GRRRRR

Again, here I am, fed up. Sydney is doing wonderful. She is making progress with breast feeding. She is gaining weight, up again to 4 pounds, 9.6 ounces. She is waking up and demanding to eat. She is healthy and not on oxygen, and is not desating. Now, why am I fed up?

Simple. She is still in the NICU. The doc did not even bother to call me yesterday. I would think that for the $740.06 a DAY he is getting from my health insurance, he could make a short phone call. He gets that $740.06 for seeing her on rounds, namely he makes $740.06 for about 10 minutes of work, max. I want to make that kind of money.

The lactation consultant feels that we will make better progress at home. She feels that with a supplemental nurser we will make great progress. Sydney makes the latch, but then lets go because she is not getting as much milk as she does with a bottle. Bottle eating is also easier than eating from the breast. The SNS will help solve these problems until she is doing better at the breast. Problem is the NICU docs don't like the SNS, and they are not allowed. See the problem? Thankfully I do not have to master breast feeding with her to get her home. I mean it is REALLY tough to get that going on a really part time basis. I have been using a syringe with breast milk in it to give her little encouragement drops and to remind her what she is up to. Last night the nurse told me I could not have the syringe, because it is against their policies. So when she closed the curtain, I got a syringe out of Sydney's supply drawers and did it myself. The other nurses who I have been working with had no problem with this, in fact one of them showed me how to do this. The lactation consultant also said that Sydney has nipple confusion, and is tongue thrusting. Sydney is used to being fed on our knees, not being held close, so she sometimes freaks out because of this. I feel that getting her used to the breast will be a long process. I really want to do this at home, with good friends on speed dial, not in the NICU. When she screams, I know she is OK, but I usually stop what I am doing because I am worrying about bothering other babies and their families. The lactation consultant let her cry for a while during a lesson yesterday. I just don't feel comfortable letting her do this in the NICU. At home, we can work on this in privacy we don't have there.

I guess I am back to some of my basic problems with the NICU. The lack of communication. The lack of continuity. The lack of parental involvement in basic decisions. The lack of control. The lack of privacy. Seriously, I'm being told how I can and cannot breast feed my daughter. The lactation consultant also thinks that a nipple shield may help, guess what are not allowed in the NICU, yup, nipple shields.

The doc who has been on these last couple of days says he is supportive of breast feeding, and has encouraged me to do this, but then there are the policies that get in my way. Honestly, this Doc is one of the more breast feeding ones. The other two are less breast feeding friendly than he is. Maybe they made the stupid restrictive policies.

So, I try to breast feed Sydney, she screams, the nurse comes in because her alarms are going bonkers, and then I finally feed her a bottle. I have been giving her the bottle next to my breast in a breast feeding position, so hopefully that is improving this.

On a positive note, when Sydney did latch, she looked up at me with her big eyes, which are now brown, and just gazed at me. I cried happy tears.

Vince reads to Sydney every night. He went out and bought her a book about trucks, and reads to her. She loves this, and looks at him and listens to him. I am recording him reading to her, so I can play this for her while he is gone. I will miss seeing him with her while he is away. Thankfully, my PDA has a wonderful recorder, and this is a fairly easy thing to do.

Boil all my concerns/complaints/ whines down, they come to one issue. I want my daughter home. I know this will happen, I just don't know when. Yesterday I was talking about this with a nurse, and she said the "Nobody graduates from college from here" line. I replied "Well, I'm starting to think she may graduate from high school here." I just want her home.