(Pre) Occupation # 1

Ok, I've omitted a rather large part of my life over the last four months, so it's finally time to come clean. My main preoccupation in life is... wait for it... milk.

When I was pregnant, nursing seemed like a good idea, lots of health benefits, financial benefits, and frankly simpler than bottles and formula. But I was pretty intimidated about nursing twins, and actually read a couple books to get ready. Then I went and had two preemies in the hospital. Suddenly something that seemed like a healthy convenience became the primary way I could contribute to the health and weight gain of these tiny babies, and it took on a very emotional dimension.

So it's been a roller coaster for me. I've pumped milk since mid-May, and carted it back and forth to the hospital. Initially this sucked, although I've done it so many hundreds of times now that I hardly notice. I spent weeks working with both babies on nursing, with varying degrees of success. When Ada came home from the hospital a month ago, she refused to nurse and would just scream in my face. I'm proud to say I've since won her over! And now that they're home from the hospital, every time they do eat from a bottle, they get different additives, so we are actually managing two separate sets of bottles, in addition to the nursing and pumping.

And I was intimidated by JUST NURSING.

It's been a long haul, and has required lots of persistence, but has had some great payoffs too. By some miracle, I've been able to feed both babies for every meal of their first four months of life. They are gaining weight, and I'm losing it. Both babies will nurse, and both will eat from bottles. Nursing is cheap and easy. All in all, I consider the whole situation a success.

Forgive me if my conversational skills have reached a low point -- this is the major thing going on in my life! But I promise to have a new occupation again someday soon...