Milky mama and daycare (longest blog ever!)

Five days ago, I pumped 100 mL, the entire day. Yesterday I pumped 172 mL, which is just shy of 6 oz.  Almost 75% more, in 5 days!  This is an example of how quickly my supply has gone up! The ONLY thing I am doing differently is nursing.  It looks like today I will probably beat what I did yesterday.  These totals of course don't include what Ben is getting when we do nurse; but I'm guessing that amount is pretty minimal (5-10 ish mL twice a day).  He is getting better at it every day though!

I just can't believe how much psychological/emotional things affect breast milk supply.  Once I let my stress go, and said "well, I get what I get and I'm thankful for what I get", and once I started nursing him (even though I was afraid of doing it and it was kind of scary at first) then everything changed! I'm not holding my breath that this keeps up, but I would just LOVE it if my supply keeps increasing the way it has been.

I got the results from my tests back (the ones I had done to try to figure out why my supply was going down).  The testosterone and thyroid levels came back normal; however my prolactin levels came back higher than what the doctor usually sees.  I guess the highest they go is 200, and a non-lactating person's prolactin levels are about 30. Mine tested at 166.  I guess each time you pump (or nurse) they go up, and then they start falling again until you pump or nurse again.  I had pumped about 2 hours before my blood draw.  So I think that information is encouraging.

I took all my breast milk to the hospital, so they have about 45 ounces there (what I pumped when he wasn't eating anything because he was sick, and also for the few days when he was only eating a few ounces a day while they kind of worked up to full feedings). Ben eats about 10 oz. per day now, and they decided that they will go ahead and go back to giving him full breast milk, and that if they need to go back to a formula/breast milk mix then they will when the time comes.  Dr. Wilson said "I'd rather have him on breast milk alone than breast milk with formula" so that made me feel good, like I am doing something important!  Maybe, if things keep going so well, by the time that frozen milk is gone then I will be making enough to keep giving him only breast milk. We shall see!

Ben had an eye exam and it came back perfect. Obviously not a full on eye exam like we would get, but it was one to check for extra veins in his eyes. I guess blood vessels in preemie's eyes can grow too much when they are on oxygen? He wasn't on oxygen very long, I think only a day or two at the most.  He'll have another exam in 3 weeks though. I guess they had to dilate his eyes and it really stressed him out.  Last night he didn't do very well nursing, he actually was choking on my milk (!!!) because his heart rate was dropping and he was forgetting to swallow.  Whoops! So I only tried for a few minutes because I didn't want to stress him out.  But then at 3 a.m. he took his whole bottle, and this morning at 9 a.m. he did a good job nursing.  I'm excited to see how he does tonight!

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So.  Yesterday I got to the kids' daycare, and the C-monster was underneath an artists' easel with two other children and couldn't see me. I walked over to tell him I was there. I was pretty shocked to find that the other boy under the easel had his pants down and was showing C and the little girl his penis.  C also told me later that the girl had pulled his pants down, not sure if that happened that day or some other day.

So, needless to say, I was completely shocked and upset.  I just think about all that could have happened, and C bringing that stuff home and infecting Y and M and Ben with that kind of crap. I mean I feel like he should still be innocent from that kind of stuff, and I feel like there ought to be better supervision at daycare than that!  I understand kids go through some sexual exploration/curiosity and stuff but I just feel like they were hiding, they knew it was wrong, and that is not ok.

I wrote an email to the manager letting her know and asking that I be told when stuff like this happens and asking what they plan to do. She wrote me back right away and it sounds like they are addressing it.  I also have talked about it with C and will continue talking about how private parts are private. I think we also decided he is getting too old to take baths with the other kids and needs to start taking baths alone.  

Kind of going hand-in-hand with that, I also asked if the kids could start going to daycare only part time. They have to go at least 6 hours a day now, which with nap time and care times at the hospital it is usually like 7 or 7.5 hours a day.  The manager said it was OK for them to go part time, so they are going to go from 8 a.m. to noon-ish I guess, 5 days a week.  Y is getting away with murder in his class at preschool, he talks so nasty to his teacher (just a bad/whiny attitude, never saying please, etc.) and I hate it. And I don't say that word lightly. He has tried to bring it home to me and I don't put up with that crap, I send his happy little booty right to his room if he tries to talk to me that way. I wish his teacher wouldn't either but I can't really control that.  I can tell C is getting away with a lot too, I think just because there are a lot of kids in his class.  The whole other kid showing his penis thing makes me feel like now is a good time to cut back on daycare hours.  If Ben wasn't at the hospital I'd just go ahead and pull them completely out, but if I did that now I would basically never get to see him.

And also I think we decided that when Ben comes home we are basically going to have him under quarantine through at least March, if not April. So we won't be taking him into public places and we will probably be pretty selective on who can come visit him and who we go visit.  Also, we are pulling the kids out of daycare when he comes home as well.   It is just too risky to have all those germs coming home every day.  I have heard too many stories of preemies coming home and within a week they catch a cold that turns into pneumonia and are right back in the NICU. Their immune systems are just so fragile and even a little cold can be a big set back for them.  I hope that people understand.  The other day when I dropped M off there was a kid in her class with green snot running from his nose (both nostrils) down to his mouth. Um, yeah, sinus infection! Keep your kid home!  No wonder she always gets sick!

So anyway, big changes coming our way. I know it's going to be hard and stressful but I think ultimately in the long run this will be what is best.  :/

Now it's time to go pump! Again!