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.