Showing posts with label Feeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feeding. Show all posts
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Challenges
We've had a rough few days here mostly due to some feeding problems with Chase. When we went to MUSC last Tuesday, they told us he did great with his swallow study and could now handle thin liquids (i.e. breastmilk). We were ecstatic! The recommendation was to breastfeed every other feeding and give him a bottle in between with thickened milk, but slowly decrease the amount of thickener we use in the bottles until it is just breastmilk. We tried that for the first day or so, but it seemed the poor guy would spit up a lot of the bottle, while he appeared to keep the milk down when he nursed. Weird, right? So hubs and I made the decision to just jump ahead to exclusive breastfeeding and eliminating the bottles. That was working REALLY well for about a day. Then we noticed about three hours after he'd nursed, he would spit up a decent amount of milk. Only it's not really your normal "milk spit-up" so much as a mostly clear spit (TMI?). We've seen it come from his mouth and his nose, and usually it doesn't appear to upset him. But it definitely upsets me. Hubs and I attempted to discuss it this morning (more on that later... maybe) and we're guessing we'll go back to doing what MUSC recommended, supplementing with bottles in between breastfeeding. The down side to this is that it means I get to hook myself back up to that durn breast pump, which (as you might imagine), after 11 weeks of use, I'm quite sick of it!! I calculated that when Chase was exclusively bottle-feeding, I spent an average of 3 hours per day hooked up to that thing, which equates to about 90 hours per month!!! I really don't want to go back to that! As of right now, I'll be pumping every other feed, so I guess I'll keep telling myself that 50% is better than 100%!
Please pray that Chase learns how to handle breastmilk consistency feeds so that we won't have to go back to thickened feeds and stop breastfeeding. It's obviously very important that Chase continues to grow so he's nice and big for his next surgery (which will probably be in April or May), and if he spits up the breastmilk, he's not getting the calories he needs. I really don't want to go back to thickened bottle-feeds, but it has to be about what's best for Chase, and not what I want.
Just an FYI... Chase's cardiology appointment went great yesterday (in and out in only TWO short hours! woot!). He weighed in at a whopping 11 lbs. 5 oz. (with a dry diaper on) and was up to 23 inches in length! Dr. Horne said his saturation is great, his pressures are great and his heart function is great! In fact, he said that for an HLHS baby, Chase is as good as you can get! As if I didn't already know that!? I'm so grateful our journey has been what it's been. There are so many other families out there who are truly struggling or have lost their precious HLHS angel. God has blessed us with our sweet boy and we thank Him DAILY for the gift of bringing Chase into our family!
Thank you for your continued support and prayers. We've got other challenges happening right now, too, but they aren't related specifically to Chase and aren't really something I'll discuss here. I'll just say it's still an adjustment period for our family and all four of us being confined to our house almost 24/7 is a challenge.
((sigh))
Please pray that Chase learns how to handle breastmilk consistency feeds so that we won't have to go back to thickened feeds and stop breastfeeding. It's obviously very important that Chase continues to grow so he's nice and big for his next surgery (which will probably be in April or May), and if he spits up the breastmilk, he's not getting the calories he needs. I really don't want to go back to thickened bottle-feeds, but it has to be about what's best for Chase, and not what I want.
Just an FYI... Chase's cardiology appointment went great yesterday (in and out in only TWO short hours! woot!). He weighed in at a whopping 11 lbs. 5 oz. (with a dry diaper on) and was up to 23 inches in length! Dr. Horne said his saturation is great, his pressures are great and his heart function is great! In fact, he said that for an HLHS baby, Chase is as good as you can get! As if I didn't already know that!? I'm so grateful our journey has been what it's been. There are so many other families out there who are truly struggling or have lost their precious HLHS angel. God has blessed us with our sweet boy and we thank Him DAILY for the gift of bringing Chase into our family!
Thank you for your continued support and prayers. We've got other challenges happening right now, too, but they aren't related specifically to Chase and aren't really something I'll discuss here. I'll just say it's still an adjustment period for our family and all four of us being confined to our house almost 24/7 is a challenge.
((sigh))
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Long Overdue Update
Hey, guys! Sorry it's been several days since my latest update. There's a lot to talk about! I'll apologize in advance since I'm guessing this'll be a lengthy post!
We had a great New Year. Wasn't sure if I'd mentioned that last week or not. It was just the four of us, although the kiddos were obviously in bed before midnight. We welcome 2010 with open arms! The best part of 2009 was my sweet little Chase's arrival (and heart defect butt-kicking), but overall the year held a lot of struggles and problems for our extended family. I can't wait to see what 2010 has in store for us! And as a side note, I once heard someone refer to this year as "oh-ten" (like '09). I think that's funny.
We had a pretty quiet weekend. Hubs and I have been working through some of our communication issues that (go figure!) seem to appear when a family spends 3+ months stuck in a bubble together 24/7. We've also been trying to make the effort to get LO out of the house more often. She's really been acting out a bit since we got home 5 weeks ago and I don't think it's all just because she's 2-1/2. I know being in the house with us all the time has been difficult for her, and we can't take her outside since it's so stinkin' cold! She's lucky if she gets to go on a Target or grocery store run these days. Poor girl!
