So it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but needless to say, it's been a little chaotic around here with a new baby at home. Yes she is finally home. She came home on April 6th after spending 3 weeks in the NICU. The ride home was frightening though since the incident with her turning blue in the car seat the week before. We did however spend the night at the hospital before taking her home. That was also frightening. Her doctor suggested we "room-in" with her before taking her home so we could get used to her sleeping with us without the monitors and alarms. The room we stayed in was very small, basically a big closet. It had a fold-out couch, a recliner, a lamp and a bathroom. I think there was a phone but there was no tv so we had to watch DVDs on our laptops. They wheeled her isolette in around 9PM and she was ours for the evening. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. I held her for a long time to make sure I could feel her breathing, and then when I put her down I kept one hand on her to make sure she was breathing. We all survived though!
Having her home has been a whirlwind! And let me just say that the $200 we spent on the AngelCare Motion Monitor was well worth it! I don't think I would have slept at all the first few nights if we didn't have it. And we never had an alarm go off which is good because that means she never stopped breathing. The first night home though, she didn't want to sleep in her co-sleeper so I tried rocking her to sleep and fell asleep! I fell asleep with her in the bed with us and we slept for 5 hours with no interruptions! When I woke up I was panicked! I couldn't understand why she didn't wake me to eat but she was fine thank god! That's the last time I've let us fall asleep with her in bed with us. Since then, on average, I think I sleep about 4-5 hours a night, and very rarely are those hours consecutively. She is getting better though and the last two nights she let me sleep for 4 hours before waking up and I actually slept in the bed last night! I had taken up residence on the couch because it's easier to do the nighttime feedings downstairs but oh how I miss sleeping in my bed with my Jason...
I went through some serious baby blues though for a while but I think that has all passed now. It's just so very different having a baby at home and it seemed like our lives were so different and that fact made me scared. I missed life as a twosome and wondered if it would ever be the same. Part of me even wished that I could just have my normal life back and that thought terrified me. I mean, how long would it be before we could lay in bed and snuggle till noon on a Sunday again? Spontaneously go to dinner and a movie? Go to Happy Hour after work? I think that being on bed rest for 6 weeks, then spending every day for 3 weeks in the NICU just took its toll on me. I think part of me was just stir crazy and craving human interaction. But I don't think I would have survived the last few weeks without the help from Jason and my mom and dad. My parents will come over and watch Bri just so I can nap and shower and feel human again.
I was also feeling depressed over our nursing situation. Since she was born prematurely, we were not able to start breastfeeding right away and we just couldn't quite get it to work. So I was pumping milk ever 3 hours, and had gotten real good at multi-tasking so that I could feed her and pump at the same time. But pumping ever 3 hours for 3+ weeks leaves the girls feeling not so good. And how time consuming it all became! Every 3 hours I would warm a bottle, feed Bri, pump, wash and sanitize my pump parts and then I would only have 2 hours left before I would start the whole routine over again. We were able to do a few successful nursing sessions but by that point I was already so sore that I couldn't let her nurse for long enough. We worked with several lactation consultants and they all said that I'm making too much milk, which is why every time we tried it, she would get choked and turn blue. I've gone back and forth over this and cried a million tears but I've decided that I'm going to stop pumping at 8 weeks and switch to formula... I feel so guilty about this decision though that it's tearing me up inside. I feel like we were robbed of our breastfeeding-bonding time in the hospital and that it was my fault because I couldn't stay pregnant long enough to keep her out of the NICU. I think I've overcome these feelings of guilt though, I think.
But she is doing great and growing so much! She has reflux though and we had a few scary feeding events where she would choke on her bottle and turn blue, but her pediatrician said it was due to reflux. She hated eating because it hurt her, and I hated feeding her because it frightened me. She now takes Baby Zantac and it's helped so much! She rarely even spits up now. But, she is so gassy most days and she just lays and grunts and pulls her legs up and flails her little arms. Thank god for the Mylicon gas drops! And yesterday was picture day and the photographer was supposed to be at our house at 1:30 and we had a huge diaper blow-out before she got there! Bri was covered in poo! It was on her back, her tummy, her legs, her special picture outfit! So I had to give her a bath all by myself right before the photographer got there. Then, during pictures, she pooed two more times lol.
Here are some pics of her. These were taken in the hospital on the day she was supposed to come home the first time. She was two weeks old here:
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