Why does something that seems so easy have to be so difficult?!? It seems like we are so close to home in most areas, yet we appear to be so far from our feeding goals. Paige did a little better with her bottle today, yet we still are only letting her attempt one bottle feed per day. Andrew is not interested in the bottle at all and we are lucky if we get a couple milliliters in before he spits it all out. Paige is not liking her higher calorie breast milk either. She continues to have huge residuals and we keep having to bump down her volumes. Instead of throwing in the towel and putting her back to regular breast milk, the team has decided to start some reflux meds. Hopefully this will help with motility and digestion. And maybe even her bradys/apneic events, as these seem to occur more frequently after feedings and are often associated with reflux, too. It seems like its going to take forever to get them both to eat their goal volumes EIGHT times a day!!
Despite our feeding frustrations, we celebrated their three week birthday today and reflected back on what we've been through. Another set of twins got admitted tonight (30 weekers) and their course was looking very similar to ours. The mom got wheeled down on a stretcher to see her babies and they were both full of lines and tubes and needing lots of support. Jack and I walked by their room and immediately said how grateful we were to have been way past that point. Guess we shouldn't complain too much about the annoyingly painful process of learning to feed. Things were a lot worse only three short weeks ago...
Paige and Andrew are so adorable! I am so glad that I got to meet them today! Riley said he hopes Andrew is a red head so he's not the only Cummins with red hair anymore. Riley would also like to point out that he is Riley Michael Cummins so maybe the Cummins kids with Michael as their middle name causes the red hair. Brady, Murphy, Griffin, Halley and Riley all send their love. You guys are doing a great job!!!
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