Our Breast Feeding Journey

Jaycie was born at 31 weeks gestation. She spent 7 weeks in the NICU. During that time she was able to nurse once a day. Her other feeds included a NG tube up her nose and into her stomach and a bottle. When I would visit her at the NICU sometimes she would be to sleepy to nurse at the time I was able to visit. So we werent even able to do it every day. I pumped every 2-3 hours AROUND THE CLOCK while she was in the NICU.
When we got home from the NICU Jaycie had to still have fortified breastmilk (which is EBM with a high calorie formula mixed in). She was still only able to nurse 1-2 times a day. After getting her home I started getting lax about pumpiing ever 3 hours. I would go over night... I would go every 4... 5 hours. Until My milk went from 4oz every pumping session to 1oz. She would eventually get use to the bottle and fight with and get fussy when at the breast.
I then made the desision that I WOULD breastfeed her. I took supplements to help boost milk supply, I drank 1500ccs water a day, I pumped every 1 1/2 hours during the day and once in the middle of the night. My milk was BACK in action. Now it was time to work on Jaycie After 4 days of really... "PUSHING" to get her to nurse because (she started getting so use to the bottle she would cry... push breast away, scream, at the breast each time.) She finally got it. I am happy to report she now nurses about 75% of the day. We are still supposed to use fortified breast milk whenever possible so I make sure she gets a couple bottles of double the calories. Im hoping the trend continues.