Sending some warm vibes your way.
thanks for all the updates.
/S
Serena just doesn’t want to suckle. I fed her myself this afternoon. Her tounge curls up to the roof of her mouth and she doesn’t latch on. She does latch a couple times a feeding session and suckles, and then goes slack jawed.
I then spent 30 minutes spritzing milk via a 5 cc syringe until she swallowed around 2 oz. Also took chinawife to see the active Serena. Much heartened to hold and active interactive baby.
That said, my wife is still haunted by the birth, worry and lacks her normal fire. not sure if it’s post partum depession or massive guilt or combination. And we got broken into last night and lost a dvd player and my piece of shit Dell work laptop (probably lost all my emails but have bulk of stuff backed up on OneNote). First time burgled/robbed in 20 years in Asia.
I am going to talk to the docs tomorrow and see what comfort level they need to allow Serena to come safely home. I will offer 24-48 hours to feed her myself and the right amount in the allotted time. The neonatal ICU is good but lack staff in intermediate care. I have to prove to both docs and my wife that Serena can get adequate nutrition at home. Thank whoever/whatever gods there are I work for an awesome big multinational that is supportive of parental leave and a direct manager/team that’s doing the right time. I’m gonna get my girl home, healthy and family whole damn soon.
Our hearts are with you China Guy.
To quote a favorite chant from Spaceballs, “SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!”
Congratulations on your new babies! I’m sorry thngs aren’t going as well as you would like with Serena and I wish all the positive energy I can muster for her to gain her skills and be able to come home. Out of curiosity, has she been seen by an Occupational Therapist or a Speech Therapist for an oral evaluation? They have tons of tricks and tips for this sort of thing after evaluating the mechanical issues. Best of luck to you all. Please send your wife a hug for me. My first baby was taken immediately to the neonatal ICU after she was born for a possible infection. It had been an incredibly long and intensive labor. Everything turned out ok and I was able to leave the hospital with her after five days, but that wasn’t a sure thing until the morning I was discharged. The idea of going home without her was devastating. This must be incredibly hard on both of you, especially with two other children needing you, too.
I talked the docs into letting me feed Serena with a syringe and bottle for 24 hours. If it goes well, then she can come home. I’ve already done one feeding and 55cc down the hatch.
I hope she does well and you get to take her home soon.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you Chinaguy Things will be so much less stressful when the family’s together at home.
Suck, Serena, Suck! 
Way to get it done, ChinaGuy!
Is your ChinaGal on anti-depressants? Zoloft is approved for bfeeding, just to keep in mind.
IANAD (or anything near), but I just can’t help but wonder if your little Chinette has an underlying illness, like my little boy did. That’s what kept him from feeding, he just ran out of breath b/c he had pneumonia, even though he was pretty asymptomatic. Something to keep in mind, if things continue as they are. Once they gave him antibiotics he got better fast!
Good luck to your whole family!
There are loads of Dopers here that are sending positive vibes to your Family, China Guy and the fact that you were robbed during this terrible time period makes me want to grab a pitch fork and chase down the bastid(s).
If you need someone to email just to vent, mine is in my profile. Then i’ll read it too my dog. She is a wonderful therapist. 
Hey China Guy, I haven’t posted to this thread in awhile, but I’ve been watching it like a hawk checking for updates on your little girls. I can’t wait to read the post that your whole family is home safe and happy. You sound like a wonderful parent.
very quick. serena and i were not able to prove we could safely and efficiently feed.
great news is that serena is being transferred out of the neonatal ICU intermediate care and to the foreign clinic where she was born. serena will have a room with a bed and sofa bed. so if i can’t bring her home, i can bring the whole family to be with her! she will also get the med care and nurturing she needs. hopefully a few days and we can figure out how to feed efficiently and safely. i’ll finally be able to take some family photo’s
That is wonderful news. I hope we see the family photo soon!
I have been following your thread closely China Guy. I am so glad that Serena is getting stronger and you’ll be able to take her home soon.
My younger son was born only a month early but it was a traumatic delivery, and he couldn’t suck. I remember sitting there for an hour or two at a time, and then weighing him to realise he had only taken 6ml in all that time. It was heartbreaking and frustrating. At 6 months he was half the weight he should have been, but now at four and a half, he is a chunky muscular boy who loves to ski, has endless energy and is as fit and healthy as can be.
I am sending good vibes your way that Serena will get over her rough start and begin to blossom very soon.
serena is checked out of the ICU and now at the foreign china joint venture clinic with and 10 beds. serena and audrey just finished eating and are now sleeping with mother and grandmothe also napping in the room.
china guy does the happy dance.
i’ll probablystart a new thread in a day or two.
::::::::::::::::Does Happy Dance:::::::::::::::::
Home will never feel so good!
I read this thread and always look for updates.
