Hello! May I announce myself as a new mummy of scrummy twins! Matilda (6lbs 10oz) and Dylan (5lbs 7oz) were born by c-section on 13 February and after a prolonged 11 days in hospital we are all now home and very happy! I will upload a pic of these adorable creatures to my profile shortly :-)
The c-section was fine, but by the end of the day I had developed a haematoma so had to go in for a further operation to sort that out. I think this must have slowed my healing a bit, and certainly it made small matters like constipation, trapped wind etc worse afterwards! Also, I developed a UTI and a minor (fingers crossed) wound/womb infection in the last few days in hospital for which I was on IV antibiotics and now tablets. Feeling better already, even though I think I'm overdoing things a bit round the house.
But the main reason we were in so long was that the twins fed poorly in the early days and were jaundiced, necessitating a four-day stay in the low dependency unit for fattening up. By day five M. had lost 12% of birth weight and D. 7%. After four days in the LDU we were pretty much back up to birth weights, thanks to every third feed being intubated (DH and I did the others by bottle). This time last week was a very dark time, feeling like an utter failure as a mum and distraught at having the babies living in a different ward to me and DH (we were blessed with a family room), but a week later and we're home, they are taking huge feeds, and already after just a couple of days we've got into a nice routine. the lack of sleep is punishing, as I'm sure many can relate to, but we're slowly moving form 3 to 4-hourly feeds which feels very exciting!
I am trying to express. The night before last I leaked for the first time overnight, which was so cool! The MW brought over a Medela double pump yesterday and I managed 50mls - a PB! Very little this morning, but I'm still trying to encourage my meagre supply rather than feed them entirely off it! Getting them fed is the priority though, and if I can add some breast milk into the formula mix I'll be a happy lady.
I'll post this across a couple of threads as my poor brain probably can't cope with re-writing!