Madison is doing her best to prove to us that she can keep up with, and possibly surpass, her sister. Today her feedings were increased to 8ml every 3 hours (this up from the 6ml every 3 hours that she was being fed yesterday). Melia's feedings on the other hand are staying at the same 8ml that she was being fed yesterday since she was having trouble digesting the full amount. So there we have it - where feedings are concerned, Maddie has caught up to Melia. Hopefully this will help bulk her up! ;-) They both gained 10 grams since yesterday. In pounds and ounces this is insignificant as they are still 2lbs 2oz and 2lbs 12oz, as they were yesterday. But, little by little, they're getting there. We get this morning emails from the hospital every morning letting us know how things went overnight. This morning, Madison's email let me know that she pooped 5 times yesterday. I guess I should've kept that in mind when the nurse asked it I wanted to change Maddie's diaper and I gladly accepted. With that, I ch
anged Madison's first REALLY dirty diaper! Aside from dirty diaper changes, we also got to hold the girls this morning. As soon as the nurse asked if we wanted to hold them, Mike jumped up and volunteered to be first before I could get a syllable out! He worked yesterday and missed them a lot. So Mike held Maddie and I held Melia.When we went back tonight we walked in on Maddie having a full blown fit of rage in her isolette. Haha. It was so sad, yet hilarious. She was living up to her Mad Maddie nickname - completely enraged for no good reason. I couldn't believe that all this crazy noise was coming from this little 2lb baby! The nurse was trying to calm her down but it truly seemed that she was upset for no reason. So the nurse wrapped her up and placed her in my arms and she calmed down. What an awesome feeling! Then the nurse asked me if I wanted to try "kangaroo care" - this is a special way to hold the baby so that skin-to-skin contact is made. Ideally, mom or dad would wear a button down shirt so that the shirt could be opened easily and the baby could be placed on mom or dad's chest. Today, I did not have a button down on, but we did the best we could by shifting around my tank top. Madison laid on my chest for over an hour. She spent most of her time sleeping, I think that she could hear the sound of my heart beating - and I believe that it soothed her. The rest of the time she spent looking up at me making funny faces. She's really funny with the faces she makes. ;-) While I was holding Maddie kangaroo style, Mike was holding Lia. She spent the majority of her time sleeping. She looked so calm and peaceful.
Something really started to set it with me today. The woman that I met at the NICU pizza party on Sunday night said something that stuck with me. She had a very similar experience to ours - going into preterm labor and delivering her twins at 26 weeks. She said that we have to give our babies more credit - that they know when it's time to come out of the womb and when they're better off in the outside world. That's something that I'd been trying to convince myself of to make myself feel better about my body not being able to hold the girls in longer. When she said it, I was able to convince myself of it only slightly more. All I was really trying to do was make myself feel better with the whole 'everything happens for a reason' cliche - but it wasn't working because I didn't really believe what I was telling myself. But in the past couple days as I look at Madison and how much smaller she is than Melia, I'm realizing more and more that while they were inside of me, sharing a placenta, that Melia was clearing stealing some of Madison's nutrition, and while the doctors noticed this at about 23 weeks along, at that point there was only a 4oz difference between them and follow up ultrasounds showed the same 4oz difference, so there was nothing to worry about. But when they came out and there was a 12oz difference between them, it became obvious that Melia had stolen some food from Madison - and had this continued if they stayed in utero, who knows what the outcome would've been for Maddie. Maddie knew that she needed to get out of there in order to stay strong enough to make it - I believe that. And while it doesn't take away from the fact that I want my babies back inside of me - it does legitimately make me feel better to know that this happened in order to save Maddie. I mean, what would the world have done without this little face???
I'll leave you with so
me classic Maddie moments. She's quite the character this little one. She tends to keep one eye opened at almost all tim
es; it's as if she's afraid to fully go to sleep because she doesn't want to miss anything. And of course, it wouldn't be a day without Maddie trying to remove her oxygen from her nose. Haha. She's too much. Meanwhile, Melia was hanging out, trying to get her breathing right after going back into her isolette when daddy was done holding her.
