Molly back in hospital...

On Wednesday, Jasper had an appointment at the Children's Hospital here (PMH) with the endocrinology department. It was a regular 6 monthly check. Good news is he is growing enough and putting on enough weight to be discharged from their department! Yippee!!

Molly has not been gaining weight. She has actually been losing weight. I went to see our local doctor on Wednesday last week about it, and he said to come back in a week. I went back the following Wednesday (this week), and he was happy that she had put on 15g - normally babies should put on a minimum of 100g a week at her age. He said to come back in 2 weeks.
I went to see my child health nurse the same day as I was not happy with the doctor's answers.

She was mortified at the doctor, and wrote me a referral for the emergency department at PMH. Not that you need a referral, but it helps them not think you are a neurotic mother!!!

Since we were at PMH for Jasper's appointment, we went to emergency once we had finished with him.
The doctor said that nothing about what was happening with Molly was good or normal. Basically, she had to be admitted to hospital to figure out what was happening... and by the way, could I collect a wee sample from her..

I remember doing this when Jasper was a baby, and that was easier... boy bits vs girl bits!!
She was really upset laying on the bed with no nappy and me hovering around her rear end waiting, waiting, waiting.
After about 15 minutes, I picked her up and cuddled her... she wanted to feed again (big suprise - that is a common thing for her after 3pm... constant feeding), so she was breast feeding, and I am trying to hold her with one arm, hold the specimen jar with the other and keep an eye out for the pee!!!
I wish we had the camera, it was quite a sight!!! THEN when she did pee, I nearly missed it, and she got it all over me and the floor!!
Jasper and I were in hysterics about it!! Lucky it was only on my ankle.. I had a towel thing under her butt.

Ok, so wee sample was given, and initial tests showed no UTI - excellent! They wanted to do further tests though.

Then came the bad news... we were being admitted, but there were no beds at PMH, so we needed to go to Joondalup hospital... it is closer to home, and the doctors we saw are PMH staff, so that was some comfort.

I drove Japser home to stay with Paul - lucky he is home at the moment! - then hightailed it to Joondalup hospital.

PMH didn't tell me that they had put Molly's wee sample in the paperwork folder... maybe they should have! It was under the pram, and ended up pretty squashed, but lucky for me it did not break!

They got a stool sample the next morning - which needed the camera!! Poor Molly had on 2 diapers - one that had plastic on the outside that we had to put on her backwards so all the "good stuff" did not soak in, and they could get what they needed, and a larger one on the outisde to collect any potential leakage! Nice picture, huh?
I told a nurse when she filled it, and she gave me the sample jar to collect... UM, NO THANKS!! I was trying to eat my breakfast, so left her to it!! Molly was full of smiles!

They weighed her at 1am on the Thursday, then later that morning, then again Friday morning.. turns out I am starving my baby!
Talk about feeling guilty. Seems my milk supply is not all it thinks it is, and she is not getting enough. This is pretty confusing because she sleeps so well, and if you are hungry, you are normally cranky and dont sleep... She goes for up to 7 hours at night, so I was pretty confused.

To make a long story longer.... I am back to being Daisy the Cow... I breastfeed her, top her up with a bottle (not that she really wants it, she is pretty happy after the breast feed, so it is force feed, but my lil piggy takes it!), then express for 10 minutes or so to make sure I am drained of all potential milk (this helps me make more for her next feed... all very scientific).
I have to wake her if she is asleep to feed every 3 hours in the day, and just whenever she wakes up at night.

I thought all this time consuming rubbish was behind us, but it cant be smooth sailing for us just yet!!!
I really want to keep breast feeding if I can, but we will see what happens. I know that at the end of the day, I need to do what is best for Molly, and that is what is best for me too.
She is such a content happy little baby, we just want her to be chubby too!!!

So we are home, and Jasper is totally excited. He missed me, as I missed him. Although, he tells me that daddy is now his best friend! (I think some good bonding happened while I was away!).

So to sum up, Molly is too skinny, but we are forcing her to chunk up - and she is happy to pig out every feed!!!

I need to take her back to the hospital to weigh her on their scales again next week, and we go from there.
I have borrowed some scales from the hospital where she was born (along with an expressing machine - what I call the torture chamber!), so I can weigh her before and after a breastfeed to see how much she is taking in from me, then top her up with as much as she will take from the bottle.
Bottle feeding is time consuming (the prep, heating, cleaning etc), and I am too bone arse lazy to do it for long. So in the words of a good Texan lady "go ninja boobs, do your work!!".

One good thing about being in the hospital when we were is there was a lady (and I use that term loosely Kelly) with her 6 month old darling in the bed opposite. We hit it off, and are now firm friends! It was really nice having someone there to whinge with and keep sane with!!

Signing off for now...
thanks for reading

Brooke
xx