What was once 2 now is 4

It's weird to go to the hospital and have your family double in size.

I was so happy to finally have the boys here. They were nice and healthy, one weighing 5 lbs 6 oz and the other weighing 6 lbs 10 oz.

I had plans for how I was going to handle my first few days with them.

-First I wasn't going to stress about feeding them. I was just going to wait until they were hungry and ready.

-Second: I wasn't going to stress about giving them a pacifier or a bottle. I wasn't big on breast feeding, but I thought I'd at least give it a try. But I didn't want it to become this big stressful thing

-Third: I was just going to try and enjoy my time with my babies.

I stuck to these for the most part. I tried breast feeding, and the boys took to it really well. The nurses at this hospital weren't pushy about breast feeding at all, and I really appreciated that.

I tried to be calm and relaxed about feedings, but that flew out the window when one of my boys got low blood sugar and was put in the level 2 NICU. We then followed a strict feeding schedule. I breast fed and then supplemented with formula. They had me report everything to them. And I had to call them in after every feeding so they could test the blood sugar. We got a pretty good schedule down, and I held it together for the first few days.



It was so hard to have a baby in the NICU and it wasn't even that severe of a case. I could go in there and hold him and spend time with him. I can't imagine how it would be if I couldn't. Every night I slept with my one little boy on my chest and we both would fall asleep. That was the best thing in the world, and I wish I could have shared that with my other little boy. We did get some quality time in though.

Towards the end of our stay we had a really awful shift of nurses. There was so much contention, and it made leaving my baby alone in that nursery so much harder. The next morning the Pediatrician told me I wasn't feeding him enough- he was only looking at the time I spent breast feeding and not the amount of formula I was supplementing. I lost it. We had waited all morning for this pediatrician to come in, and then he says that we weren't doing enough. We had worked so hard on making sure that baby was getting as much food as possible. I ended up yelling at him and exclaiming, "I'm sick of this!"

You can't try to plan your labor, or anything after for that matter. You just have to try and take things as they come. I tried to do the best that I could but still got frazzled in the end. I'd still recommend that you try to remain calm and laid back, and just take things as they come. Sometimes you just have to solve the problem at hand instead of fretting over the bigger picture.