The day after arriving in Tauranga (it was June 13, '06) I was allowed to try and breastfeed Noah again, for the first time after 33 (!) days. As soon as I put him on the breast, he knew what to do and was away, heartely sucking and drinking!!! It was so amazing! I just sat there, feeding him and crying tears of happiness. All that expressing had not been for nothing after all. It was a real answer to prayer for me.
From then on, I could slowly increase the amount of breastfeeds each day and decrease the amount of formula. Noah had several x-rays to make sure the chylothorax wasn't returning and his lungs stayed clear. The x-rays showed his lungs stayed very clear!

We stayed in Tauranga Hospital for 6 days and went home on 17 June, just in time for Joel's birthday on 19 June. Joel, Noah's oldest brother is now 12.
It was nice to be home for Joel's birthday, but a few days later, when I went to see Noah's paediatrician, Noah had lost too much weight and she wanted Noah back in hospital. The story gets a bit boring from here on, it's all about weight gain or weight loss and feeding. We ended up staying in hospital for 2 nights. By then we were better off at home, as there were too many bugs going around in the children's ward. A week later we were back in hospital AGAIN... :-(
This time we stayed for 10 days... By now Noah had his feeding tube (NG) back in and the first few days he had only tube feeds of expressed breast milk, just to get some weight back on him.
It was hard being back in hospital again, but at last Noah started to gain weight. By the time we went home, he was on 3 breastfeeds and 5 NG feeds a day.
The home care nurses from the hospital now come 2x a week to weigh Noah. He's packing the weight on now! (July '06)
As I write this on 20 July '06, he's now 4.25kg or 9lbs 3. His birth weight was 3.7kg or 8lbs 3. And he gets 2 tube feeds plus 6 breast feeds a day. We're hoping to get rid of the tube soon.
We're extremely grateful to our Heavenly Father for saving Noah's life and for having him with us. He's such a joy and a blessing!