Taking the Scenic Route

Weight has been our biggest struggle since Zora was born.  Pre-e often leads to lower than average birth weights, but I really thought she would be bigger given Zane’s birth size (9lbs 6.3oz, arriving 1 day before EDD).  It was a bit of a shock to see how tiny she was!  One interesting note, she is less than an ounce smaller, and only 1/2 inch shorter than I was at birth. 

Zora’s Weight
12-23-05:  4 lbs 8.7 oz
12-24-05:  4 lbs 6.1 oz
12-25-05:  4 lbs 2.8 oz
12-26-05:  4 lbs 1.4 oz
12-27-05:  4 lbs 3.2 oz
12-28-05:  4 lbs 4.6 oz
12-29-05:  4 lbs 4.8 oz
12-30-05:  4 lbs 4.6 oz

As the week went on, the other issues were slowly resolved until the only thing left that was keeping us there was her weight.  She looked good.  Breastfeeding was going ok (more on that later) given the circumstances, and she could gain weight just as easily at home as at the hospital.  The figure the dr was looking for was around a 20 gram gain a day.  The first day she gained it was 10 grams.  Now considering I went down to 3 lbs and either 8 or 13 oz before I started gaining again, I was elated that she started to gain.  Generally speaking, after 2 days of gain you are allowed to go home.  So, when she gained 41 grams the next day I was ready to do cartwheels because I thought I was going to be allowed to go home.  The doctor still wasn’t happy with the weight.  I think at that point the nurses were starting to advocate for me.  They saw her all day and knew how she was doing.  It would take a few more days to hit the ‘magic number’ of 2000 grams (4 lbs, 6.5 oz). 

The next day I got the impression it was a concerted effort by the nursing staff to help me go home.  During the night I got almost no sleep because we spent most of the night feeding Zora and then weighing her, trying to catch her in between feedings and pooping to get the optimum weight.  The first weight was actually showing a loss, but it could easily be attributed to the removal of the IV during the earlier shift.

Eventually, we got a bit higher of a weight.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the nurse may have bumped it up a bit to make it more palatable for the dr.  I was still in the nursery when the doctor came in in the morning.  I could see that she was looking at my chart, and seeing numerous nurses come by to talk to her.  I left the nursery because they were getting ready for another c-section.  Walked past the doctor, who still had my chart out and dialing someone on the phone. 

I must interject here.  I really do like this doctor.  She is just very young, fresh out of medical school, and not very experienced.  Because doctors don’t spend a lot of time with their patients, they have to go by the numbers.  The nurses are able to go by what they see, considering they are the ones actually spending time with the patients.  This doctor spent a lot of time researching alternative ways for weight gain without using  formula, when I made the demand.  She genuinely cared.  If my main doctor (her partner, who’s on vacation) doesn’t work out, I would have no problems changing to her.

The doctor did finally make her way to my room.  She literally threw up her arms, smiling, and said “Fine. You can go home”.  She had called the lactation consultant, who also advocated that I would do just fine on my own, despite the numbers.  Thank goodness, because I was about to lose my mind being stuck in the hospital.

Breastfeeding

Although it is going as well as can be expected, it is a hard fought battle to make it work.  Our two biggest obstacles:  her immature suck/swallow/breathe reflex, and the logistics of an extremely tiny mouth trying to latch onto a relatively large breast (never thought I’d describe my c cups that way. lol).  She also lacks stamina to complete a feeding.  For a bit, we were stuck in a bad cycle of …needing to eat to get the energy to eat, and not having enough energy to eat. 

We got over the initial stamina hump with enough pumping to stimulate milk production, and fenugreek, and finger/lact-aid/syringe feeding.  I’ve also had to tolerate a lot of nipple latches and otherwise very painful latch-ons.  If I could get her to latch on in any way possible for a minute or two, then she would relax enough for me to correct the latch so that it wasn’t as painful.

I am also finding that I basically am expressing milk on the breast she is nursing to make it easier for her.  This means that nursing is a two-handed fully-engaged activity.  No browsing the internet, no NAK, and very time-consuming.  I am so looking forward to the just-last-on-and-go-on-with-my-life nursing later.

Although a majority of my latch-ons are still pretty painful, she is definitely improving.  At today’s lc’s office today, we weighed before and after.  She ate 34 mL, which is an amount expected for a fullterm baby.