The Infant Stoke Log- Falling back on what you know to approach what you don't
Honestly, I was caught a little flat footed when I got the call. The twins were arriving at 35 weeks, 3 weeks before they were expected. My wife, Laura had gone to the hospital with no labor signs, for a regular check-up at lunch time, and by 8:30 that evening we had our all-natural, non-induced twin boys!
Laura and I began dating and eventually got married during my MFA and we spent much of our time during those years on the road firing wood kilns around the country. We learned many ways of logging firings during those years, from Gustin’s whiteboards with Lambert’s Omni Temps, to spiral-bound notebooks with charred edges. I think it was that experience simmering to the surface when Laura designed our logbook for the twins. There is a column for date, time, sleep (which we don’t really use… or get), feeding style and duration, and diaper productivity. Essentially a stoke log with an eye on the chimney. She (luckily) thought it was quite funny and appropriate when I drew the comparison one evening at the hospital.
The twins are fraternal and different physically and temperamentally, not unlike a given selection of kiln designs. Our first born, delivered at 20:20 pm learned to feed quickly and achieved a consistent pattern of roughly 2 hours between cycles which grew in length to 3 hours as he approached 1 week. This consistency was a blessing for Laura and I to get some rest ourselves. Our second son had a very choppy feeding cycle which alerted our nurses of a possible problem which eventually required surgery at just 3 days old. Essentially, he couldn’t find a rhythm because of some tummy trouble related to a blocked “exit flue” (intestines) and eventually our son was unable to hold anything down.
I followed the ambulance and when he and I got to the Children’s hospital, Laura and our other son were still in the first hospital awaiting discharge. The surgeon stopped by and informed me that it was one of 2 options and both were time sensitive. He allowed Laura and I to decide but suggested that earlier was better in either case and that evening our son went to a 3-hour surgery. It turned out that it was the worse of the two options but caught in good time and now as I write this, I am by my son’s side in the NICU as he recovers.
As we slowly reintroduce food by mouth to our son in the NICU and continue to care for our son at home we are relying on the infant stoke log that Laura developed to help us remember and communicate what was eaten and when. Also, how that fuel is processed by our two little babies who will hopefully see the humor of this article one day on shift with me at a wood kiln of our own.