Great progress

Thursday, January 15
Feeds are at 24 mL every 3 hours now, and will go up to 27 mL tonight. "Full feeds" is 57 mL every 3 hours, so we are almost halfway there! Tomorrow morning we'll be more than halfway! :)
Really at this point, the numbers don't matter much because she's only breastfeeding... I think I will probably start weighing her before and after to get an idea of how much milk she's actually getting, but I've heard that it's not super accurate, so I'm not in a huge rush to do that. I'm still pumping before I feed her, just to get the milk to let down and get past the foremilk, and that way the milk is already flowing when I go to latch her on, which helps to convince her she should eat. She's gotten way better at it though, we still use the nipple shield once in awhile when she gets super frustrated and won't stay latched, and it really helps, but most of the time we don't need it and she eats great. I don't really have a clue how much she's getting, I sort of just count the swallows, and give her like 5 minutes or so of good active nursing, based on the fact that it takes me about 5 minutes to pump the amount she's getting now. And that really isn't super accurate, because I know that babies are better at getting the milk out than pumps are, so she may actually be getting more than her 24 mL's. I'm not too worried though because she is tolerating it well, no throwing up or anything.
Our nurse today mentioned to Dr. Parker, the neonatologist, about Faith sleeping through her 3 AM feeding, and whether that was ok... he said he thinks it's probably fine, but he's never worked up to full feeds just breastfeeding before, so he doesn't really know how it will work. I guess we're pretty good at doing things they've never done before... I might try a bottle at some point today just to see what she does, but I hesitate because the last bottle she took, she threw up the entire feed. She's not very good at the bottle, even the fancy-schmancy bottles we got for her- she gulps a ton and I think she just gets way too much air, so it doesn't want to stay down. But, maybe since she's better at nursing now, she'll be better at the bottle... Maybe when Dave gets here tonight I'll have him give her one.
So that's about it... her potassium was really low the past couple of days, but they gave her some through her Broviac to get her back up to normal. I guess it had been high in the past, so they lowered the amount she has in her TPN, and never changed it back or something... They tried to tell me at first that it was because of her vomiting, but she hasn't been hardly at all, so I didn't believe that. She actually just threw up one little one yesterday morning, and a little one last night, and then one little one this morning. And she's not throwing up her feeds, which is great, and she's pooping and everything... she's doing everything she's supposed to do, so maybe this time will be it and we really will go home soon!