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Hey Internet, guess who was discharged from NICU at lunchtime?

We’re both on the ward for another day, but if Evelyn’s billirubin levels are still below the line tomorrow morning, then we’ll be discharged together.

I’m having to give extra top-ups after feeds still, to make sure she’s getting the calories she needs, but luckily I am producing so much milk that it isn’t an issue. Now to stock up on pigeon bottles and teats!

I think a few of the nurses would have preferred that Evelyn was entirely breastfed with no bottle, but frankly, I’m doing whatever needs to be done here. If that means top ups with a bottle, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

In the meantime, I didn’t realise how stressed I was until some of it eased.

Now if you can all pray for low billirubin levels, I would be incredibly grateful.

Yesterday I saw the social workers, who suggested that I may be able to spend a bit of time in the NICU family room in order to avoid going home yet. We live far enough away from the hospital that I qualify for extra help re boarding and travelling. However, from eavesdropping on the nurses in NICU it sounds like there is another family in the room.

Which, fine, there’s one room and an awful lot of families – but I don’t want to leave her yet.

Everything is back up in the air now until I can see the social workers again later today to find out what can be arranged. Insert sick feeling here.

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They weighed Evelyn last night and her grand total post birth weight loss is a mere 95g. I am so very impressed with that, considering Isaac lost nearly 300g and Amy lost around 280g – despite neither of them having feeding issues.

On today’s agenda is discussing the possibility of moving her to a pigeon bottle for her top up feeds, rather than an NG tube. Of course we need to be guided by Evelyn in this, and how strong she is. I’m hoping that she’s strong enough, but we’ll see. She’s still waking herself at feed time and breastfeeding well, so I am cautiously optimistic; however if NICU has taught me anything, it’s how fast things change and how you can’t rely on anything.

As far as I know her jaundice has cleared up – they took her off the biliblanket last night at 6pm – but we’re waiting for this mornings bloods to come back and tell us how her levels look. They were treating her conservatively, working on the basis that she was 34 weeks at birth – even though she still continues to act closer to 36 weeks, according to everyone who actually knows anything about Prem babies.

For me, I’m doing okay this morning. Let’s see how the day goes.

You’d think that I would be well prepared for the day three hormone drop, considering that I’ve done this twice before. You’d be wrong of course and despite Evelyn having a great night, I am finding myself miserable.

I am homesick, I miss Amy and Isaac desperately and I just want the doctors to decide that I am capable enough of feeding my own child, and let her go. Once the jaundice clears up of course – my breasts may be pretty awesome, but they can’t make the jaundice disappear magically.

Speaking of feeding and milk, which I’m not sure we were, but we are now – I expressed 50ml of milk this morning. Can I get a cheer here please? This was on top of her having a good feed.

I’m sitting here next to her in Special Care, watching her suck on a dummy and relax inside a bili-blanket. She looks decidedly happier than I am and who can blame her?

She is maintaining her body temperatures and I’ve just heard that her billirubin levels have dropped enough for her to come off the lights (three cheers for the clever baby!).

Now we just wait for the doctors and walk the fine line between normalising her breastfeeding without tube feeds and pushing her too hard. I hope we can walk it effectively and that the doctors listen. I’ve managed to score another night in Maternity, so wish us luck with getting Evelyn out of NICU and back with me.

The point of this blog, as well as being a place to save my sanity, was always going to be so that I had a record of what was happening in my life at any given time. I know that some people will not be terribly impressed by my day to day reporting of things Evelyn did, but these are the things that I don’t want to forget. Hence, publishing them here. The fact that I have friends reading and supporting me is just an (awesome) bonus.

Tomorrow is day three, and that is when they will start talking about sending me home. Frankly, I’m terrified. Probably because I know what my hormones have been like and I know I’ll cry. Lots.

Tonight’s midwife prepared me for this – bearing in mind that she had a baby born early and is both sympathetic and understanding. I need to get breastfeeding established, and doing that when I am not available to feed her as much as possible would be a struggle.

But it might be okay.

Evelyn had formula overnight for her top up feeds, and I am okay with that. But I’m a bit bothered that her top ups have to be so huge in a babe so tiny, meaning that she wasn’t hungry at her next feed, because the 20 mls of extra milk were still hanging around in her belly.

That said, she fed well at midnight, breastfeeding for 21 minutes straight.

She’s not had any formula since 6am however, and has fed quite well today, with top ups of breastmilk only. This is where I am incredibly grateful that I’ve never had milk supply issues and don’t seem to be having them this time either.

I managed to have her in the ward with me for a fair bit of time today too, snuggled up inside my clothes, skin to skin. Unfortunately, her billirubin levels are up and she’s gone a sunny shade of suntan, so she’s now having to spend her time snuggled into a billiblanket. UV blue suits her.

I can’t seem to upload photos to the blog from my tablet so if it’s photos you’re after, my Facebook page has some, as does twitter/instagram. She’s very cute and I am in love.

For those who are wondering, Amy and Isaac are also in love. Isaac is showing some signs of anxiety, but Amy is just concerned that she can’t cuddle her sister yet. They both got to snuggle her (while she was inside my top) this afternoon, as well as getting to kiss her. I imagine Amy will be excited to share that she has a sister now when she goes to school tomorrow.

Finally, Internet, thank you so much for all of your support. You’ve kept me company while I’ve been pumping, shared stories that made me feel less alone and been generally all around awesome. I could not be more grateful.

NICU is a rollercoaster. And I say that knowing full well that the only challenge Evelyn faces currently is feeding and gaining weight, which are not the major challenges a lot of early babies face.

We went this from this morning being told that if she fed well, she would be moved onto the ward with me, to finding ourselves having to put in an NG tube after a few bad blood sugar readings. Then a few great blood sugar readings, (potentially making the NG tube null and void), back to crap readings and knowing that the ward was well out of her reach currently. From breastfeeding on demand, I’m now having to express an extra 20mls of milk to top her up after each feed. Not a huge deal, but my milk isn’t in yet. Formula is not the devil, but I’d prefer to avoid it if I can.

Evelyn’s heels are red raw from the blood draws and the nurses are getting progressively unhappier about having to take more blood.  We won’t talk about the bruising from her IV (unneeded and since removed), or the allergic reaction her arm had to the tape that was used to secure it.

Hormones don’t help, and everything u psets me, but mostly the thought of having to go home and leave her here, an hour away. Not that we’re at that point yet, but it’s on the cards at this stage.

They’re still thinking that she is close to 36 weeks, her strong suck (when she finally latches) don’t speak of a baby younger than that.

But it still sucks. Also sucking is hospital food. What kind of fish burgers have spiky bones in them? Mine, apparently.

Blech. It will be okay.