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Mamas who are spending time in the NICU - Page 4

post #61 of 87
5/19/06 at 8:16pm
Yay Maggie!!!!! Congrats on going home!
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post #62 of 87
5/19/06 at 8:42pm
Sam's home safe and sound!

New pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/samanthab
post #63 of 87
5/20/06 at 9:26am
Congrats sehbub! Sam's a cutie!!!
post #64 of 87
5/20/06 at 5:51pm
Congrats to all you mamas bringing babies home. Giant hugs to those still waiting. I'd like to ask that anyone who has a moment to help out this woman Beth on Birth and Beyond to please visit her thread. She had a c-section after being on mag sulfate for a long time and has a 27 week baby. She is feeling pretty traumatized.
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=455398
post #65 of 87
5/21/06 at 11:58am
Hi All! I'm joining in. I'm Cindy from New York City. My son Matthew was born April 26, 2006 at 35 weeks GD. My original dd was May 29, so he's still adjusted to minus 2 weeks old. Baby is home and doing well, but I contracted a C. difficile colon infection that has me having to take antibiotics and pumping away until I'm off them. Matt is unfortunately being formula fed until then. I also now have a hyperactive thyroid which will hopefully go away on its own. I get tested again in 2 1/2 weeks.

The most frustrating thing for me is how long Matt takes to eat. He can take over an hour to finish a bottle, then I have to pump, change him, eat, bathe, etc, not to mention the infection is causing all sorts of secondary infections...

Hoping that the infection goes away with this first dose of antibiotics. If all goes well I can SNS him starting 9am next Sunday.
post #66 of 87
5/21/06 at 12:49pm
Thread Starter 
Welcome Cindy and welcome your new baby!

I can relate to it taking a while to get the baby to bottle feed. DH feeds Maggie her bottles of breastmilk/premie formula to "fatten"her up and it can take a good hour to feed 50 ccs sometimes.
post #67 of 87
5/21/06 at 2:46pm
Sam's the same way. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for a 50cc feed, and other times it's almost an hour, then I pump and get her re-swaddled and back to bed.

Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on? That's the biggest problem for Sam and I. I'm thinking it will work like the lightswitch for bottle feeding, and one day she'll just "get it" but I was wondering if there was anything I could do to make things a little easier for her. As of now, I offer the breast after I've pumped a bit so that she doesn't have to pull for letdown. My nipples are about the size of a quarter, and flat, so maybe that's part of the problem...her mouth just isn't big enough yet. She just started taking the full nipple on the preemie bottles, so do you think we should just wait it out?

And welcome, Cindy! Glad to hear baby is doing well, and keeping fingers crossed that you're healthy again soon!
post #68 of 87
5/21/06 at 10:09pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sehbub
Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on?
I offered the breast before the bottle and now that we are home and not on that stupid rigid schedule, I offer it more and more since the bottle gives more than the breast, she will get the breast more. My goal is for her to keep gaining and be at 4 bottles daily by next week and bottles once in a while as main goal eventually.

The monitors keep going off and there is nothing wrong. The leads are bad on one so I just unplugged it today and said F**k it. She is at my side 24/7 so I can see her. Also when it goes off, she is fine and I know since I have seen her desat before. Besides the other monitor picks stuff up faster.
post #69 of 87
5/22/06 at 1:49pm
Marlow's not home yet. She keeps having apnea episodes. We were supposed to be getting her tomorrow but she had 2 more episodes this morning.

The NICU is so crowded right now. The doctors are putting her on caffeine and a monitor and then we can finally bring her home. We are now just waiting for that monitor to arrive and then we get her. I wonder if the monitor is going to be really complicated for us to use.

It's great to finally get a real go home date without having to stress out about her having episodes and taking full bottles.

It always scares me to give her the breast and have her not take enough milk and then have to insert another gavage tube. It's so hard to watch. But now I have to make sure I'm getting enough milk for her. She's up to 60cc a feeding and I'm only producing about 70cc a pumping.

Here is last weeks pics...still with tube

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...y/Swaddled.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...owwithMama.jpg
post #70 of 87
5/22/06 at 3:18pm
Thread Starter 
what a cutie she is!!

here is my cutie:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...t/DSC00092.jpg
post #71 of 87
5/22/06 at 4:14pm
All those babies are so beautiful
post #72 of 87
5/22/06 at 4:44pm
Thank you, Amy. We'll keep plugging along!
post #73 of 87
5/23/06 at 3:48pm
Thread Starter 
OK-Im a bit mad.:

Maggie came home on monitors oxygen etc. The monitors have driven us crazy since they are dinging non stop about nothing. the spo2 one goes down to like 20 and then immediatly up to 100 again. Its also super loud. Then the leads all suck so we got this wrap around thing. This morning when dh checked it, it made Maggie black and blue. I said enough and we unplugged the monitors after them doing this for 40 hours straight. Guess what? We have a baby now! She is so happy to be off them and actually slept so soundly this morning and nursed very well. Now she is alert and happy so I put her on a blanket for some tummy time and boom- she turned over and had a satified look on her face. So the monitors can stick it and I can have my baby! She sleeps near us or with us, I nurse her all day around the clock or wear her. I think I will know is there is an issue. The nurse agreed

BUT I am still mad she had to go thru this and we had to pull our hair out over such nonsense!
post #74 of 87
5/23/06 at 5:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sehbub
Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on? That's the biggest problem for Sam and I. I'm thinking it will work like the lightswitch for bottle feeding, and one day she'll just "get it" but I was wondering if there was anything I could do to make things a little easier for her.
Are you using a nipple shield? That can *really* help get baby on the breast. It's still an articifical nipple, and you'll have to wean off THAT, but it's easier than pumping and giving bottles!

