Saturday, June 14, 2008--Day 19

Today was an OK day for Clare, but Tim and I struggled with our emotional and physical fatigue.  I guess that even with our many advantages--living so close to the hospital, having jobs where our supervisors are understanding and supportive, and enjoying a stable and loving marriage--even our plentiful resources can get depleted. 

Clare is tolerating her feeds very well, digesting the increasing amounts quickly and eliminating the waste normally.  We can tell it's taking a lot of her energy, though.  Her isolette was reduced to 26 degrees C today (part of her graduation to a cradle depends on her maintaining her body temperature in a 26 degree environment) and at 2pm we discovered her body temperature had dropped, despite being in a sleeper and hat and swaddled in two blankets. This is her little body's way of saying, "whoa!  I can only do so many things at once here."  So we wrapped her in a onesie, then all the other layers, and her isolette temperature was raised to 26.5 C.  This means she'll stay in her isolette longer, but we're OK with that.  To avoid tiring her out further, we decided to have her fed via her gavage line until 8am tomorrow. She's most awake and energetic then, and has had the best luck with breast- and bottle-feeding then.  Most of all, we want Clare to rest as much as she needs to so she can get stronger.  We both want so badly for her to be strong enough so we can pick her up and carry her around or have her sleep in our arms, but she still is technically in gestation and we need to give her the developmental time she should have had in the womb.

A word about breastfeeding.  I'm one of those women who has always been, and remains, pretty squeamish about the whole idea.  I had planned to breastfeed anyway, just because it's what's best for babies, blah blah blah.  Here's the clincher, though:  the mother of a premature infant makes milk in exactly the right combination of fats, proteins, etc. that her baby needs at that point in his/her development.  So whatever my body was making when she was a week old and between 32 and 33 weeks' gestation is exactly what her little body needed at that point in her development.  What I make right now is exactly what a preemie at 34 weeks, 3 days needs. Plus, she gets whatever antibodies I have, so that improves her immune system and decreases her risk of catching stuff.  That's why it's all the sadder when other moms of preemies in the ICN stop (or never start) breastfeeding.  So, I'm still squeamish about the whole issue, but my concern for my little girl makes this a frank and discussable issue.  Still not joining the La Leche League, though.

Clare weighed in at 5 lbs tonight! 

We love this little girl so much.  All of you who told us we'd fall in love with her--you were absolutely right.