MacKenzie

by Deirdre Coleman

When I was 38 weeks pregnant my doctor told me to go to the hospital, the next day they gave me a c-section because my baby girl was growing to large. That was fine at 38 weeks as you are considered term, so I was not worried about anything. The thought of the baby being under developed never crossed my mind or the doctors.

She seemed a healthy baby after delivery but with in 40 minutes of her birth she went into respiratory distress. The next day, on my 21st birthday, she didn't improve as both her lungs collapsed and she had to be put on a ventilator. We were not sure if she would survive.

The hospital brought me a breast pump to begin pumping milk for MacKenzie. I was really depressed as I just wanted to hold my baby so I could nurse her. I didn't want this awful machine stuck to my chest every time I needed to express. Her daddy was wonderful he helped by waking me every 3 hrs to pump and also to help stimulate my milk he held a picture of our precious baby for me to see. We cried almost every time. Cory, her daddy, would bring the almost nonexistence drops of milk to the NICU, where they froze it for later use. At least I felt like I was doing something to help my little angel!

Things didn't get any better at first as MacKenzie got worse and they had to transfer her to a larger hospital. I still continued to pump. They finally started giving her my milk at 6 days old through a bottle. Amazingly at 10 days old she had improved so much we were allowed to take her home! We were so happy!

Although we were thrilled to go home it suddenly hit me" I didn't know how to breast feed, I was so worried" I had only done it once, just before we left the hospital. We got home and then it all started... nipple confusion, I had to give her a bottle for the first night and I hated it, I felt like the worst mommy. We struggled on for a couple of weeks with many visits to the lactation consultant, but eventually with the consultants help and the support from a loving daddy we succeeded and are very proud to say we are still nursing at almost 5 months of age. She is now a wonderfully, HEALTHY 17 lbs and beautiful!