Flara sputtered in the NICU with her weight gain, and we were always hearing how she had 'poor weight gain.' In her final days of her stay, however, she began to gain the typical ounce a day. Combined with her eating well, Flara was able to come home.
She seemed to be eating well with us, but we began to notice that she was beginning to nurse less and less effectively. She seemed to be getting weaker, so we began supplementing her with more bottles of milk than her prescribed two-a-day. One day, I decided to pump to see how much milk I was producing. After days of her poorly feeding, I figured that must have affected my supply. The result? A dismal and disappointing 1/4 ounce per side.
I'll admit.... I began crying. Nursing was my most-loved thing to do with Noël. That girl nursed an amazing 17 months, quitting only because I had to quit medically for Flara's sake. With Flara's early arrival, I was grieving the missed in-the-belly time, so I was determined to make up for that bonding time via nursing. To basically lose that has been a shock to me lately. I've been pumping, trying to increase my supply, but I'm not having much success.
Flara, in the meantime, has been taking bottles of expressed milk from all those grueling pumping sessions while she was in the NICU. Her pediatrician gave us a whole new formula of fortification to add TONS of calories to her diet to help her plump. In addition to regular fortifier, she's now getting rice cereal and canola oil added. Yuck. It seems to be helping... at least we think she looks and feels heavier.
We'll recheck this Wednesday. We're now going weekly for weights until she seems to catch up to where she needs to be.
Tomorrow morning I'll be taking Flara to another eye appointment. Her eyes are nearly fully developed, so her eye doc and I are hopeful that after a two-week hiatus, the vascularization process will be complete. If not, we'll just keep going and checking... and, praying that the detoured blood vessels will not stop where the detour took place.
Flara's sleeping schedule is all over the place. Some days she sleeps well at night, some days she stays up at night. With her recent weakness, it's been taking sometimes close to 1 1/2 hours to get her to eat what she needs to. As a result, I'm getting on average 2 hours, 45 minutes of sleep a night. Admittedly, I'm not a sleeping type. I'm happy with 4 to 5 hours, and grumpy if I get more than that. But, this? It's killing me!
Mike will return to week this Tuesday. It scares the life out of me. If I had a typical newborn, I wouldn't be concerned. Noël would be done nursing in 10 to 15 minutes flat, leaving me with plenty of time. With Flara, I'm not only juggling having my hands tied in feeding for such long periods, but I've got a busy little toddler running around who needs attention from her momma. Please, please pray for our family as we make this transition! =)
I realize I have not posted pictures in a while. I think my preceding paragraph explains why! I'll post some new pics soon. Two of Mike's coworkers were kind enough to bring all of their photography gear to our house and take family pics and newborn pics of Flara. They look great! If you're looking for someone in the area to take pictures for you, your cars, guns, anything, please check out their website here... http://www.cfimaging.com/. They do great work!
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