Its good to be home!

We have been home from the hospital for over a week now. I don't think there is anything like spending 24 hours a day in a hospital with your babies for 9 days straight to make you appreciate being at home. And we had it so easy. Some babies have to stay in the NICU for 100+ days. We were so lucky. Our girls were in the NICU for less than one day (about 12 or 14 hours) and then spent the rest of their time in the Continuing Care Nursery.

When we got home, on of my first priorities was to give the girls a bath. They hadn't been bathed since they were born and they seemed dirty to me. They still (!) have their umbilical cord stumps so all they can get is sponge baths for now but those stumps are almost ready to come off. Here are some pictures of the very first bath. Miss Amelia:

And Miss Claire:

 

 

They aren't the biggest fans of bath time but they have both done pretty well. They've had a few more baths since this first one. They don't particularly like being bathed but they seem to really enjoy having their hair washed. And they just smell so GOOD afterward! I can't wait until their belly-buttons are ready so they can have a real bath.

Here's something you didn't know about preemies- they grunt. A lot. And sometimes they hum. Its really cute when they hum. The grunting kind of makes you feel bad for them. We had to stop sleeping in the same room with the babies because they were making so much noise that we couldn't get any sleep. Its caused by an immature nervous system but it just makes Mommy nervous. Now we sleep across the hall from the nursery in the guest bedroom. That way we can hear the girls if they cry but not hear every grunt and hum. I wish I had a video to post.

(FYI The next paragraph discusses nursing and breastmilk. So if that's TMI, skip to the bottom)

Feeding the girls is still our main challenge. They are both getting lots of breastmilk but we are still working on actually nursing. So that we can actually get some sleep, we are nursing during the day and doing bottles of breastmilk at night. The good thing about the bottles- it takes them about 10 minutes to finish a bottle. When they nurse... it takes them about 40 minutes each. Each! Theoretically I can nurse them both together but its a challenge. Since they don't have much head control it makes it hard. I have come to realize that I care more about them getting breastmilk than actually nursing. So lots of pumping going on over here.  Amelia is our little piggy. She gulps and gulps no matter what you give her. That girl loves to eat! Claire takes her time more and she spits up more. I don't know if she's more gassy or what. The spitting up has really increased the last 2 days. But she seems happy.

My biggest personal challenge is trying not to feel like a bad mom. I feel bad that I can't do everything for each girl that I would be able to do if they weren't twins. But they are healthy and happy so I guess we're doing fine.

When the girls were born, my mom said they didn't look like me at all, but she just informed me that after looking at my baby pictures, Claire looks like me. So maybe she's not the mailman's child after all.