Ruth, thanks so much for sharing the details of this story.  It IS quite
incredible!  It is quite impressive that this mother continued pumping
through those failed attempts.  Most women find it to be more stress
than they can handle.  I'm so happy that her latest attempt at adoption
was successful!

I wonder if the long period of taking motilium made a big difference.
If only it would be approved for use in the USA!  I have never had
personal contact with anyone who was able to use metoclopramide for very
long because of side effects, although all have felt that it helped, at
least to some extent, with milk production.

Now, for tandem nursing adopted babies who are both nursing with a
supplementer.  I did this for about six months with my last two
children, Joseph and Joanna (Thomas and Julia tandem nursed for a year
but he was no longer using a supplementer by that time). It was tricky
to begin with but fortunately, after the first few weeks, Joseph became
content to be held in my other arm with his hand inside my shirt while
Joanna was nursing.  I just got a big rocking chair and accepted the
fact that I would be holding them both whenever she nursed!

One thing that helped was to try to anticipate when she would need to
nurse and nurse him just before that.  If he'd even had a few minutes of
nursing, he seemed to have his needs met so that he didn't resent her
nursing, as long as I kept holding him too.

Nursing two at the same time with a supplementer can be tricky.  One
problem with using both tubes of one SNS for this, is that it will form
a vaccum inside and air will then rush in when one child breaks the
suction, causing some backwash of saliva into the unit.  I would not be
real concerned about a bit of saliva from the newborn getting to the
toddler, but would be if it were the other way around.  Since the
toddler would probably be the first to realize that if he let go for a
second the milk would start flowing faster again,  I would expect that
you would end up exposing the new baby to bacteria from the toddler's
mouth.

The best thing I could think of is to use two units.  This is really not
that difficult with the Lact-Aid, because it is less bulky, especially
if the bags are not filled completely full.  (The basic kit contains two
units, so this mother who already has the SNS would only have to buy one
kit if she decided to try this.)  I guess you could use two of the SNS,
but two of those and two babies would make for a pretty crowded chest!

I wish this mother all the best!

Darillyn