Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Oh Boy, it has been a long while since our last post and so much has happened. It has been 4 months so I guess that is to be expected, but what is surprising is just how many of these changes have been positive. Where to begin?

Long time no post.

Let's start back a ways... Megan and I decided around April that she would return to her full time position at Xero, and that I would take over as the primary carer for Olive and Eliza. Megan loved her role in this blossoming company and relished a chance to return, but Olive and Eliza are a big handful... Eliza's nasal gastric tube precluded normal day care options. So our best option was to swap the typical gender roles and for me to become the Daddy Day Carer.

Hudsie left holding the babies.

By the start of June most of my free-lance TV work was complete, and I was able to spend a super month with Megan and our Student Nanny Jess, learning the way things worked. This training period was quite blissful, and a great opportunity for the four Huddlestons to spend more quality time together. Time at home is so much more fun than time in a hospital, however good the care we had in NICU.

Jess the girls first student nanny.

This time was also daunting because I was painfully aware that I would have to take over the reins  at the start of July. And Megan had very big parenting shoes to fill - she had set the bar very high. Not only doing a great job of training up Jess, but stopping at nothing to give Olive and Eliza the very best. Including steaming vegetables and freezing them in ice trays to provide the increasing amount of solids their diet required, and reading all manner of parenting books (and iPhone apps) to ensure all of their needs were catered for.

Mummy is the boss.

To compound my worries about my ability to adapt to this new role was the fact that Jess's course ended on Megan's first day at work (coincidentally my birthday July 2). Also our next Nanny, Chelsea, would not be available for 2 and a half weeks. Into this breach stepped Megan's Mum Winifred, who moved down from Martinborough to help me with my first fortnight solo. This was another amazing effort from Megan's family, as it meant leaving David and the vineyard to their own devices for 12 days.

Both Girls love Granny Wini bath day.

Together Winifred and I made a great team. She let me find my way with the girls, and lending a hand where required while also keeping the home fires burning, keeping on top of the abundant washing, keeping the house tidy and making amazing meals. The fortnight surprised us all, with the transition going completely smoothly in every respect. With Winifred's help I gained enough confidence to be looking forward to training up Chelsea who started on July 17.

Eliza always has cuddles for her Granddad.

What's-more Megan is loving being back at work, in a swanky new office, with almost twice the number of staff  than the company she left 9 months earlier. That company is going places. She does miss the girls, but has such busy days that she doesn't dwell on it overly, plus she is confident that things are going ok at home and our girls are in good hands.

Chelsea has taken to her 4 day a week role like a duck to water, and Winifred is still coming down on Mondays to cover Tuesday. Also my Mum Janice pops in very regularly for cuddles and to help the girls feed, so it is all going incredibly well.

Chelsea being put through her paces by Olive.

But we're saving the best news till last, but if you've been watching the photos closely you might have guessed already. Our girls are doing so well...

O.L.I.V.E. for Olive... E.L.I.Z.A that's Eliza!

Olive is an absolute treasure. She is cheeky, confident and a complete individual. She has packed on the calories and is now a whopping 7.5 kg. She is a superstar in the jolly jumper and she absolutely loves going to bed. Whenever we put her down she squeals until she gets her thumb in her mouth then she's straight off to sleep. Also her most endearing quality is her tuneful and very loud singing which she indulges in whenever she is happy, which is a lot of the time. The quiet house often suddenly resounds to a spectacular "Ahhhhahhhhhahhhhhhhh". When you echo this cry back at her she cackles with pleasure. Such a lovely girl!

Butter wouldn't melt!

And Eliza has turned a corner! After a lot of patient experimentation and trial and error with feeding strategies, she is rid of her ghastly nasal gastric tube. She pulled it out herself on Friday the 21st of July and we began a trial period without it. On Tuesday 24th her Speech and Language Therapist Germaine showed us a new method of feeding her, with immediate results. By Wednesday the 25th she was eating enough calories to thrive. Since then she has made the magic number of calories required every day for 5 days in a row.

Look folks no tube!

She is such a lovely wee girl - quick to smile, alert and knowing. She especially loves Zizou, our cat. Since losing the tube, she is so much more obviously happy within herself now. No NG tube means the experience of eating has become more enjoyable and less time consuming. She is able to eat, be satisfied and then play with her sister. It is such a joy for us all to see her blooming as she is. The added bonus is without the tube you can see quite clearly what a beautiful wee girl she is (and has always been) under all that dreadful sticky tape.