How is Audrey doing in comparison to Serena? Is she growing by leaps and bounds?
how did you get your little guy to start suckling?
i’ve had the Haberman feeder recommended to me for all sorts of feeding problems. not yet approved for sale in china, and completely out of stock. colleagues in the US have bought me a couple that are probably in the air as i type this
I was very determined to exclusively breastfeed but it was hard going because we live in Japan, and although it is officially enccouraged, nurses and hospital rules do their best to undermine you. For example, the baby, even when I was sicker than him, had to stay in NICU and I had to go to him. I had lost pints of blood and couldn’t sit up without fainting for a few days… Even sitting in a wheel chair was not possible at the beginning. After 24 hours I had a shit fit (my husband is Japanese and very subservient to authority, so all fitting had to be done by me. Your wife is very fortunate to have you to intercede on her and your daughters’ behalf.) and cried and cried until they brought the baby to me. I got him for five minutes while they stood over me with a stopwatch, but I saw how weak he was and was willing to let him go again. In my post-cesarean haze I had become convinced there was something very wrong with him that they were hiding from me. My husband was AT WORK (Long story - he had taken a lot of time off in the preceding 6 weeks when we realised I had placenta previa, and he had run out of days by then. His oh-so-caring boss decreed that he have no more off unless there was a “real” crisis.)
Anyway, as to how I got him feeding. In the hospital which kept us in about three weeks after his birth, I got no help at all. I banned them from giving him anything at all, which helped in some ways but of course exhausted me. They refused to sterilise the breast pump and supplemental nursing system (like thin tubes attached to a bottle which you hang round your neck and tape the tubes along the nipple - you can use formula or your own milk.) because they thought that hand expressing was the only way to go, and that I was nuts not to just stick a bottle into his mouth - not that he was sucking on anything at that point. Tough luck that I can’t hand express. My very VERY good friend took it and sterilized it once a day for me, so at least one feeding’s worth could be helped along. Other than that, I resorted to expressing drop by drop into his mouth. It was pitifully slow. I am not sure how early your Serena was, but my boy was only a month early and quite big at 2900g (Nearly 7lbs? Not sure!) There were setbacks with jaundice so he was taken back into the “pre-NICU”. (I don’t know what you call it in English!) You were only supposed to go in there at set times and not without asking permission first but I just went in and they were too nervous to order me out again!
When we got out I struggled till his two month birthday before he really got the hang of being in the world at all. He was very unresponsive, mostly wanted to sleep, and didn’t want to react at all to us. It was like he’d been woken up too early and wasn’t ready for it. When he got to a couple of weeks past his real due date, he suddenly woke up and kind of looked around him, and “got it”. Unfortunately my boobs had decided there was no-one around to feed, and had just about shut down production by then. Hopefully with Audrey eating too you won’t have that problem.
So this is an exceedingly long winded way of saying that we did no more than you did, of tipping it in a tiny squirt at a time, for mind bendingly frustrating periods of time, for 45 minutes of sleep before it all began again.
Good luck, it WILL come right. She has made such huge strides already in her little life, and she is getting stronger by the day. Keep on squirting!
wow, what a reply. the doctor pulling night duty ton9ght thinks it will only take about a week for serena to feed on her own. thank goodness we’re getting considerable help now. i’ll probably start working next week from the hospital room (laptop, internet and mobile and i’m in business)
That’s really good to hear! And I am so pleased to hear that you are able to spend so much time with Serena - I am sure that as much skin to skin contact and love as possible really helps.
My older son who was born VERY healthy, was in hospital with me ten days because I had a cesarean that time too, which also knocked me out, and my husband who had a nice boss at that time was given an entire week’s holiday. I had a private room in the hospital, and the doctor told my husband there was no point in him going home if he didn’t want to, and had a bed put in for him. So for five solid days and nights we were together. My husband thought it was mean to leave the baby in the little crib after being cuddled up with me for nine months, and I had a fever and kept opening the window in sub zero temperatures, to cool off. So hub had baby in his bed or down his shirt almost 24 hours a day for five days. They spent hours lying on the bed next to each other, staring into each other’s eyes, and even though then my husband went away for nearly a month for work as soon as we got out of hospital, and resumed his usual 2 weeks home/two weeks away work pattern, my older boy at 8 is still deeply attached to his dad. I am sure that they did that imprinting thing.
I am sure that all this attention and care you are lavishing on Serena is going to have the same bonding effect between you too. Oh my goodness you are going to lead a dogs life with FOUR women all trying to bend you to their wills! Have fun with them all!!
I just caught this thread. Congrats China Guy. Here is a great link (if you have time) that discusses how to get a baby back to the breast. In it you will find some information on suck training as well.
I am currently breastfeeding my 1 year old, but we had a lot of problems in the beginning. The wonderful ladies on this board really helped me. You could possibly post there. I know there is one lady in particular who had success with cranio-sacral therapy to correct a poor suck reflex. She also had luck with the Haberman Feeder which you have mentioned.
Hope this helps a little bit…and congrats again!