Wednesday, 09 February 2011
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| Lil Ipin |
As soon as I arrived home from being discharged from the hospital, I had lunch and rushed back to the hospital to feed my babies who were still stuck in the nursery ward. I could only take them out to feed them, and not a minute longer as they needed to be back under photo-therapy. So precious moments were spent in the breast-feeding room near Ward 3.
Doctor Loh, the pediatrician, made it very clear to me that the issue he was worried about for Twin 2 was his falling birthweight. He was born at 2.29kg, which is a decent weight for a full-term baby but for a baby born at the end of 34 weeks gestation, he needed a little more observation. He did say he could ask the nurse to give Twin 2, Ipin, more formula per feed, but at such a young gestation and low birthweight, it was likely that his digestive system wasn't very well-developed and more formula would work against him rather than for him. Breastmilk or colostrum was best, and he encouraged me to express and come feed Ipin when I could.
So i did, camp myself at Thomson, ignoring my general fatigue, little discomfort from my c-section wound to nurse my baby back into my arms.
We were delighted to have Twin 1, Upin, return with us the very next day. But Ipin was held back for another 2 days. Every moment I spent with him in the breastfeeding room was precious! He was a fiesty little thing, and despite my breastmilk not coming in as quickly as I had hoped, the nurses still encouraged me to nurse him.
I also met many mothers in the breastfeeding room. One of them had a preemie baby at 32 weeks who was at NICU. She was also expressing for him, but couldn't feed him herself as he couldn't suckle yet. Instead she fed him by tube. It was the 2nd week for her, with no indication yet, when she could bring him home.
We both shared how painful it was to leave the hospital without our babies, and how we never expected our time in cofinement to be spent confined in the hospital.
I counted myself really lucky, that both Upin and Ipin made it as far as they did, with a decent birthweight to boot. And that Ipin, maybe had only a day or two more in nursery, before I could bring him home. And i pray really hard that the mommy i met will soon be able to bring her baby home with her.