I'm a big girl now.

She weighs in at 5.5kg, exactly 2 kilos lighter than Olive, but she is eating so hungrily, we are confident she will soon begin to bridge the gap between them. Right now our challenge with her is convincing her to share Olive's bedroom happily, but the days of having her cot in our room are numbered!

Sharing

With Eliza's tube gone we really feel like things are much more manageable and normal. We'd love to thank everyone who has helped us through this time, listened to us, cooked for us, visited, or sent messages of support. Your love and support has made this whole journey so much easier, and we are looking forward to spreading our wings now, and seeing you all outside Karori really soon.

Lounging

Arohanui
HOME

No news is good news.

I'm sure any parents following our progress would not have been surprised by the lengthy gap between our blog posts since getting both of our beautiful girls home. It has been almost 2 months since our last report, and a famously busy period it has been too.

Feeding time at the Huddlestons.

Eliza's long awaited home-coming coincided with an unprecedented period of my needing to be away for work. Within a week of both twins being resident in Karori, I was off on a 3 week shoot, I returned for 5 days, before heading to Auckland on a 2 week edit. I came back from that for a fortnight, and now tomorrow I'm back up to Auckland for 2 final weeks of cutting, but with the luxury of coming home for Easter.

I left Megan holding the babies. Plural.

Suffice to say Megan has had a crash course in twin parenting, but with amazing and admirable assistance from her family. Her Aunty Mani covered my first 3 weeks away. And her Mum Winifred assisted over that period, and then came to stay with Megan for my first fortnight in Auckland. I came home from Auckland for weekends and have just done the last fortnight at  home, and I can say with a huge degree of confidence that going away to "work" definitely means expending the least labour.

Great Aunt Mani with double trouble

Granny Winni and her Olive

We'll always be indebted to Mani and Winifred for helping out as they have over this period. It has helped  in so many ways, and Megan has become an expert Mum already. Our two girls are very different characters, and they have a lot of nuances to master when dealing with them. Megan seems to have learned them all already, and I'm struggling to catch up.

Olive shows her Daddy the ropes

You're going a bit grey Dad.

Speaking of our girls, they are progressing spectacularly well. Olive has just about hit the 5 kilo mark, and Eliza is a gnats under 4 kilos now. Olive is still well ahead in terms of her feeding... Eliza may well retain her nasal gastric tube for many months still, until she settles onto solids. Olive is also just ahead developmentally, she is giggling while Eliza is smiling, but maybe Eliza is just a tougher audience.

What a fine pair.

I'm sure you'll see from the pictures they are both perfect. Just in slightly different ways.









As for us as a family, the only way is up from here. Olive has been sleeping through the night for several weeks now, and a recent development with Eliza's pump feeding means she is now being fed over a 7 hour period at night too. Which means Megan is finally able to sleep for longer periods of 6 hours +. We have an excellent trainee Nanny Jessica who helps out Mon, Wed, Thu and Fridays. And Winifred is coming over the hill and helping Tuesdays too.

Jessica the hired help!

Now I just need to knock this final block of Auckland work off, and we will all be full steam ahead to Primary School, Secondary School, Uni, the Silver Ferns, Medical School, the U.N. No pressure girls...

HOME sweet home.

At last Hudsie, Olive, Megan and Eliza are HOME.

Our beautiful girls

As most parents would appreciate things got very hectic after Boxing day, with Olive at home and Eliza still in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. We did it tough over the next month, with Megan and I often making separate trips to the Hospital, while adjusting to the rigours of much less sleep.

Olive in her commuting to hospital guise.

Of course there were so many joys in having Olive home too, and it would be wrong to accentuate the negative. We loved having her with us, so did her fur sister Zizou and Great Aunt Mani. It was just a wrench not having Eliza with us too.

The girls chillin' at NICU

Also I started back to work in early January, which added another layer of complexity. It was a number of things at the same time; it was wonderful, challenging, stressful, blissful, and very tiring. Eliza had a tough month after Olive left. She caught a wee cold (probably from one of the many additional visitors allowed into the unit around Christmas), which set her back a long way.

After 94 days in NICU, we were over it.

She had a very bad case of the snuffles and not having a clear airway meant she was mostly nil by mouth for about a fortnight, with her feeds coming exclusively from her nasal gastric tube. But as she has done so many times in her short life, she bested the cold, and has fought her way back to reasonable health with much determination and little complaint.

