What a crazy week this has been.
Eden has never been a great eater. Since coming home from the hospital in October, feeding time has always been a somewhat dreaded event and was always a rocky road. She would go through periods where she would eat good and gain weight pretty good, but then just days later she would drop back down and decide she didn't want to eat and her weight would drop back too. Even in good times though, it would take us at least an hour to get her to finish a three or four oz bottle which is way too long! Obviously this has been a major concern since her little preemie body is still trying to catch up so it needs all the nutrients it can get!
Back on 12/28 we took Eden in for a swallow study. They made her drink this crazy chalky liquid as they watched through the x-ray. The good news is that she is not aspirating at all (getting any liquids down into her lungs), but the bad news is that she has pretty bad reflux. They call her a "silent refluxer" because she doesn't ever really spit up, but she definitely has some acid burning problems going on inside. So it's no wonder that she wasn't liking to eat! She started on some reflux medication, but unfortunately it didn't really seem to help.
This past week she decided she had had enough of the whole eating thing and decided she wasn't going to do it anymore. I tried all I could do to get her to eat, but over a two day period (Mon & Tues of this week), she only ate a total of about 12 oz. It was time for me to give in and get the G-tube.
We have had several conversations about this procedure since leaving the hospital before but I wanted to make sure she really needed it before putting her through another surgery. I tried my best, she tried her best, but unfortunately it came to a point where we could no longer avoid it.
So Wednesday we checked in to the hospital, and she had her surgery on Thursday. She now has a little tube that goes directly into her stomach. Everything went really well and I have already realized how amazing this thing is! It has already made life so much easier!
So we offer her a bottle and she takes what she wants of it, and whatever she doesn't finish we can feed her through the tube. The best part of all, I can now give her all her medications directly through the tube instead of making her swallow it all! It's amazing! No more forcing her to take anything she doesn't want to take!
It's also such a blessing to have piece of mind because I was constantly stressing about her weight gain and how much she was eating, and whether or not she was getting all she needed. Now I don't have to worry, and eating can become a much more enjoyable experience for us both.
Preparing to go into surgery. Isn't that a cute little gown?
Here she is right after surgery. Poor baby.
She was not a happy little girl. I think it was the pain mixed with the extreme hunger. She couldn't eat anything at all the day of the surgery or so she was not happy. And the pacifier was not doing it for her.
This doesn't look like a comfortable way to sleep, but we were just happy to get her to relax enough to go to sleep!
But by Friday afternoon, after she had some food and some good recovery time she was already back to her happy, content self. Here she was hanging out in bed with dad watching a movie.
Now that Eden is a little older, it was much harder to keep her entertained in that hospital room so she was a little more fussy. We were able to find this little bouncer for her and that helped break up the boredom a little.
Fortunately we were able to come home Saturday night and Eden is doing really well. The recovery from this procedure has been very smooth and easy and we are grateful to be home again. Oh the journeys this girl leads us on! We are anxious for what's next! (hopefully it won't involve the hospital though!)
