NICU Day #2- June 16th, 2011

Wes continued to progress throughout the night. His breathing was much slower this morning and the doctor's decided that if his breathing remained under 60 breaths per minute, that he could take a bottle. I had been pumping since shortly after delivery, but I was only getting very small amounts at this point. They would give Wes the breastmilk I was getting via a syringe and then they would offer him a bottle of formula after. He was not too interested in the bottle the first time it was offered to him. I met with a lactation consultant that afternoon, and she decided that he was awake enough to attempt breastfeeding for the first time. Wes started off doing well, but soon fell fast asleep as most 24 hour old babies do! I tried to give him the bottle instead but he was too sleepy, all he wanted to do was snuggle with mommy! Even though a part of me wanted to work with him since I had not been able to breastfeed him right away, the rest of me just wanted to hold him in my arms and cuddle. I didn't attempt to breastfeed him every time, because I knew that expended a lot of the energy that he needed to get better. He spent the rest of the day sleeping and showing little interest in the bottle. This made mommy and daddy sad because we knew they were not going to discontinue his IV and let him leave until he was eating well.

I spent the night in tears again! My poor nurses probably thought they were going to need to call for a psych evaluation! I was extremely tired, not eating or drinking enough, and emotionally drained. I tried to sleep that night, but getting up to pump and check on my little man kept me up most of the night. When I woke up the next morning, sure enough Chad was not in the room. When he came back from his morning visit with Wes, he told me that he took all of his bottles all night for Johnni! I guess it just took his favorite nurse to whip his hiney into gear! Now all we needed was to get rid of the IV and pray that his 48 hour blood culture was negative so they could discontinue his antibiotics and let him come down to mommy and daddy's room!!