The Hospital Stay

What would begin as uneventful, would turn out not to be so.

We tried to nurse right after she was born, and every so often after that. Babies do not acquire their suck swallow reflex until about 37 weeks gestation. So we were two weeks shy of that. But, we kept trying. And everything a baby does burns calories, especially breastfeeding. Because of this, we gave her some formula. We started the formula 14 hours after birth. She was taking about 15 ml's every three hours. (30 ML's is an ounce). She was weighed at midnite, and her weight had dropped to 5 lbs 10 oz. Not good. Especially since she had been eating formula. The pediatrician came in the next morning, and was obviously concerned about the weight drop. So, we were told she would be weighed again at noon. If she had not gained 1/2 oz, she would need to go to the NICU. Well, when she weighed again, she had dropped another 2 oz. She was now at 5 lbs 8 oz. We were told they would contact the pedi and let us know. Well, they came at 3 pm Saturday to take her to the NICU. This was extremely hard. DH had gone to walk some friends out, and I could not get a hold of him, and these people do not wait. I felt absolutely terrible 1. that she was gone, 2. that I could not get him to tell him to come back.

We are told that we can go down to the NICU at any time, we just can not stay. We opt to go to feeding time, so that we can "feed" her. She has to have a tube put in through her nose down into her stomach to be fed. The tube coming out of the nose has an attachment that hooks on to a "bottle" that high calorie formula is put into, and drains down into her stomach. Walking into the NICU for the first time, simply broke us down. You never realize how much something like that is going to affect you until it happens. It makes me tear up now as I write this. After her first feeding we go back to the room, and sit. We finally come to the conclusion that this is best for her, and that is what is important. They feed them every three hours on a schedule with no deviations. There is no holding, touching, or playing with them. They are only held during feeding time. This helps reduce the number of calories they are burning in order to help them gain weight.

They weigh her again, and it is 5, 9. She has done well with the tube feedings overnight, so they decide to try the bottle feeding once again. At 6 that night, the lactation lady comes to meet with us in there and show us the supplemental nursing system. We weigh her just before this, and she is down again, this time to 5, 6. DH and I decide, no breast feeding attempts until we can get the weight issue under control. I am still pumping and we are giving her everything that comes out, but we are supplementing with formula. She is given strict instructions that she must take no less than 35 ml's a feeding, but we are to offer her 45. Most feedings go well, with her taking between 40 and 45. She is only given 20 - 25 mins to do this. If after that time frame, she is not finished, she has to wait until the next feeding. This may sound mean, but they burn so much energy trying to feed, prolonging the time doesn't help matters.

She does great with her feedings and we are discharged on Monday at a weight of 5, 7.7. As you can tell from the picture posted earlier, she was just as happy as we were to be leaving the hospital.