Last night mom made a trip home. She left Kinley and I to hang out all night, just the two of us — and all the nurses and technicians.
We kicked off the evening with a three hour kangaroo session. As she often does, she spent the first several minutes looking up at me before falling asleep.
We followed that with a bottle feeding that she nearly finished. She had so little left that nurse opted to slowly push the last 5 mL in manually. All went smoothly.
When I returned at 11:00 pm from my own dinner, I expected we’d give her a break and gavage the 11:30 pm feeding. But, Kinley was already bright eyed, cueing, and once again tugging away at her tube. I followed her lead and the nurse made us a bottle.
She was definitely hungry. After about ten minutes, she started closing her eyes while still sucking. I likely let her go a little too far. She looked fine, but I noticed a minor change in the way her body felt in my arm a second before the monitor dinged when her heart rate dipped. I sat her up, gave her a little rub, and she came back up pretty quickly.
It took a while to get both of us comfortable again. We were both probably a little uneasy after the minor Brady. After a brief second round, I thought we might have to call it a night. Her thirty minute window was almost over. We had a little chat and tried for round three. And she went to work. Not only did she finish, but I had to wrestle the bottle back. I laid her back down with a nice, milk coma look on her face.
We gavaged the next two feedings overnight since she didn’t stir or cue prior to either. We both slept through the night. Mostly.
At around 3:15 am, just after her latest feeding, her cries woke me up. Her heart rate shot up to over 200. Even though my heart screamed at me to pick her up, I dared not. I didn’t want to jostle her around too much on a full tummy. More importantly, I knew that I was exhausted and it would too dangerous if I sat and held her. I spent several minutes containing her, holding her in her bassinet, and talking to her softly until she calmed. When I dragged myself back to bed, I repositioned so that I was in her line of sight and closer. We both closed our eyes together until mom snuck back in ahead of the sunrise.