Day 16- A break through!

Today has been one of the best days over the last two weeks...Olivia got to have her first ever meal! I say meal but in reality it was 5ml of milk, this has been a real stumbling block for the last 5 days so we are both over the moon that it has happened.

Lisa arrived at St Michaels this morning and walked in to the ward, glanced up at the board with all the babies names on. It has some basic details like observation and feeding times, next to Olivia's name it still read "nil by mouth". Lisa's heart sank, she assumed that Olivia's aspirate levels had increased over night so the surgeons had decided to withhold milk for another day. At that point Olivia's nurse walked in, saw Lisa and gave her a big smile, Lisa asked what had happened with the feed, the nurse said that they had given her 5ml of Lisa's colostrum at 9am and Olivia had kept it down. The board still read NBM because it hadn't been updated....so all was well.

Lisa spoke with Olivia's doctor and found out they'd put Olivia on 5ml feeds every three hours with the caveat that they would measure the fluid in her stomach before each feed, if it exceeded 10ml she would not be able to have the milk. Luckily the levels have been low all day so she has had every scheduled feed so far, and the milk has stayed down.  She is a bit grumpy today as she has realised that food in her stomach reduces her pains but she still doesn't feel full.  The nurses suggested to Lisa to time her expressing with Olivia's feeds so when the milk has stopped Olivia is encouraged to latch on to Lisa's nipple to try to get her to associate Lisa's boobs with food! Both feeds when Lisa was there and this was tried Olivia was fast asleep and didn't stir so she'll try again tomorrow.

The next few days will be all about building on the successes of today and trying to increase the amount of milk by 5ml each day to gradually build up her stomachs tolerance levels until she can manage 45ml feeds with out throwing it back up. When she hits this magic number she'll be discharged from NICU and we'll either be allowed to go home or transferred to Bath Royal United Hospital (our nearest hospital) ,   This could be a very slow process, the baby boy next to Olivia who is nearly 7 weeks old with gastroschisis has hit a brick/milk wall at 35ml and is having his milk reduced to try and get his stomach to accept it.  We know there will be tough days to come but are hopeful that Olivia is on the homeward stretch now.

Mmmmm,Milk!

Her only other problem at the moment is the lack of a dirty nappy!  A couple of days of milk should help move things along, we don't want to reach the weekend without a dirty nappy or the milk will be replaced with dye and we will wait with baited breath for the results.

We finished the day with a lovely curry at the Moon's, thanks James and Emma! we'll try and get that we pic we talked about. :-)

Sweet dreams all.

James xx