Thread: It's a girl!
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Old May 28th 09, 04:18 AM posted to misc.kids.pregnancy
Anne Rogers
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Posts: 1,497
Default It's a girl!

We didn't know the gender, but right from the beginning had thought we
were having a boy, so it was a big surprise when out came a little girl!

Grace Elizabeth, 7lb4oz, 18.5in long, 13.75in head circumference

The c-section seemed to go really well and healing seems to be going
well too. I really appreciated having a friend there as well as my
husband as she was able to be right there for me whilst DH went with
Grace to the other side of the room - it can't have been that far away,
but lieing flat on your back and with multiple things going on I
couldn't follow things.

She wasn't interested in breastfeeding at all, but we were reassured
this was normal and there was no need to worry, though we did eventually
decide to give her some colostrum I'd pumped before the birth and I got
started with the pump. The next morning the nurse noticed she was
jittery and tested her blood sugar, which was low, so we gave her a
large feed of colostrum, waited half an hour, only to find it was even
lower! Which meant she was whisked off to NICU and hooked up to an IV.

DH had been finger feeding her with the colostrum and he continued to do
that and I continued to pump, the first day I was barely ahead of her
and was worried that as she increased the volume and they weaned her off
the IV that I wouldn't be able to keep up, but miraculously my milk
started to come in before the 48hour mark and I was able to pump way
beyond her needs!

DH was spending an hour each time feeding her and really trying to get
the volume into her, we met with the NICU team this morning and they
reluctantly discharged her, she wasn't meeting her target feed volumes,
but her blood sugar was stable and her weight loss wasn't near 10%.
Thankfully they all agreed with my belief that we'd get on better
establishing breastfeeding at home, as it turned out our final attempt
at the hospital was sucessful and feeding has been going well since then.

I'm so glad that we're experienced parents, I don't think with our first
it would have occurred to us to say no artificial nipples, even though
we'd have expressed a desire to avoid formula, as it is, she got
treatment she needed and we seem to be getting on well with breastfeeding.

Anne