Working with Melina on Feeding

They have to technically discharge me today for insurance reasons, but they are letting me keep my room for as long as Melina needs to stay in the hospital. How sweet is that! The night nurse, Gail, has really been working with her and got her to take the bottle last night and she did pretty good with sucking and swallowing. Gail has been awesome to work with!

We are working with Melina at every feeding today and hoping she gets this feeding thing down...nursing on each side for 5 minutes and then we cup feed a breastmilk/formula combo and then whatever she doesn't finish we syringe feed her. It's a bit stressful as they only give her a few minutes to feed.

The special care nurse that she has today and I are not clicking either. I thought the pediatrician said that if she got feeding down today that she could room with us toniht and we could possibly go home in the morning, but the nurse said that the doctor said she could maybe room with us tomorrow. She is refusing to call the doctor for clarification as well. I was hoping the kids could come up tonight and visit her in our room as Deidra is the only one to actually get to see her and Josiah and Emma have only seen her through the window.

Melina also had an eccho done today as they found a heart murmer. She has a VSD. She didn't like getting it done, but calmed down once Mommy got to hold her little head.

I went down for an afternoon feeding to find Melina off all of her monitors and in her bassinet at the nurses desk...it made me a bit upset but I didn't say anything...she's not stable enough to be in my room with me but she's stable enough to be off her monitors at the nurses desk so the nurse could socialize? Andy told me to let it go. After that, the pediatrician called and since I was standing there I told her to find out if Melina could room with us...turns out I was right after all and if all of her feedings went well she gets to come room with us tonight. In the meantime, they did let her come to my room for 10 minutes to meet her sisters and her brother.

We continued to work on feedings and they are letting her come room with us! YEAH!