Sleep Deprivation and Desperation Part 2

We'd had Abby home for less than 4 days and a few things very plain. One, I was not making enough breast milk. At best I was pumping 60ml, two ounces, each feeding. This would have been fine, because 60 ml was what Abby had been taking every 3 hours at the NICU, neonatal intensive care unit. But yet again those sly NICU nurses omitted a fact that we discovered our first night Abigail was home. She had been receiving fortified breast milk. Breast milk plus! So when was given just plain 'ol breast milk she went from eating every 3 hours to being hungry every 1 1/2 hours! (Think about drinking Guinness and then drinking a Bud-Light. Try not to think about the fact that the Guinness comparison was the first one Lorna thought up.).

Because Abby and I had not yet worked out how to breast feed without her getting exhausted, I had to pump. And now I was pumping like crazy to keep up with her. So nights went like this: Bottle-feed the baby her 70-80ml of breast milk , burp her, swaddle her, get her settled, then pump for another 40 minutes to make her next feeding. Repeat every 2 hours.

Oh yes, and during that first week, when visiting my doctor in tears with a breast infection from a clogged milk duct, I was told "to increase your milk you should encourage Abby to breastfeed by putting her to each breast for 10 minutes before you feed her the bottle." So now we had 20 minutes of breast fighting, because honestly trying to get a baby who is accustomed to a hard rubber nipple, to latch on to a floppy soft nipple is going to be an argument. Then 20 minutes of feeding, 20 minutes of burping and fussing, and 40 minutes pumping!

Next, oh hey the baby is awake again and ready for her next feeding! Let's not forget that we also have two other children. A school aged boy who needs to be up at 7am and a darling 15 month old who pretty much wakes up when his brother begins roaming the halls yelling "where's my backpack?" By the end of that week we were supplementing with Similac and returning the breast pump. (Not to mention having mild hallucinations brought on by sleep dep.)

The second thing we learned in that first week was that Abby had a problem with grunting. One of the nurses from the NICU had told me my baby grunted and I told her it was no problem. Aidan, our 15 month old, grunted. He was a baby who snored and made other snuffle noises, so I figured Abigail would be the same. Not a chance.


We're not talking run of the mill, snoring baby. Not Abby. That would be too easy. We're talking barking; gasping, grunting noises that jolt you awake and out of the bed because ohmygod the baby is choking! These noises mess with your Mom-sense. (This is like spider-sense, except for mothers.) These are noises that, in a normal scenario, mean bad things. You cannot sleep through them. Each time Abby had one of these grunting, gasping, barking spells Mark and I would fly from the bed, and rush to the bassinet ready to save our baby.

Abby was only bothered by her grunting 50% of the time which meant that half the time we'd have a baby to lull back to sleep and the other half of the time we were lying in bed with adrenaline surging through our veins and our pulses beating out our chests because our baby sounded like she was being strangled. (Oh, and then I'd have to pump.)

It was obvious that this grunting was not usual. At first we thought it may be due to some leftover irritation from all the tubes Abigail had in her nose and throat during her stay at the NICU. However, when we took her to the pediatrician, another angel among men, who in the weeks to come put up with many visits and late night calls, assured us her throat was fine. Maybe she was just getting used to life outside the NICU. Her grunting could be dreaming. Or pooping. Which made me wonder if they had baby Ex-lax.

So as the end of week one came, we had no sleep, it was clear that breast feeding was not going to happen, and it was also clear that Abby's grunting was so pronounced she could not sleep in our room. Either that or for the sake of sleep, and the well-being of our other children, someone would have to leave the room. Mark chose to go sleep with Aidan and I began looking for a better bassinet.

The desperation turns to spending…