Climbing the Hill

Sorry for another "we're almost there but the last stretch is the hardest" metaphor, but that's the theme of our lives these days.  Today the fellow described our situation as being at mile 20 in a marathon - where you are is really tough and even though you can see the end, it feels far away.  Since I grew up watching the Boston Marathon, I decided that we're climbing Heartbreak Hill.  It's not actually that steep, but the mere fact that there's any incline after you've been working so hard for so long makes it really challenging.

All that said, the kids continue to make good progress.  Olivia has been green-lighted to try six p.o. feeds each day if she's awake and alert.  If she can do this successfully, which all indications suggest she will, that leaves only two "rest" feeds with the n.g. tube.  Both Olivia and Lucas are much more coordinated with their eating, and the challenge for the doctors is to find the right pace to increase their feeding frequency without tiring them out too much.  The challenge for Mom and Dad is to accept the doctors' plans as based on the wisdom of successfully treating - and discharging - many babies before ours.  Also, remembering that even within a single day, we can take steps forward and back.  The babies successfully repeated their double-nursing performance this morning at 8, but at 11 were feeling less cooperative.  Lucas was fired up from having gotten a shot and in trying to get him settled in to nurse, we ended up disrupting Olivia, who was happily nursing away.  She was kind enough to oblige her Mom and take the rest of the feed by bottle.  And the nurse was kind enough to snuggle Lucas as he finished his feed through the tube and then set Mom up to snuggle both babies.

Nobody felt like nursing at 2, or at least nobody successfully latched on, which was frustrating for Mom and babies alike.  As Dad reminded me, this is not a unique experience, but one shared by lots of Moms and new babies.  So we do what we can and try to remember that tomorrow we'll get a chance to try all over again.

Tomorrow, Lucas will have his hernia surgery.  This is a little scary for us, because the idea of any surgery would be scary to us.  The attending has patiently - and largely successfully - reassured us that this is a very minor surgery.  In adults or bigger kids it would be done outpatient, with the person going home the same day.  Lucas will not be able to use his operation as an excuse for discharge, but his recovery time is expected to be quite quick, probably no more than a day or two until he's back to normal.  The docs did decide to give him a blood transfusion, since he is still a bit anemic and the transfusion will significantly speed his post-surgery recovery and help him get those last steps on having the energy to take all his feeds by mouth.  By this weekend, we're hoping to have a pretty good read on when both little ones might be ready to come home.

In the meantime, we are happy to report that Lucas and Olivia are loving each other's company.  The nurse from last night made this wonderful poster for us, which is hanging on Lucas's bed to make us all smile: