Almost 4 month old little angel needs milk

My sweet third child is running low on donor milk. My little girl was born almost 4 months ago with something called situs inversus, this alone has not casued her much trouble, though it did leave her at high risk for what did happen. 1 day before she turned 2 weeks old she got sick, spitting up / throwing up, not eating, more lethargic. We had an appointment for the next day for her 2 week check up but instead I called her doctor and asked to be seen that day. Mama intuition told me something was very wrong. I had no idea what we were in for when I took her in that morning. Her doctor said she had already talked to a GI doctor and because of her inversus diagnosis she ran a high risk for haveing a malrotation with a possible volvulous, worst case senario. She called Emanuel Childrens Hospital and had us admitted that day. I was under the impression that we were going to be going in to have a swallow study done and get her some fluids. My husband had just gone back to work, after being home for her birth, and of course he was out of cell range where the job site was. I found grandma finally, as i was giving into the fact that I was going to have to take my 15 month old son with me and try to make arrangements for my 2nd grader to maybe wait at home with the neighbor until I could find someone to be with him. Got it all situated with the older kids and off to Portland I went. I left several messages for my husband, telling him we were headed for the hospital.

When I arrived with my daughter at the admitting desk I was told that she would be going to the NICU. I work at the hospital and I know that the NICU is for sick babies. Once we got to the unit the doctor told me that he had already contacted the surgeon and the OR. I was quite suprised. I asked what the plan was, that I was under the impression that we were there for a swallow study. He told me what his hunches were and explained what our peidatrician was trying to get me to understand in the office. He thought that her intestines were twisted around on themselves at the blood supply. This is obviously very serious and in fact life threatening. Let me share a little more of her story and then come back to that day at the hospital.

We knew at 20 weeks that she had the situs inversus, the ultrasound tech noticed her stomach was on the right side of her abdomen instead of the left. We had an echo done of her heart in utero at 22 weeks and had gotten the thumbs up that her heart looked good, relieving some of the stress that the serious stuff was clear. Situs inversus is linked to cardiac anomolies/defects, some very serious. Never was there any mention, nor did I find any information on line, of the situs inversus putting her at risk for such a serious condition as the malrotation. Monday before she got sick, we had gotten it all cleared that her heart looked good, even after birth, from the cardiologist who did a repeat echo and EKG at that time. She does have 3 small holes or defects in her heart, though he felt they were of minimal concern, and he did find that structurally her heart was "plummed" a little differently. He informed us that it shoud have no effect on her health unless at some point she needed to be placed on a heart lung bypass machine for a heart surgery, at that point they would just have to connect it a little differently. All in all it sounded a little scary but the cardiologist is very respected in his field and I trusted his input and opinion that there was no real danger related to her heart. That was Monday. Tuesday evening she started to not eat well, and by Wednesday morning the throwing up had started. We called her pediatrician, who is AMAZING by the way, and then we get back to where I left off above.

So the doctor tells me that he expects that our little angel will be in the OR that evening. Finally on my way to the hospital my husband got my messages and made it into a service area and called me. He left the job site immediately, in Salem, and met me just in time at the hospital to hear that surgery was likely eminent. Our little girl went into the OR at 6pm that night. The hours between 2 and 6 are a little blurry. We had to put her through a swallow study which was torturous for us and her, and inevitably she was on the OR table shortly after that. We had the most amazing team of doctors, nurses, surgeon, anesthesiologist ever. They had to open her belly after going in laproscopically initially and had to scrape away at her small intestines, spread them all out in the right fashion and then close her up and hope that everything stayed put. That was easily one of the longest days in my entire life. Finding out what was wrong, waiting for tests, waiting for a decision, waiting while she was in surgery, waiting while knowing your little baby is in someone elses hands is torturous. So that is where the need for breast milk comes in.

I had been breasfeeding, though, like with my first 2 kids, my body did not make enough milk to support her. Medications, pumping, taking supplements, lactation visits, none of it seemed to help. I had to start supplementing with formula. Post surgery she was not allowed to eat or drink anything until they could hear bowel tones. That meant no nursing and at that point what little supply I did have was completley wiped out by stress, not eating, not sleeping, and not having any baby contact or breast feeding. She was not allowed to try anything for almost a week after surgery. When she did get to eat again, she medically qualified for bank milk. During our stay in the hospital, my dear friend and coworker, who had recently had a baby who could not latch, had been pumping away a huge supply of milk and stashing it away for his consumption. She had started thawing milk for him and he was rejecting it. She was sick to her stomach that her son wouldn't drink any of the frozen milk and the thought of throwing it away just killed her. So as my milk quickly dried up, she found that she had a huge stash of milk that was of no use to her. 4 months later, we just used the last of what she gave us. It was a complete miracle that it worked out as it did. My little Lumen has been happily growing and thriving on the donated mama milk.

As the milk has been running out, I have had to start giving my baby formula. She spits up, she is constipated and she has much less of an interest in eating. I hate to see her start to slide backwards. She has grown from 5 and a half pounds when she finally came home from her stay in the NICU, to almost 11 pounds to date. Pretty amazing if you ask me, and all thanks to a very generous friend and coworker who's baby must have known that some other baby really needed it.

I would love to keep things easy on her belly by being able to provide her with more mama's milk, but I have to rely on others graciousness to make it happen.

If you have any surplus milk or know of anyone who does I would love to get in touch. My little one is soooo sweet, you would never know what a rocky start she faced if you looked at her today.

Thank you for reading our story!!