Day 47, Thursday, December 30

Two steps forward, one step back. They said it could happen but it is really frustrating. I was so hopeful yesterday that we were getting out of here this weekend but after today, that’s not happening.


I started freaking out about all the stuff we need to get done before Tate gets home so I recruited the troops and they were all at my house today with a whole list of things to do. I still have to get to the store though and pick out bottles, nipples and pacifiers. I’ll need to get the calorie supplement and his vitamins too but I am still waiting for the NP to tell me exactly which kinds to buy before I do that. Dr. Samson came by again and said we won’t make New Years but a few days after. So we’re still close, just not as close as I was hoping.

I put Tate back to the breast today with disappointing results. Although his latch and suck is much better than it was last time we tried to breastfeed, he still only took 4 mls. So we still have a lot of work to do on the breastfeeding. The nurse today told me I probably don’t want to be breastfeeding more than once a day until he gets off the calorie supplement. So it will be pretty slow going at first but that will give him plenty of time to figure it out and build us some stamina. Once he’s off the supplement and doing good with one breast feed then we can move up to a second one. She said that I should nurse him and then wait and see how long it was before he gets hungry again. When he gets hungry feed him a bottle, obviously, and use that as a measure as to how much milk he’s getting. When he can go a full 2-3 hours after nursing, then we can add the second one. She also reminded me that I can come to the lactation clinic here as often as I want and they’ll weigh him before and after to see how much he’s getting.

The good news was that although we spent 30 minutes nursing and I was worried he would be too tired for a bottle, Tate took his whole bottle in less than 10 minutes. I was really happy to see that since he doesn’t have his tube in anymore. I don’t want them to have to put it back in. But what I want and what Tate needs turned out to be two different things.

I was surprised he did so good with his noon bottle after nursing but I guess it didn’t hit him till later cause the 3:00 feeding was probably our worst one ever (for me and him anyways). He was really tired and wasn’t really awake. I was thinking we probably shouldn’t do it but really didn’t want to see them put his tube back in so I tried it anyway. I knew better and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. He was barely awake and ended up choking several times. The third time he choked was really bad. His heart rate dropped, he d-sated down to about 50% and was turning blue. I called the nurse over and she took him and held him till he got his pulse ox back up. She didn’t do anything special to him, just held him tight while he recovered. She got him to take the bottle again and gave him back to me but that was it for me. I was in tears and couldn’t have kept feeding him even if he had wanted to. But he was still asleep. So I gave up.

The disappointment with the failed nursing session, the tension of feeding him, the scare of him choking like that, plus the guilt cause I knew in the first place we should have just tubed that feeding - it took me quite a bit to get it back together. The nurse and NP kept checking on me and telling me it was okay. The NP did change Tate’s orders so that he has to eat a minimum amount every 4 hours, not necessarily his full bottle every 3 to see if that would be better for him.

He never took the rest of his 3 pm bottle but he took his full bottle plus some extra at 6 pm for the nurse. Then Jamie fed him at nine and midnight and he was still too tired and stressed so he never took a full bottle. He also had a bad choking episode for Jamie. So finally the nurse said it was time to put his tube back in and let him rest. That’s what I had been hoping for after he didn’t take the full 9:00 feeding. I am hoping they gavage him for both the 3 am and the 6 am feedings before they try a bottle again. He is so wiped out and stressed from us trying to stick a bottle down his throat. My poor baby.

It is SO frustrating to not be able to feed my son a bottle. It should be so easy and it’s not. It’s scary and hard – for both of us. I am glad though that we tried the breastfeeding again before we got home. It would not have been good to have this happen at home. So now we know what’s too much for him. At this point, I am ready to stop the breastfeeding again for two more weeks and try again when he’s bigger and has more energy to burn so I am going to talk to the nurse tomorrow and get her take on it. Surprisingly, he did gain 12 grams today so it wasn’t a loss like I was expecting after the hard day he had.