Bernadette

It has been a few days so I thought I would add quite a few photos!! The first one is Arielle sucking her thumb - she used to always be sucking her thumb in the ultrasounds!! Speaking of ultrasounds - I checked this morning how much weight she was putting on whilst still inside and from 24 weeks it was about 100 gm per week and by the last ultrasound it had dropped to 60 gm a week. Well that proves she is better out than in - with each weigh in (done every 2 days) she is putting on around 80 gm which equates to around 280 gm per week!! This is about double what they expected as far as weight gain goes. She is now 1786 gm. She is allowed out of hospital at 2 kg (about 4 pds 6 oz) and once she is feeding by herself. The weight gain is obviously not going to be a problem but the feeding might be. She has had quite a few breastfeeds but is certainly not up to having her feeding tube out yet. They are amazed that she has fed from me as many times as she has as she is still very young and they do not expect their suck swallow reflex to be in action yet. So the plan is for me to keep trying breastfeeding each day until next Tuesday and then try bottles after that. We might yet have her home sooner than expected!! She amazed the nursing staff yesterday by attempting to roll over. They put her to sleep on her tummy which she hates. She wriggled around and managed to turn her head and her torso and then got her legs tangled up in the cords and could not turn totally. They fixed her up and put her back on her tummy and she did it again. In the end they gave up and just let her sleep on her back. She also pulled her feeding tube out and they had to put a new one in.

They kicked me out of the hospital on Friday afternoon. I was quite uset at leaving Arielle but health wise I was ready to come home. My infection has cleared and the wound is healing well. I am still sore but it is manageable on Panadols. I am spending about 4 hours each day doing kangaroo cuddles (skin to skin contact) and Arielle and I are both loving this.

As for chemo I have got another week’s reprieve and I am now having it next week. Hopefully that will give my milk enough time to get into full production (currently I am only expressing about 30 mls per day). Once I start chemo I am going to try to express and dump for the time I am on chemo and then resume breastfeeding once chemo finishes. That might not work as chemo could effect my milk production and kill it altogether!

Well that is all for now. It will probably be a few days between blogg updates as I am spending so much time at the hospital.

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