Feeding Update

Charlotte had her 6 month check up and shots on Monday. Official weight: 12 lbs. 7 oz, up 3 oz. from last Tuesday. That's good. Not great, but good.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to find an alternative to the NG tube in order to get enough nutrition into her system. Why? (Skip two paragraphs for the short version.) Last Saturday night we had a huge thunderstorm. After a particularly loud clap of thunder, I went to look for Miles to make sure that our big scaredy-cat was okay. When I popped my head into Charlotte's room, she looked up at me from the crib, eyes wide open with an expression of terror. She had not been crying, so I didn't know she was awake. I thought perhaps the thunder had awoken her and picked her up to soothe her. That's when I realized that she was really struggling to breath--she had a little cold and the NG tube always makes her congested. Between the two, the poor little thing simply could not get air into her nostrils. We suctioned out what we could (okay, Philippe did. I held her.) But, we realized that the only way to clear the right nostril was to pull the tube out. We did that.

We chose not to put the tube back in because on Friday it had taken 6 attempts to reinsert it. 2 by Philippe, 2 by the nurse at the pediatricians office. Then she pulled it out and the nurse had to try 2 more times to put it in. Seriously, we just couldn't do that to her again.

After some serious conversations with the pediatricians, we've decided to explore inserting a G-tube. We have an appointment with a general surgeon, Dr. Marletta Reynolds, for a consult on Tuesday. We're hoping to get the surgery scheduled as quickly as possible.

She's starting to eat about 4 ounces at time consistently; but she needs to do that 8xday to get as much food as she needs. There just aren't enough hours in the day. And after 4 or 5 great feeds she vehemently refuses the bottle.

But, she loves bananas!