God blessed us with two huge answers to prayer yesterday. I went to the hospital to atempt nursing for the first time. When I got there, I successfully changed another diaper without being sprayed or pooped on (so actually I had 3 answered prayers ;). After his diaper change his nurse took his IV out!!!!!!!!! Now he only has his feeding tube and the leads for the monitors! I was one happy momma!
The lactation specialist came and got me set up to nurse. She told me not to expect him to do much, but that we were just working on making associations between me and food. Steven was wide awake after his diaper change and getting his IV out. She put him on the pillow, opened his mouth (I was so shocked that I don’t remember if he was yawning or really just opened his mouth), and latched right on. He had the funniest expression on his face at first, but then quickly figured out why he was there and started nursing like a champ! I was thrilled! The lactation specialist was shocked. The NICU has a very cool scale where they can weigh the baby before he eats and then right after and the scale will tell them how much milk they actually drank…I think that’s the coolest thing. They do that because it’s so important that premies get a full meal at each feeding so they can suppliment with a bottle if they didn’t get enough nursing.
We worked with Steven on nursing for about 10 minutes. Near the end he started getting snuggled in and falling asleep. Even though he did a great job he probably didn’t take in much milk, so they hooked up his feeding tube and we kangarooed while his tummy got full. He was so passed out that he stayed asleep even when the nurse put him back in his bed on his back (which he usually hates).
I’m so thankful for this amazing experience with my baby boy. I’ll be going back to try nursing again once a day until he really gets the hang of it. Please keep praying for him to take his bottles and nurse well so he’ll be ready to come home. 🙂
