Challenges

Since I'm just starting this at Victoria's first birthday, I have a lot of catching up to do. This year was filled with ups and downs, challenges and triumphs. I think I need to take a post to document some of the challenges that we have encountered as a way for me to come to terms with them and finally let them go.

When Victoria was born, she had a little difficulty breathing and a slightly high heartrate. The nurses were a little concerned , so shortly after she was born, they took her to the nursery for observation. I was told that it would only be for a couple hours until her breathing and heartrate stabilized. This was at about 11-11:30 the night she was born. They didn't bring her back to me until about 6am the next morning. By that time, she had already had her first feeding, been introduced to a pacifier, and had not stabilized her blood sugar. But I was so happy to have her in my arms, I didn't care how long she had been gone. Every couple of hours they came to check her blood sugar and it still wasn't stabilizing. So by 2pm that day, the decided to admit her for a 48 hour stay in the Special Care Nursery. Which means she didn't get to stay with me. This made me so sad. The nurses started antibiotics and I went to visit every 2-3 hours to try to nurse and feed. I had a really hard time with this. I didn't want any visitors in the hospital because I didn't have her and couldn't show her to them. This was the beginning of the challenges that I faced in the first few months. With having a history of depression, all this kicked off some mild PPD in me. Add on top of that my hormones out of control and a number of other things that I couldn't control, and it made for a lot of difficulties for me. Anyway.

We were able to bring her home Thursday, July 21 in the late morning. The next day the home health nurse came to visit and checked bilirubin levels. They had gone from a 12 to a 16 in one day. Later that day we received a call from the doctor's office that we needed to head back to the hospital on Saturday to have the levels checked again. So we did. This time they were up to a 19. Later that day we received a bili-blanket at our house that V had to be on until her next doctor's appointment on Monday. Andrew and I were diligent that she stay wrapped up as much as possible to help her get better quicker. Through all this, I tried to continue to nurse, but with the jaundice, V had difficulty staying awake and still didn't have an efficient suck. More challenges. We went to the doctor on Monday for another bili test. This time it came back as a 1. Yay! From then on, we continued to monitor growth and weight gain for a while. While we never got nursing down to where we could do that exclusively, I found a way that I could provide the best nutrition for her, the best way I knew how by pumping. With heading back to work at 7 weeks post partum, I knew that I would have to pump anyway, but I didn't realize exactly how much of a part of my life it would become!