Mommy's Milk!

Today at Noon, Lincoln will get his first shot of Mommy's milk!  David and I couldn't be happier, as we know the nutritional and health benefits that this addition can make.  He will be getting milk from his third day of life, though he is 12 days old.  Each time I pump, the bottles are labeled with the date and time so that Link gets the milk in the order I made it.  The female body is brilliant in that it makes milk for the baby's needs.  The first week of life it makes colostrum, which is a gold colored milk very high in fat and calories that preps his little tiny tummy for milk.  Lincoln will be given all colostrum until it is gone.  After that, my body says, 'okay, he's ready for regular Mommy milk now,' and it adapts my milk for his needs.  Because he is so young and a preemie, my body will make milk catered to that - probably high fat, high caloric milk.  In fact, once pumping further on in the pregnancy, when it is refrigerated, the milk separates into blue-ish watery milk and fat.  When that happens, you have to shake or stir the milk to mix it back up to give to him.  My milk now (again, he's 12 days old and that should have probably started by now) is so fatty that there is no separation.  I've had offers by two fellow pumping Moms (Aunt Lisa and a dear friend Kelly (not nurse Kelly)) have offered milk.  Had I needed it, I would have absolutely taken it.  But I am a milk machine - a cow, if you will, and happy to be it.  But their milk would not have been specialized for Lincoln's needs.  Glad my baby boy gets his Mommy's milk.

His nurse Joanne (who has requested Link every time she's been in and gotten him - she's very sweet and I can tell how much she loves him by how excited she is by his progress) just came in to give him caffeine.  We joked that we both could use a cup of coffee but Link literally gets his in an IV.  The caffeine does what you would expect - increases his heart rate - to give him an extra boost.  Starbucks, anyone?  (And just so I remember when I return and read this someday - the lines at Starbucks here are amazingly long!  I've only partaken once so in 12 days (which I consider impressive) because I've mostly gotten my cup o' Joe in the Ronald McDonald room.)

At IHI Rounds, which I made it in just in time for today, everything sounded very positive for the moment.  IHI Rounds are the rounds done by doctors and nurse practitioners (NPs) from each specialty.  Dr. Eche is on Lincoln's case for another week, and he said his goal is to grow this baby.  When all was said and done as is done each time, they asked if I had any questions.  I said, 'Not really, but do we know how and/or why the PDA closed on it's own?"  We know the indocin didn't work and maybe is the cause of the kidney issues, so what did it?  Dr. Eche said that the PDA is like a faucet that has a leaky hole in the side.  By limiting Lincoln's fluid intake, they starved some of his blood from rushing through that hole.  That it in itself could have made the PDA start to shrink.  Then the dopamine he was on to raise his blood pressure was causing the blood to flow faster through his heart and pump it down to where he needed it in his kidneys, gut, and lower extremities.  That would keep more blood from being able to pass through the PDA.  With both of things taking place at the same time, the stress on the PDA was lessened, and it was able to close.  Dr. Eche said, "That is what I told you I was hopeful would happen."  But when he told us that, it was with the reservation that they tell us everything.  We had it in our heads that we were going for surgery, so we didn't anticipate that this could actually happen for our tiny boy.

While Daddy & I are at the hospital, the girls are playing at Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mark's today.  They love their cousins Sara, Stephen, and Emma, and rarely see them other than holidays, so this is a real treat!