So last night, hubs, Chase and I left for Charleston while LO stayed home with my mom. Let me tell you that girl was beyond stoked to finally have someone other than Mommy and Daddy to spend time with! It was so great to see her so happy to spend time with her Mona. As a bonus, while we were finishing up packing, my mom happened to ask me about the white film stuff on Chase's tongue and how long it'd been there. I said (since I am in fact the world's worst mom EVER) that I was pretty sure it'd been there for awhile. I had assumed it was just leftover milk residue that remained on his tongue after his feedings. Unfortunately, she looked closer and confirmed my precious boy had thrush! It's a yeast infection in his mouth!!! Oh my goodness, I can't believe I had NO idea. I felt awful! I immediately called his pediatrician, told the nurse and she called in a prescription for us to pick up on our way out of town. I still feel awful. It should clear up in 7-10 days, but still. Ugh.
So we hit the road and made it safely to our hotel, checked in and had a pretty good night. This morning we packed up and headed to MUSC. It was so surreal to be back in that part of town, back in that parking garage, back in that hospital. We headed over for his ENT follow-up first. They did a flex scope bronchoscopy and we all got to see his throat on TV! It was pretty cool (although Chase didn't really care for it)! The doctor was VERY pleased with what she saw. The spot where she had removed some granulation during his bronchoscopy procedures while were at MUSC looked fantastic. The best part was that we got to see his vocal cords moving (since he was totally crying through the whole thing!) and the left one was moving!!! We were told the cord paralysis goes away on it's own in about 40% of patients, and apparently Chase is continuing with his incredible awesomeness! Both cords were moving, but there was still a very small gap between them when they closed. It wasn't anything the doctor was too worried about, and she was fine with following up on him again when we return to MUSC in late March for his heart cath. This was such great news and we are so very thankful!!! Another bonus of his great progress is that we should be albe to discontinue his Reglan in 2 weeks, and probably his Zantac after we see her again in March! So he'll just be left with Lasix in the morning and aspirin at night! Again, thank you Lord for Your incredible work in Chase's life!
We left the ENT appointment and stopped over in the PCICU to say hello and visit for a few minutes with the great staff that took such great care of Chase. Then we went into the PCICU waiting room to feed and change Chase, where I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Anna Grace's mom. Anna Grace had her Norwood surgery yesterday (Monday) and had her chest closed today (Tuesday)! That's simply amazing! I also saw Maia's mom since they were out for a stroll. Maia's still on 7C waiting to go home after her Glenn surgery several weeks ago. Please keep her in your prayers!
After visiting with these sweet heart moms for a bit, hubs, Chase and I headed to Speech Therapy for his 1:30 PM swallow study. Imagine our surprise when we were told our appointment had been canceled! WHAAAA???! Apparently they told us our appointment was actually at 10:00 AM, not 1:30 PM. Hubs was all over it. He told them he called Monday, spoke with (I forgot her name but he knew it) at 3:36 PM and confirmed his 1:30 PM appointment for Tuesday afternoon. Long story short, they tried to shoo us into a general pediatric waiting room (with a single-ventricle baby?? No thank you!!), then told us they'd "fit us in" but it'd probably be about 30 minutes. Keep in mind Chase had to be HUNGRY for his swallow study so he hadn't eaten in almost 3 hours. There was NO WAY he was gonna hold out for another 30+ minutes. Blurg!! Hubs handled the whole situation awesomely while I kept tabs on our little guy and tried to keep the freak-out to a minimum. The staff was nice enough to let us wait in an empty exam room, and luckily it was only about 10-15 minutes before they were ready for us. We got him all situated and the radiologist was ready to start the swallow study. We were using a thin liquid (breastmilk consistency) with a regular flow nipple. The boy went to town on that sucker! He took in 20 of 30 mL's of the barium mixture and the radiologist said he was doing great!! In fact, they didn't even want to try the liquid with a slow-flow nipple since he handled the regular one so well! Woot!!! I was BEYOND excited!!! This meant I could finally start nursing my precious baby boy after 10 weeks of pumping and bottle feeding! Praise the Lord!!! I already nursed him during one of our stops on our way home from Charleston, and again before he went to bed! It was so awesome to finally get to do this after waiting so long, and -- no surprise -- he did fantastic!!!
So basically I'm able to start nursing him every other feed, and in between we'll still bottle feed with thickened milk, but we'll slowly decrease the amount of thickener we use until he's at regular consistency all the time. This process should only take a few days, after which I'll be able to nurse exclusively! I'm so excited, but also a bit nervous because I just don't have the supply to keep up with my little fattie. He's taking about 6 ounces every 3-4 hours, and when I've pumped, I barely get 3. I'm really hopeful that he'll help increase my supply now that he'll be able to nurse and I won't have to use the pump all of the time. If anyone has any suggestions for increasing milk production, I'd love to hear it! I spent the past 4 days pumping every TWO hours, but only saw a minimal increase in my daily totals. I know I can't take any prescription meds to help with this, but I might try some herbs like Fenugreek to see if it does any good.
