to feed.

And Eliza doesn't want to miss out.

Yes our darling sweet quiet babies are quiet no more. Even one-eyed parents like us have to admit that they have become pretty rowdy. And they are most definitely dominating Nursery F in terms of noise pollution. This is fine by us, because it means that they are going to have vibrant, full-some personalities. Also because it proves that they are healthy,which is the most important thing.

Luckily both Megan and I are quite adept at calming the girls down when they are riled up, which means we are employed a lot by nursing staff who have been exasperated by the girls this week. In this series of photos, nurse Ngahina is doing a blood check on Olive, by pricking her foot and milking .5ml of blood out of it. And Megan is keeping her calm with a gentle touch of the head and a steady hand on the dummy... which she is determined to spit at any moment! Hardly surprising that they are complaining when they are being poked and prodded so.

Taking Olive's blood.

Quite a medieval procedure.

Mum, what the heck are they doing to me?

Speaking of which Eliza has developed a pathological dislike of her CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), and is forever trying to remove it. She clasps it with both hands and pulls with all her might, and has on more than one occasion succeeded in removing it. All very admirable in terms of her will, but upsetting because for the mean time she still needs it.

The CPAP is being alternated in 6 hour bursts with low-flow which utilises pure oxygen in a very small amount that mingles with the air Eliza breathes normally. To the lay person the two breathing aids look very similar but low-flow has much smaller nose prongs. 

The important thing about low-flow is that it can be made transportable for when Eliza comes home. We could bring an oxygen cylinder home with her as she may need low-flow for a few more months. So it is good that she is doing so well on low-flow, and that she doesn't mind the apparatus as much as she does the CPAP.

3 beauties

Which brings me to the $64000 question, and the one we are each asked at least once a day. When are they coming home? The answer is still, we don't know. Olive has had a much better week breast feeding, but she hasn't yet managed any more than three (four hourly) feeds in a day. And until she is thriving without the need of the feeding tube, then NICU is the best place for her. 

Peas from the same pod.

It is a good time to remember that their due date is December 28, so they still have no business being here yet. Of course we'd love to have them home, and we'd welcome a reprieve from the daily trip or two or three to Newtown, but the girls simply aren't ready yet. And until they are we'll be happy to keep up with the crazy schedule.

Before we forget, Happy Christmas one and all. Our girls have been showered with gifts from such incredibly generous friends and family. We have literally been receiving parcels every day. Today they got their first bike for goodness sakes! We feel so well supported and our girls so welcomed to the world. We can't thank you all enough. Arohanui. Please travel safely and have a wonderful well earned summer.

Playing catch up!

What a great week for the Huddleston family!

Eliza has spent the week playing catch up with her big sister.

First she graduated to a therma-cot, and is now sleeping in the open air like a big girl.

Eliza's first outfit!

And her new home, an open topped therma-cot.

This is the life!

Next she enjoyed her first bath, although perhaps "enjoyed" is an overstatement, as she was a trifle grumpy about the state of play, but grudgingly went through with it.

This is cool.

On the other hand is it?

Eliza is unconvinced of the merits of bathing.

Then she put on the vital grams required to officially double her birthweight… she is currently about 1550 grams a long way from the tiny 760grams of October 21st.

But most impressively, Eliza is no longer prepared to play second fiddle to Olive in the feeding department. She is a superb natural feeder, and latched on immediately in her first encounter with the breast. Now she vigorously sucks away for as long as her bigger sister on many feeds.

Eliza can feed herself now!

Make that two feeding babies.

And yes they eat concurrently, as Mighty Mama Megan is a natural at the twin feed. Apparently most twin Mum's suss out the "rugby ball under each arm" feeds eventually, but Megan has been impressively adept at this tricky skill… surely those Tongan "Lomu-esque" genes have something to do with this.

Clever quarter Tongan Meggy.

In fact everything had been going so well with feeding that Megan stayed overnight in the unit for a three night feeding trial. The intention with this is to get Olive home sooner rather than later. 

The idea is that when Olive is feeding regularly, she will move into Megan's room overnight. Then Megan (and I) will do all of the cares and feeds through the night. 

Our rooming-in quarters. 

Well that was the theory, only Olive loves her sleep too much for now, to satisfactorily complete regular feeds. She tends to have 2 or 3 good efforts each day (followed up by bottle feeds of expressed milk), but she still requires a top up through her nose feeding tube after good feeds. And this needs to be supervised by the nursing staff.

Dad can do something to help, on the odd occasion.

As long as Olive isn't too sleepy, mind.

Olive's struggles in this respect are not surprising… she is still 2 weeks away from her due date, and even though her 2.5 kilo frame dwarves her sister, she is still 2/3rds the size of a "normal" term baby. So the trial has halted for the meantime, with the plan now for Megan to go back in overnight later this week, hopefully Olive and I can room in with her on Saturday or Sunday, and have our first night as a family. Exciting!

It's all up to you now Olive.

No pressure!

As soon as Olive and we can fend satisfactorily for ourselves then she'll be coming home. Which is another great chapter to look forward to, even though it will present logistical difficulties up until the time when Eliza can join us. Eliza really needs to bulk up before this is a realistic prospect, and her on again off again relationship with CPAP will most likely continue until she is over 1.8 kilos. But that can't be too far away at the rate she's going.

In other good news my Mum Janice has been given the all-clear to return to her Karori home sometime this week, so all in all we've had a great few days for female Huddlestons.