Hey Sis let's get outta here.

Finally last Thursday, the 26th of January, 96 days after her birth, she was allowed home! There were a few things less than ideal about her discharge. She still has her gastric tube in place, and Megan and I have been trained how to insert it, test it and feed through it when required. We've been given a fancy pump to do this at night, but most feeds have three methods - breastfeed, then bottle and then we top her up "Boulis" style using the power of gravity to let the milk trickle down the tube into her tummy.

Also to my chagrin on the day of Eliza's discharge I was away completing filming on a project which has been in gestation for almost as long as the girls! A special mention must be made to some people who helped us so much over this period.

Olive shows Eliza the ropes!

Our buddy Paul Schrader went to the hospital in my stead and helped Megan home with both babies for the first time. He did this with great grace, as he does most things, and stole the glory of slotting two car seats into the Mazda 6 for the first time. Megan's Mum Winifred moved into our house to help ease us through the first few nights of dealing with two hungry mouths to feed. And now Megan's Aunty Mani has returned for her second stint as chief cook and bottle-washer.

Schrader the glory/baby stealer!

GreatAunty Mani and Olive

Grandma Wini

And little Lizzy

I am going to be out of town filming over the next 3 weeks, which will help keep the wolves from the door. The transition from Megan's pregnancy to our recent semi-normality has been well over 3 months. A long period in anyone's language, particularly for me having lost a fulltime job in September. We've been really fortunate that I've found two freelance gigs which will allow me to be around Wellington for most of the time. But the kicker is that some time away is impossible to avoid.

Knowing that Megan, Olive and Eliza have the safety net of Mani and Winifred is a godsend. It is a heck of a lot of work having two (effectively) newborn babies in the house at the same time, and Megan and I both understand that without this support, life would be impossible. We really can't thank Mani and Winifred enough for this help at the most important time of our girls' lives.

Aunty Katherine, Cousin Holly and Great Aunt Mani.

Many hands make Olive full.

Granddad David and Eliza.

Now for some stats. Eliza has been out of Hospital for 9 days today, and her progress is fabulous. She has shot up from her discharge weight of 2.71kg to 2.89kgs yesterday. Also her breast feeding and bottle feeding improves every day. We think she has a minor reflux problem which slows her feeding down, but we are on the right track with finding a drug to help soothe this pain, called appropriately Peptisoothe.

Beansprout Eliza and Aunty Aya.

Meanwhile Olive has bloomed in her first month home, growing from 2.88kg to a whopping 3.78 yesterday. Having said that most new observers of Olive are still surprised by how tiny she is. Megan is frequently asked if she is newborn, and her answer is always a pleasant yes (it is too hard to explain). Despite all of this Olive does still have the most oversized pair of cheeks either of us have ever seen, so she is big in some departments!

Olive is chunking up and ready for it!

The next milestones for us will be, navigating my tricky work commitments, and patiently waiting for Eliza to ditch her feeding tube. Once that is out of the way, we'll just have the simple task of having two babies in the house at once. That will be a breeze!

Good skills from Mama Megan (she took the shot too)

Uncle James on the "Boulis" feed.

A special mention should also go out to the wonderful people who have gifted us meals over this period; Mary, Kirsten, Marianne, Lecretia, Nikki, Katherine, Winifred, Erin and the Multiple Birth Club all knew that food is the best way to a family's heart! Which isn't to discount the wonderful generosity of so many of you, who have given our girls amazing wardrobes of clothes and plethora of toys to come home to.

What we probably won't be doing a great deal of from here on is blogging. It is so hard to find the time to do it now we don't have the fabulous NICU staff to help with the girls. Anyhow we are now at a stage where the more interested amongst you can come and get to know Olive and Eliza in time. Trust us they are certainly worth meeting.

A final thought here should go out to all the team at Wellington's NICU. They brought our babies into the world safely and then looked after them so well. They have encouraged and taught us so much and given us all the help we could have had. We are so lucky to have been given this gift of happy, healthy babies, and there is no way we could ever repay the debt. Needless to say as Eliza grows out of her tiny clothes, we'll donate them back to this amazing place to help them help other parents starting out on this tricky journey.

Happy family.

Can't forget Zizou.

As if she'd let us.

Thanks very much for reading, for your emails, calls and texts. We could not have done this without the support. Arohanui. HOME xxxx