Day 51: Getting aquainted

Today Daddy got to know the babies a bit better, and worked on his skills. He did his very first diaper change. I think it lasted about 20 minutes. He also did his 2nd bottle feed with Vivek, who due to an error by Dadima was dressed in girl clothes. I realized as soon as I walked in and called him Princess that something was horribly wrong. At least it didn't break my vow for him to never wear pink again.


Daddy very focused and serious conducting his first diaper change





Daddy doing his second bottle feed

As I expected I had a mini-meltdown today over the fact that Vinnie forgot to bring our old passports as proof of residency for the embassy appointment tomorrow and that he accidentally purchased the wrong formula due to miscommunication and due to damage in shipping we lost 1 can of preemie formula and will run out early. I started stressing out over our embassy appointment tomorrow and all the paperwork we had to do, and all the instructions I had to re-read to make sure nothing was missed. I think most of it was severe sleep deprivation combined with the fact that for 50 days I had to be the strong one, and now that Vinnie is here I can finally break down and little and let him take the lead. I decided to give myself a double shot of baby therapy to ease my anxiety and exhaustion, and it worked like a charm. Vinnie was very impressed with my ability to walk around with a baby slung over each shoulder. We later each took a baby and went for a nice evening walk in the park across the street, and Tara slept through it while Vivek seemed to enjoy the bird noises and fresh air and new sights and smells.

 


But the best moment of the day  (er...night) was around 5:30 am when Vivek would not stop crying. To help Vinnie catch up on sleep I'd done most of the feedings by myself and also stayed up late going over embassy papers. During the 3am feeding the previous day I had woken him up and he startled and said "What?" when I stood in front of him with a screaming baby boy.  I just glared at him and handed over his son. I think it took him a second to remember he is now a Daddy and this was our new life as we know it. Anyway, this time Vinnie got up around 5:30 after a good 7 hours sleep and took Vivek into the living room to help me get a little sleep. However, he still wouldn't stop crying. Finally I got up after about 10 minutes and went in there, and in my exhaustion I just took the baby right from Vinnie hoping I could work so magic so I could get back to bed. I was amazed! The second he was in my arms he stopped crying instantly. Vinnie was happy for me and I was overwhelmed to realize for the first time that they really do recognize me as their Mommy. I laid down on the couch on my back with Vivek on his stomach on my chest, and together we took the best nap I've ever had.

Day 34: Fit to be tied

 



















So as you can see, she has once again caught up and they are both 3lbs 11 oz. I'm betting by Friday they finally reach the 4 lb landmark, which will be about double Tara's size from when she was born!

News from the USA is that my husband is fine and will be discharged today around 10am. Thank goodness! He apparently felt well enough to post on my Facebook page that he is alright and appreciates everyone's concern. I miss him so much anyway, but now I'm missing him so much my heart's about to explode.

I solved a few problems to either buy time until Vinnie gets here or avoid him coming. The first is we made some corrections to the contract so that Vinnie will not need to come to Anand to re-sign it. The second is that Dr. Hitesh said it isn't essential that Vinnie come at all to the Delhi embassy from what he knows, but I'm waiting on an embassy email to confirm that. The last problem was getting more formula, because Vinnie was going to bring 6 extra cans of Similac Neosure. I asked if Hitesh's friend Uday still had the cans of formula my friend Michelle left, but he had already given them away to another family like mine. However I asked Dr. Kothiala and she said that by the time I'll be running out of preemie formula that they will need to switch to regular fomula anyway. She assured me the Indian fomula Farex is good, so for maybe two weeks we'll have to use it if Vinnie can't come, which is no big deal. If he does come I'll have him bring Earth's Best formula, which is my formula of choice anyway.

Mom and I met with Dr. Kothiala today and discussed discharge. She didn't want to say much until she saw the results of their blood test and saw how their hemoglobin levels were. I did not get to hear the results today, but will ask tomorrow. She did say the both of us have to be comfortable with bottle feeding, so while I am (with a monitor attached for right now), Mom still has a ways to go in getting confident and having Vivek finish a bottle. She suggested I feed Tara exclusively since she is more difficult. I've gotten pretty good so that is no problem. She assured us that in two weeks we will see a big difference in their sucking/swalllowing/breathing coordination...which was good to hear. She said 1-2 weeks until discharge, we'll have to wait and see. I'm having a harder time leaving them and missing them more. It seems like all I can think about is how much I want to bring them home as time goes on. She did not suggest traveling before 2 weeks.

I finally told Master Vik about the terrible news of his Daddy's hospitalization.

Vivek was initially distressed, but I patted his belly and calmed him down. He said he looks forward to meeting his Daddy and promises not to pee or urp on him for at least one day.

Day 11/12: Monkeys belong on the stairs...not NICU

So yesterday was an interesting day. Either the tuna came back to haunt me or I have gastritis from eating so much spicy food. I'd rather eat spicy food than go on a daily long quest to the few places that serve a precious few non-spicy western selections. But more days than not it seems I pay the piper for that decision. I love Indian food so much more in the US where it is a special once in a while departure from usual fare that I look forward to and enjoy. Anyway, I'll stop complaining about the food again. I'm cooking oatmeal with peanut butter in my room for a momentary reprieve.

So last night I walked back to my hotel from the NICU in shock thinking over and over again "Holy crap I yelled at a NICU nurse Holy crap I yelled at a NICU nurse...."

