Charlotte was born at 29 weeks and 5 days due to me having severe preeclampsia. She was in the NICU for 67 days. She came home the Saturday after thanksgiving. While she was in the NICU she ended up getting diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Thank God they were able to treat it with very strong antibiotics. Once Charlotte was all better after having NEC we just had to get her breathing on her own, taking a bottle for all her feeds, and get up to 4 pounds. It didn’t take her long to get off oxygen and get to 4 pounds.
Our biggest struggle was taking her whole feed by mouth. This took a couple weeks. While she was in the NICU she got donor milk while we were waiting for my supply to come in. My supply eventually came in. It was great I was getting enough for her and then some. After Charlotte was discharged she was 50% breast fed and 50% bottle fed with my pumped milk. She was home for about a month before she was readmitted to the Peds floor for constipation and severe malnutrition. While she was admitted they found that she had a sliding hiatal hernia. We did surgery to get it repaired and she had a G-tube placed. This hospital stay was 2 weeks. After the G-tube was place we went home and a week later we were back to the hospital and readmitted for a virus she had gotten during the previous stay.
While all this is going on I was trying to keep up on pumping/breast feeding. I eventually lost my supply due to stress. Then we found out about Mothers Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes. Our Dr got in contact with them and Charlotte has now been getting donor milk for 5 months now. She is now 14 pounds and is thriving! We are so grateful for all the donors. We were terrified thinking we would have to use formula for her with her history of NEC. Thank you to all the donors you saved our girl!
