Joel Nursing

I have so much blogging to catch up on, but I must write this while it's fresh in my mind....

I do believe I experienced one of the greatest moments of my entire life today! For a little background: when I was in the NICU earlier today lactation came in. I was joking around telling them they were there because it was OUR turn to nurse for the 1st time. I was informed it won't be "too long." The lactation consultant told me most preemies always need to use a nipple shield to nurse but she did say we could "practice" or "play" while skin to skin. She made it sound like he would just look for the breast, root around a little, maybe lick, etc.

Well......tonight I was holding him before his bottle time. He started rooting around, turning his head toward the breast, sucking on the gown, etc. I asked our nurse if I could let him "play/practice" while he waited for his bottle. She said sure :-) So, let me tell you about this little 34 week old today baby, he opened his mouth SOOO wide, kept his tongue down, and latched on immediately with the most perfect latch I have ever seen in my life!! It was so amazing! Since they worry about preemies tiring from eating, I was only allowed 5 minutes with him like this (He still had to take his 30cc bottle). He was latched so well (and swallowing) that I had to physically break the latch with my finger to end our time.

The worse part was that the nurse wasn't ready for his bottle feed yet, so we still had to wait 20 minutes to feed him. I've never seen him hungry until tonight. I felt awful. He kept trying to get back on. Do you know how terrible it is to know that you have the perfect food for your baby and you aren't allowed to just give it to him. I told him that once he comes home we won't have any schedule feeding time. He can eat whenever he wants! Thankfully, he is the sweetest boy ever and decided to just take a little nap instead of cry. Oh, I love him so much and can not wait till I can nurse him again.....and I will be trying again with the day shift nurses tomorrow.

Thank you God for this amazing moment with my little Joel! Thank you, thank you, thank you!