Day 30

Today's big news: I just got home from getting to give Brynn her first bottle!!! The nurses have gone back and forth in the past several weeks about when we might begin bottle feeding and I left my morning with Brynn a little disappointed that today's nurse didn't believe we were close to starting bottle feeds. I drove to meet my parents this afternoon to drop Riley off so I missed an afternoon feeding and Blaine called me after the 6:00 PM feeding with the news that the doctor put in an order for one bottle-feeding attempt per day. In order for her to get a bottle, she has to show certain "readiness" signs such as being awake and alert prior to feeding time and engaging in some rooting behavior. I drove straight to the hospital this evening and saw a bottle warming in a cup of water right when I got to Brynn's isolette. Meredith, the nurse tonight, informed me that I would get to give Brynn her first bottle tonight. I was pretty nervous at first but Meredith was great about giving me good advice without acting as if the world depending on my 2-lb-baby-bottle-feeding-skills.

Brynn was actually able to get a nipple the size of her arm into her mouth and she promptly began sucking. She was a champ at the whole "suck, swallow, and breathe" combination, but we did have some trouble with keeping the food down. Of course, after 5 minutes of Brynn looking like a pro, Meredith got called away for a delivery and left me in the care of another nurse who then had 6 babies to watch. Brynn then had her first massive spit-up while I frantically called for help. The second nurse didn't seem too worried so I kept giving Brynn the bottle. She ended up taking 20 ml out of the 25 ml in the bottle and then they put the rest down her feeding tube. At that point, she appeared to get choked or had an air bubble she couldn't get up. She turned bright red, started arching her back, and didn't make a noise. I got a little panicky at that point and the nurse grabbed her up and started to suction out her mouth and nose. Finally, she started crying which seemed like a good sign since that had to mean she was breathing! The nurse laid her on my chest and she promptly fell fast asleep. In the end, the nurses felt that she had done extremely well with the first bottle, but I was left feeling a little uneasy about the whole incident because of the drama at the end. But it wasn't so anxiety-provoking that it took all the joy out of getting to feed her an honest-to-goodness baby bottle rather than holding a syringe while milk runs down the tube to her stomach!

She gained only a few grams yesterday so we're holding our own at 2 lbs 11 oz. Our close friends, Danae and Geoff Hudson got to see her for the first time in a few weeks and they reported that she looks so much better. After seeing her every day, it's hard to get any perspective on her growth, and although I thought she looked a bit bigger, it was great to hear someone else say how much she has grown.