Day 45

The "discharge" talk has continued today...the nurses have even started squirreling away the formula we will need at home to add to the breastmilk Brynn gets. I've learned so much about feeding and infant nutrition these days that I will have lots of interesting things to talk about at parties from now on. For example, I now know that breastmilk has 20 calories per ounce. They want Brynn getting 26 calories per ounce of food so we have to mix in formula to "soup" it up a bit. They are also pretty sure that she is going to need to come home in what they call a "car bed" rather than a normal infant car seat because she is too small. The nurse estimated that we will be in Care by Parent sometime this weekend and that she is likely to discharge (if things continue to go well) be early next week. YEAH!!!....and YIKES!!! It's odd to have such competing emotions of extreme excitement and extreme anxiety.

Brynn's weight was up to 3 lbs 10 oz last night. She hadn't gotten weighed yet when I was there tonight, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow for that news. She started having some trouble with spitting up today. One of her night nurses in the last few nights suggested that she be allowed to eat more than her alloted milk because she thought she might still be hungry at times. So, they had begun to put somewhere between 40 and 45 ml in her bottle when she is technically only supposed to need 33 ml per feed. Well, she has often been taking around 40 ml, but she started spitting up as well. So, I tried suggesting that maybe she is being overfed. The doctor evidently agreed because when they called her to let her know about the spit-up, she requested that they reduce her feeds back to 35 ml. This might seem ridiculous to be discussing such small quantities, but if she continues to spit up so much they are going to put her on an anti-nausea medication.

We'll keep you posted on weight, spit-up, and discharge!