Mad Jersey Cow!

Well this girl is definitely a mad jersey cow. Why mad? Well due to the fact I was in England living on a farm after 1980 I am not allowed to donate any milk or blood for that matter. They say I have a potential to be a mad cow carrier! Hmmm No comments on that one please LOL! It's really unfortunate as I am producing anywhere from 1400- 1800 ml every 24 hours! Yes over a litre a day. So I'm over producing at the moment considering that Alistair is on 14ml every 3 hours. I did just call the NICU though and they said that the team has decided to increase his feeds by 3 ml every other feed. So perhaps he'll start to make a dent on my frozen supply. They have a great system at Women's regarding breast milk. Its actually the only hosptial in Canada that all0ws moms to donate their milk which is why its a bummer I'm a mad cow! I've already maxed out how much I can store at the hosptial so lucky for me there is a big freezer at the apartment. They get you to mark the first week of milk you pump off as its the "gold" as they say. So Alistair still have a bit to go before he's off the gold. I am actually starting to throw out the first milk pumped off as the "hind milk" or later stuff is supposedly richer in fat etc...So fat he shall get! Actually just in the past couple of days its been very obvious that he is plumping out just on basic things like his fingers in toes. So its nice for this mama to see.

I have to say the whole pumping process has been quite the experience. My very first try I got 50ml off which is so unusual I guess. Then it rapidly decreased to nothing for a good 24 hours. I have to say when your child is laying there paralyzed and sedated and all you can do is be present it means so much to a mom to beable to pump and get something. It surprised me how much of guilt trip it was when the good ol' boobs weren't doing their job. So any of you who work with moms and breastfeeding its all about support support support! Cause if I hadn't been the stubborn person I am I would have stopped. Frick and now look at me its gone to the other side of being on the verge of ridiculous!

Another thing about the whole breat expressing thing is they have a room in the NICU where you can pump with all the other moms. Its actually very therapeutic for a lot of the moms because you all get chatting about your particular situations. I have to say this environment makes me feel like I'm one of the luckier ladies and not only because of my crazy milk production. Most of the moms are there with their very premature babies. I can't even count the number of moms there with babes who were born at 24-26 weeks and 40 weeks is term! Alistair is actually labeled as the "big boy" by the team. Anyhow these other families have such a journey of unknown. Like Jason has said we are just so fortunate to only be dealing with what we were expecting prior to birth and nothing more like bone density issues, blindness, mental ability, bleeds on the brain, lungs collapsing, etc etc... I just talked to a mom whose kid is in the NICU and his due date is Sept 20th!!! So yep we feel very very fortuate in the scheme of things.

You may notice on our little family pic that Alistair has some splints on his hands. We have known all along that he has some contractures of his middle fingers and a bit to his wrists and thumbs. But I have to say it was on the bottom of our list of concerns. So it must be good if we are at a point of being concerned with his hands and wrists. Anyhow the team here is totally on it which is nice. So the little guy is wearing splints on his hands for 3 hours and off for an hour.

They did take off the CPAP today and put him on room air but after about 4 hours he was using too much energy to breath. So slowly but surely he will be eventually weaned off. They plan to keep him on CPAP at night and then when ever I'm about to cuddle he can be on room air or nasal prongs. So lots of little baby steps!

K blah blah blah blah
I do get pretty chatty on this thing. I had better get off it and spend some anniversary time with the hubby! Jason realized yesterday that our anniversary was today! Priorities hey!

K Cheers for now! Julie