What's new tonight?

Feeding tubes come in two flavors: oral-gastric (OG) and nasal-gastric (NG).  What distinguishes them is the point of entry.  Up to today, the girls have each had OG tubes; you can see them in all the photos.

The problem with OG tubes is that they interfere with nursing.  You simply can't get a nursing position that's comfortable to the baby when there's a tube in the baby's mouth.  Since we're dedicated to getting the girls used to nursing ASAP even though the nursing is not yet essential to nutrition, the OG tubes have been a bit of a problem.  Evelyn especially has had trouble with "latching," which is essential.  She struggles and makes a kind of quick kissing sound that Ginger likens to the infamous scene in Silence of the Lambs.  Only cuter, I'm assured.  Cute or not, it's not the good, deep latch that will be required later for effective nursing.

So they switched them today to NG tubes.  This happened after I left, so I haven't seen them yet.  Ginger said that installing them looked "uncomfortable."  I'm steeling myself for the sight tomorrow.  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the point at which they'll get their nutrition from bottles and nursing, and the need for tubes will be entirely eliminated.