Trouble

I think it is funny that everyone tells you to get all the rest you can, to sleep when the baby sleeps, and all of that. In the very next breath they are telling you that you need to go to the lab for blood work, You need to swing by the hospital and visit with the lactation consultant, you need to get a prescription filled, you need to stuff your face with food, and drink a few gallons of water. Then it is time to feed the baby again, and after that you find out that you have to return all the diapers you just bought(the baby can't wear huggies or she breaks out into a terrible rash). Then you remember that you need a birth certificate, and a scocial security number, and when you get the card they have spelled the baby's name wrong,and you get to start all over again,and blah, blah, blah......
Our hospital offered many wonderful programs, and we took advantage of all of them. Two days after leaving a nurse is sent for a home visit. We were not sure when the nurse would be coming, but we thought it would be best to go about our normal feeding schedule. Every two hours, just like clock work, we would feed left side(15 minutes), right side(15 minutes), then a two ounce supplement. She always took her time eating, and still she would only drink about an ounce of the formula.
The nurse came about ten minutes after we fed Bebe.
She checked me out first. I was doing fine, and healing nicely. No trouble at all. Then it was Bebe's turn. She looked her over, and checked her jaundice. I think she was at an eighteen, but leveling off, so she wasn't too worried about it. Then she got out her scale. I wasn't worried. After all, what did I have to be worried about. The baby had done nothing but eat. It took her nearly an hour to eat, and she was fed every two hours. so about half my day was spent feeding her. Before putting the baby on the scale, the nurse warned us that the baby had probably lost a little weight. She told us not to be alarmed. Then she placed Bebe on the scale. The scale read 6 lbs. and 12 oz. My mother and I looked at the nurse anxiously. She read it again, and said,"There must be a mistake. How much did she weigh at birth? The chart says 7 lbs. 10 oz. Is that correct?" We said yes. She asked us to give her a few minutes to calibrate the scale again. We waited. Then we put Bebe on it again, and again the scale gave the same reading. The nurse called Bebe's doctor to let him know the situation. She was unable to get Bebe's doctor directly, but she spoke to his nurse practitioner, Nurse H.
She said that my milk still might not be in, and advised me to go see the lactation consultant yet again, and buy a good breast pump. Then she asked if she could watch the baby eat. By this time it had been about thirty minutes since her last feeding. I told the nurse this, but she didn't seem to care. Bebe was always exhausted after her hour long eating marathon, so waking her up was pretty difficult. We had to undress her, and change her diaper. Still she was not fully awake, and she wouldn't latch on. My mother kept saying, "I don't think she is hungry. She just eat before you came." Still we tried to wake her and feed her. Then the nurse asked me about the routine we had established. She was shocked, "It takes her an hour to eat! Why?" We explained how the lactation consultant had told us to feed her, and she said that it should never take more than thirty minutes to feed a baby. I wasn't sure how to respond to that.
Then she asked us how we were giving the baby her supplement. We said that after feeding her on both sides we gave her a two ounce bottle of formula. She was appalled, and said that she shouldn't have a bottle if I was going to breast feed her. Then she went out to her car, and came back with a crazy elaborate contraption. It was a bag that we could put formula in, and a tube that had to be taped to my body and fed through my breast guard. Still Bebe wouldn't latch on, and this terrible thing I was hooked to was impossible to use, unless I had six hands, which unfortunately I do not have.
I asked again,"Is it possible that the baby just isn't hungry right now?" The answer was,"Even if she isn't hungry she should want to eat." Why? Why should she want to eat when she isn't hungry? I just didn't understand. I know that I don't want to eat when I'm not hungry.
Finally the nurse gave up on the breast feeding. I thought the home visit was over, but I was wrong. More torture was just ahead. The nurse then insisted that I feed Bebe her two ounce supplement.
We put the formula in it's usual bottle. She wouldn't eat. We tried all different types of bottles, and many different nipples, and still Bebe wouldn't eat. This woman had now been in my house for two hours. The same amount of time that typically lapsed between feedings.
Finally Bebe opened her big, beautiful eyes, and took the bottle into her mouth. She took her sweet time, but she drank the whole two ounces. While she was drinking the look on her face was priceless. In my mind she was looking at the nurse as if to say, "Look lady, I'll drink this bottle on one condition. You leave after I'm finished!" The nurse felt like this was a huge success. I did not. It was her scheduled eating time, and I didn't even get a chance to breast feed my baby. How was I ever going to get my milk in if these types of things kept happening? I felt like it was a huge waist of time.
The first thirty minutes of her visit was just fine, and really nice. I wished that I would have been firm with her, and said,"No, you may not watch her eat, unless you want to come back in two hours when she might actually be hungry."
All told, it took three grown women about two hours to try to convince a four day old child to drink a two ounce bottle of formula.