The LC at my NICU had all preemies use a nipple shield when first breastfeeding - she didn't even have us try without it. And Joshua was able to go home 100% breastfeeding because of that nipple shield. I was SO glad, because he was needing more milk at that point, and my supply was going to dwindle if I kept with just a pump. I needed the more efficient baby to get my supply back up, which he did quite nicely.

For weaning off the shield, I just offered once a day without it, and if it didn't work, I put the shield on. After about 2 weeks, one day he finally latched onto the breast and started sucking like a pro! I think he did it for the next feeding too, then after that he couldn't get it. It took another 2 weeks to completely wean off that shield, but once he had gotten the breast itself, I just offered that first, then put the shield on if I needed it.
post #75 of 87
5/23/06 at 5:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amys1st
Maggie came home on monitors oxygen etc. The monitors have driven us crazy since they are dinging non stop about nothing. the spo2 one goes down to like 20 and then immediatly up to 100 again. Its also super loud.
I've heard that about the monitors. Ugh.

So has she had any apnea episodes lately? If not, it sounds like you don't need the monitors anyway! Once DS went 5 days without apnea episodes, he only had ONE more, and it was during a feeding, which really I don't count as "real" apnea... It's more the fact that he's a piggy and forgets to breathe while eating. After that (the first night home, btw), he never stopped breathing again.

When do they think Maggie will be able to come off the O2? I'll bet that's kind of a pain too, so I hope it will be soon.
post #76 of 87
5/24/06 at 9:46am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by boscopup
I've heard that about the monitors. Ugh.

So has she had any apnea episodes lately? If not, it sounds like you don't need the monitors anyway! Once DS went 5 days without apnea episodes, he only had ONE more, and it was during a feeding, which really I don't count as "real" apnea... It's more the fact that he's a piggy and forgets to breathe while eating. After that (the first night home, btw), he never stopped breathing again.

When do they think Maggie will be able to come off the O2? I'll bet that's kind of a pain too, so I hope it will be soon.
She has had no episodes for a long time - about since a week before she came home but that one bout of episodes is why she had the o2 and monitors. She has had none and again all were feeding or pooping related. But since I pulled the plug on the monitors she is this very happy chatty baby who has taken to rolling over already!
post #77 of 87
5/24/06 at 10:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amys1st
She has had no episodes for a long time - about since a week before she came home but that one bout of episodes is why she had the o2 and monitors. She has had none and again all were feeding or pooping related. But since I pulled the plug on the monitors she is this very happy chatty baby who has taken to rolling over already!
Hooray!!! So is she off the O2 as well? I remember when DS had one day where he had a bunch of apnea episodes just out of the blue (at 2 weeks old), they put him on O2 for the day, but he kept pulling it off his nose, so finally they decided he must not need it! He wasn't having any problems when the O2 was removed. After that weird day, he went back to just very occasional apnea.

But it sounds like Maggie has outgrown her apnea, so yipee!!!! That apnea stuff is so scary.
post #78 of 87
5/24/06 at 12:17pm
Thread Starter 
still on the O2 but its like a puff at 1/32 of a liter. I have been lugging around this little tank in a bag. Nothing compared to the crzy monitors she is supposed to be on.
post #79 of 87
6/1/06 at 3:52pm
Yay! Marlow is home.
But now I have a bunch of questions I was hoping you guys could help me with...please

How long should I wait to announce her being home to the rest of the world? I'm worried that everyone who has been waiting to see her are all going to want to come visit at the same time. (our NICU didn't allow any visitors that weren't the parents or grandparents).

Anyone else have a baby on caffeine notice any side effects? I'm wondering if her being so gassy is related to the cafcit. Or maybe it's normal for a newborn to grunt and cry with every poop?? She only gets breastmilk and her meds but maybe it's something in my diet?

Is it normal for babies to "hum" or snore when they sleep?

She seems to be crying more here than at the hospital. She's consolable but I wonder if maybe she is mourning or missing her hospital environment as it was her little home for a long time.

Her monitor hasn't gone off here yet. I hope it's working correctly and she's just doing really well.

It's great having her home. I love being able to care for her here and not ask permission to hold or calm her.
post #80 of 87
6/1/06 at 5:53pm
Thread Starter 
Great questions btw-


How long should I wait to announce her being home to the rest of the world? I'm worried that everyone who has been waiting to see her are all going to want to come visit at the same time.
We still have not told people Maggie is home yet and its been over two weeks now. Limit visits for a while longer- at least a week. All the visitors will have plenty of time to see here. If you do allow them sooner than later, be strict about wellness and hand washing.


Anyone else have a baby on caffeine notice any side effects? I'm wondering if her being so gassy is related to the cafcit. Or maybe it's normal for a newborn to grunt and cry with every poop?? She only gets breastmilk and her meds but maybe it's something in my diet?could be something your eating. Maggie also grunts w/ the pooping

Is it normal for babies to "hum" or snore when they sleep?yes to a point

She seems to be crying more here than at the hospital. She's consolable but I wonder if maybe she is mourning or missing her hospital environment as it was her little home for a long time.Again, give her at least a week to get acclimated to your home enivironment. It took Maggie a good week to get used to home. So limit visiting again for this too

Her monitor hasn't gone off here yet. I hope it's working correctly and she's just doing really well. She is!
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