Day 39

Feeding and growing...those are Brynn's goals these days. We finally posted another weight gain and she weighed in last night at 3 lbs 3 oz. She took 3 of 4 full bottles today but fell asleep while Blaine was feeding her tonight. When I got there this afternoon, the nurse met me at the door to inform me that they had changed her feeding times...again. Each nurse usually has 3 babies who each eat on alternate hours for 3 hours. When the babies get switched to a new "team" sometimes a baby has to change feeding schedule so that the nurse can accommodate the 3 different babies. While I totally understand the why, it's still hard to cope with sudden schedule changes. Today's change was the worse really because she would be fed at 5:00 (when I pick up Riley), 8:00 (Riley's bed time), and 11:00 (too late to get a sitter). One of my "new favorite" nurses came on at 3:00 PM and new that I was upset about the change and the number of feedings I would miss. So, she took it upon herself to rework the schedule so that we got back to our old schedule by tonight.

I really just can't say enough about how much we appreciate the nurses and doctors in the NICU. These are truly amazing individuals who clearly love their jobs and the babies they care for. So many times I have watched a nurse working with another baby whose parents are not around. Without fail, the nurses treat the babies with love and tenderness and speak to them with the exact tone I would want used with my baby.

All in all, if the only stressor of the day was a 1-hour change in feeding schedules, that's a pretty darn good day in the NICU.