Hospital Stay : Day 8

I won't lie. I thought the title for this post was going to be Going Home. I've decided I'm not getting my hopes up on anything until I see the paperwork that says she HAS BEEN DISCHARGED. Yesterday Dr. X said 2 days. Then a nurse came in and did an examination around 11pm saying she was getting to go home tomorrow (today). That same nurse was in this morning and said she thought Dr. X would agree that Jolynn could be discharged today. Dr. X shows up and tells Jon (he was there for her feeding) she will be here one more night. Now her reason for staying here is that she did not gain weight.

We switched to on-demand feeding. The nurses will call the room when she is getting hungry or stirring. We are only going to do bottles that way we know how much she is taking. It will still be breastmilk but we will know her intake.

I nursed at 5 and 8am. Both being about 15-18 min. After the 8am feeding I went back to the room and pumped (9am), then took a shower, and started to pack up the room. Don't count those chickens before they hatch. I should have known better. The NICU called at 9:30 and said Jolynn had not gone to sleep and was still hungry. Since I had just pumped I sent Jon down to give her a bottle. That's when he met with Dr. X. Jon got done giving Jolynn her bottle at 10am. Her next feeding was at 11. I showed up anyway, but they said we were doing on-demand feeding so they would call when she woke up. It got to be 1pm and I thought being that it was 3 hours from when she last finished maybe she would be hungry - nope, still sleeping! They don't let them go more than 4 hours with out feeding so I know we will go down by 2. I am just surprised that she is sleeping this long. This is the way I wanted to be feeding her though. Babies should eat, sleep, and poop right now. I didn't feel the feedings were productive because we were waking her up and she was falling asleep 10 min into the feeding. Hopefully she will be more awake for the feedings now.

It seems to be working. The last two feedings Jon has given her 30ml or more. One feeding he had to change 3 poopy diapers. She has been sleeping 3-4 hours between feedings, is awake for the whole feeding, and then stays awake a little after so we can converse with her or rock her to sleep. A lot less frustrating than before, and we are getting more rest in between feedings.