Well, yesterday we had Lydia's two week appointment on what was scheduled to be her birth date! I am still a little jealous that she didn't get the cool birthday (8-8-08), but when I think about having to be pregnant two weeks longer than I was already- I quickly get over it!
When she was born she had a little blood sugar issue, which thank God reversed itself quickly enough to avoid a trip to the NICU. However, feeding and weight gain are issues that have really plagued us these past two weeks. Her jaundice (which went up to 16.8 at one point) made her a very lazy eater in those first several days and being three weeks early didn't really help either. During our last night at the hospital she lost 13% of her body weight...over the "allowed" 10%. It scared me to death. I really didn't think they were going to let us go home. She finally gained 1 oz after going straight to formula for 24 hours and we were allowed to go home, but were told to supplement every nursing feeding with a 2 oz formula feeding. Since she was getting so much formula I was also pumping to keep my supply up...talk about exhaustion. Nurse for 20 minutes, bottle feed for about 10 minutes and then pump for 20 minutes...that's almost an hour folks...and that had to be repeated every 2 1/2 hours. That continued for a couple of days and all the while I had to take her to be weighed every morning. Unfortunately all of those bottles were making it harder and harder to get her to nurse successfully. I was and still am torn between not wanting to lose my ability to nurse and worrying that she won't gain enough weight if I stop the formula feeding.
By yesterday she was supposed to be back up to her birth weight of 7 Lbs. 14 oz., but that didn't happen. She did get back up to 7 lbs 11 oz, so we were very close. Dr. P. allowed us to switch to every other feeding with supplements and then if she seemed to still have plenty of wets and poopies we could try to nurse exclusively starting tonight through Monday morning, when I will have to have her weighed again to check her progress. So please say a little prayer for us that nursing exclusively will be sufficient enough for her to gain weight. If not, I am not sure how long I will be able to continue to nurse. 1 hour feedings every couple of hours plus a two year old is not exactly realistic, so something will have to give.
In other news she passed all of her screening tests and as I said weighed 7 lbs. 11 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long!...and can I just say that I could just eat up those sweet little full lips! I love this picture of her!
3 comments:
I love my niece and cannot wait to see her more often :)
Hey hun! Where have I been?!?! I have been so behind on checking all my blogger friends and didn't even realise sweet Lydia was here! She is absolutely beautiful! I am so happy for you Lindsey and your family. Girls are wonderful and you are going to enjoy her so much. I have to keep up with the blog more often to watch the little one grow! I hope to see you all soon! You all are in my thoughts everyday. With love, Peyton
Don't stress about the nursing issues! What you described is exactly what we went through for 4 weeks until the lack of sleep and a 2 year old made me finally decide to give it up! Sometimes you just have to give in - as much as you don't want to!
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