Let me start by mentioning about a week ago during an evening visit a nurse that I got a negative vibe off of appeared to be teasing the male nurse (?) that I only see on occasion. I am only deducing the conversation from intonation and body language, but it appeared she was giving him a hard time and took it to far. He punched her in the shoulder. It looked like it was hard and he looked genuinely angry. She looked a bit contrite and everyone settled down after that. It bothered me a lot, and I pondered all the next day whether to say something to Dr. Kothiala about it. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the culture here is a few 100 years behind in women's rights and the way women are treated here is unacceptable...but I don't expect to change the culture. My problem is that I expect them to behave professionally in a NICU. I understand stressfull jobs with long periods of downtime, and the need to goof off a bit. I honestly don't mind as long as you do your job. But getting physical is inappropriate. However since it happened once and they immediately gained some sense of decorum I decided to let it go rather than make enemies of the nurses on the shift that will get the least supervision from myself or Dr. Kothiala or Suvarna, who I respect as a leader in the NICU even if officially she may not be supervisory.

Last night the male nurse was there, but two female nurses were goofing off and got into a playful shoving match. Right next to my daughter's isollette.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

I didn't think or ponder, I just reacted. One nurse seemed to lose balance on one foot and almost bumped my daughter's isolette and had it continued she could possibly have fallen into it. I yelled, and the only way I seem to know how to yell anymore  is in my deep-voiced police 'command and control' voice. I sounded seriously pissed, and I physically grabbed the nurse that was closest to my daughter's isollette on the shoulder and pushed her back towards the other nurse. I yelled out "NAHEEN! RUKO!" That means "NO! STOP!" in Hindi, which I'm not sure if they understood, but they certainly got the gist of it from the sound of my voice and the look on my face. They instantly retreated back to the other room and settled down, and while they still seemed to be joking around for a while after that while I said good night to my babies, they seemed contrite and I got a bowed head or two as I left.

I didn't speak to Dr. Kothiala about it because hopefully I made my point, but three strikes and you're out. I did mention it to Suvarna this afternoon because I trust her and she understands the politics there. She agreed I was in the right and their behavior was inappropriate.

Before this whole fiasco though, I had been called into Dr. Kothiala's office. I was very suprised because it was 8pm and she was still there. I was scared to death that it was about a problem with either baby, which I guess is the instant fear for anyone in my situation. Fortunately, it was only mildly bad news. She explained to me that the 2nd surrogate wanted to go home in a week. Now that Manju is also gone, from the sound of it there were a shortage of extra surrogates to provide breast milk. Dr. Kothiala said that she felt the best thing was to start my babies on formula sooner than planned, and for next week she will do formula for every other feeding and see how they tolerate it. She originally planned a formula switchover in two weeks, but now we are doing half starting tomorrow and full the week after ( a week early).

I am still concerned this could raise the risk for NEC, but it will allow my babies to grow much faster and begin learning to coordinate the skills of coordinating sucking, swallowing, and breathing that they will need to be discharged. Hopefully once we give breastfeeding a try I can produce more milk and hopefully help them along a bit. And that is another exciting note: I brought my own milk for my babies today to be added to their feed! Okay...so it is only a teeny tiny bit barely enough to wet each of their mouths with, but it's mine. I'm proud of the effort I've made and will keep at it in the hopes that I can produce more. I'm trying to force feed myself more despite my upset stomach in the hope that my reduced food intake and weight loss due to the diet changes here are a part of the problem.

Speaking of growth, Vivek is now officially over his birthweight at 1140 grams, or 2lbs 8oz. He was born at 1125. She is now at 1090, or 2lbs 6oz.  She was born at 920.

This morning was exciting for other reasons. I missed all the bathtime photo ops and didn't have any non-sleeping/covered up shots, but I have a good excuse. Monkeys.

 

 Okay, so they weren't blocking my particular stairwell...but still...MONKEYS!! I did a double take walking to the NICU when I looked up across the street to see what the dogs were making a fuss about. I was shocked to see an entire troop of at least 20 monkeys, including some babies and an obvious alpha leader who was large and perched at the highest point keeping lookout. I've seen a monkey or two in Delhi, but none in Anand and certainly never an entire troop of them! The locals seem to consider them a nuisance that are bad for business, and I'm curious if the one up top left in the first shot with the banana was given it or stole it.  I'm sure the white lady with the camera in the street with a big stupid grin on her face wearing a saree was of more interest to the locals. I also took a cool video that has the monkeys and then police and motorcycles and tuk tuks and possibly cows or some type of water buffalo I hadn't seen before moving through the street. An interesting slice of life just outside my hotel front doors.

Now if I can just see an elephant before I leave India I'll be satisfied.

Leaking Liquor

I wake up this morning to this email.

Dear Emily,

Manju have leaking per vaginal today. Liquor from one baby is drain out. We will have to deliver her soon. Scan report attached.

I don't yet know if soon is the 24-48 hrs from a complete sac rupture, or a slow leak that we can pump in steroids and postpone a week.  But apparently one of my babies has a drinking problem and is already on the hard stuff.

I would be freaking out 10 times more than I already am if my brother and sister in law had not given birth to twins at the exact same time frame. I have some clue what to expect thanks to her blog.

I called my Mom to turn around and come back from Austin, where she arrived last night to visit my brother's twins. I was watching my stepdad for her, who has late stage Alzheimer's. My good friend who is helping throw my now postponed baby shower came over to watch him so I could go buy out the baby store.

I came up with a list of everything I need to get and do to go to India, and it is daunting but with very little sleep it is doable. My father has helped with the sudden expenses since this will be far more than we planned for.

I literally bought EVERY preemie diaper they had. 33 cases. I have to figure out formula, but our pediatrician will call us in the morning. As for the rest, hopefully all my lists and preparation will help me through it. So much to do, but at 27 1/2 weeks hopefully they will be alive and healthy and nothing else matters.