Eli turned blue...

Last night I attempted to feed Eli his bottle twice. At his 6:00 feeding he was pretty much asleep and didn't really take anything from me (this is a theme I can never get him to drink the bottle from me). Then we tried again at his 9:00 feeding because he was finally wide awake. This is when Eli turned blue not once but three times.

Before his 9:00 feedings the nurses take his stats and weigh him and I changed his diaper and his clothes and he was getting really impatient with all of this nonsense. It was obvious during all of this that he was hungry and just wanted to eat. So when it was finally time, he took the bottle and just start gulping. Which does not work so well for tiny babies who still need to work on the whole suck, swallow, breath combination and his monitor's alarm promptly turned to red, starting dinging, he stopped breathing and turned blue and gray. It was terrifying and thankfully the nurse was standing there instructing me what to do. Eventually with some back patting and leaning him forward he started panting for air and some of his color returned.

Hesitantly, I gave Eli his bottle once again and he did okay for a few minutes. Until we had a repeat of the above scenario and once again I was holding a blue baby who wasn't really breathing. He was just sort of slumped in my arms and his face looked awful his lips were blue. Again the nurse instructed me what to do and eventually he started panting and breathing again.

At this point I was ready to give up on the whole bottle feeding session, but instead we switched out the nipple of the bottle to a slower flow and tried again. Then the same thing happened. Finally, at this point the nurse decided that he was working just a little too hard for his dinner, and I was becoming exasperated at seeing my baby continually turning blue and gray.

I know this is all just part of his immaturity. Sucking, swallowing and breathing are still a lot of work for him but this sucked a lot. The nurse then explained to me what had happened, why it happened, and what to do should this ever happen at home... holy crap. I hoping that by the time he's ready to come home the eating thing is much easier and I never have to face this without the help of monitors which alert me to the distress and a roomful of nurses.

I have to say that while all of this was happening I did a really good job of not panicking. I was calm the entire time and just listened the nurse on what to do. However, once the entire feeding session was over I was little more freaked out by the whole thing, and I think at this point Marcus will never want to try and feed the babies again, since he's been afraid this would happen from the very start of introducing the bottle.

The rest of his feeding was given through his tube and I held him until he turned back to his pink, rosy, little self.

In other feeding nurse, before all of this happened Marcus gave Emerson her 8:00 feeding from a bottle. She did really well (until she fell asleep) and there were no major incidents and both babies continue to gain. Eli 4lbs 10oz and Emerson 3lbs 9oz.