On another note, you may recall that I eliminated milk protein products from my diet starting last Wednesday. Well, it's supposed to take 10-14 days for the milk protein to leave my system, but we've found no traces of blood in Chase's diapers for the past 2 days! Woot!!! I have no idea if this truly means he has a milk allergy or if something else has improved things, but I'm so grateful! I'll keep up the milk diet in case Chase does have a milk allergy, but we'll find out for sure in a few weeks when we retest his stool for blood.
Another random note... When we got home tonight, I gave Chase a bath (which he loves, by the way). Before I put him in the tub, I checked his weight and would you believe he's up to 11 pounds?! He's 10 weeks old and has put on about 2-1/2 pounds since birth! That's almost 30% of his birth weight! What a little eater! I'm so happy he's doing so well! And I'm so grateful for the prayers and support of our family and friends and blog readers! I know I don't say it here enough, but THANK YOU and keep the prayers coming!!
Whew! So that's it for my long overdue update. But I do want to say a big "PRAISE THE LORD!" for little baby Anna Grace's progress following her Norwood procedure yesterday. God has His hands on this precious girl and has big plans for her life! Please keep her in your prayers as she continues her road to recovery. It's no surprise, but this sweet family is from the Upstate!
Also, I want to ask for your prayers for sweet little Josiah. As you may know, his family FINALLY moved back home to the Upstate after his 7 months at MUSC. After a few short days at home with his family, he ended up at a local hospital for a few days. They were told today the idea of taking him back to the PCICU at MUSC was put on the table. Please, please, please pray for this family! They are so incredibly strong and are relying on their faith in God, but I just know they can only take so much! Their journey has been so hard and they truly need our prayers as they make some big decisions in the next few days.
I just realized I didn't include any pics with this l-o-n-g post! I'll make it up to you later this week... :)
We had a great New Year. Wasn't sure if I'd mentioned that last week or not. It was just the four of us, although the kiddos were obviously in bed before midnight. We welcome 2010 with open arms! The best part of 2009 was my sweet little Chase's arrival (and heart defect butt-kicking), but overall the year held a lot of struggles and problems for our extended family. I can't wait to see what 2010 has in store for us! And as a side note, I once heard someone refer to this year as "oh-ten" (like '09). I think that's funny.
We had a pretty quiet weekend. Hubs and I have been working through some of our communication issues that (go figure!) seem to appear when a family spends 3+ months stuck in a bubble together 24/7. We've also been trying to make the effort to get LO out of the house more often. She's really been acting out a bit since we got home 5 weeks ago and I don't think it's all just because she's 2-1/2. I know being in the house with us all the time has been difficult for her, and we can't take her outside since it's so stinkin' cold! She's lucky if she gets to go on a Target or grocery store run these days. Poor girl!
So last night, hubs, Chase and I left for Charleston while LO stayed home with my mom. Let me tell you that girl was beyond stoked to finally have someone other than Mommy and Daddy to spend time with! It was so great to see her so happy to spend time with her Mona. As a bonus, while we were finishing up packing, my mom happened to ask me about the white film stuff on Chase's tongue and how long it'd been there. I said (since I am in fact the world's worst mom EVER) that I was pretty sure it'd been there for awhile. I had assumed it was just leftover milk residue that remained on his tongue after his feedings. Unfortunately, she looked closer and confirmed my precious boy had thrush! It's a yeast infection in his mouth!!! Oh my goodness, I can't believe I had NO idea. I felt awful! I immediately called his pediatrician, told the nurse and she called in a prescription for us to pick up on our way out of town. I still feel awful. It should clear up in 7-10 days, but still. Ugh.
So we hit the road and made it safely to our hotel, checked in and had a pretty good night. This morning we packed up and headed to MUSC. It was so surreal to be back in that part of town, back in that parking garage, back in that hospital. We headed over for his ENT follow-up first. They did a flex scope bronchoscopy and we all got to see his throat on TV! It was pretty cool (although Chase didn't really care for it)! The doctor was VERY pleased with what she saw. The spot where she had removed some granulation during his bronchoscopy procedures while were at MUSC looked fantastic. The best part was that we got to see his vocal cords moving (since he was totally crying through the whole thing!) and the left one was moving!!! We were told the cord paralysis goes away on it's own in about 40% of patients, and apparently Chase is continuing with his incredible awesomeness! Both cords were moving, but there was still a very small gap between them when they closed. It wasn't anything the doctor was too worried about, and she was fine with following up on him again when we return to MUSC in late March for his heart cath. This was such great news and we are so very thankful!!! Another bonus of his great progress is that we should be albe to discontinue his Reglan in 2 weeks, and probably his Zantac after we see her again in March! So he'll just be left with Lasix in the morning and aspirin at night! Again, thank you Lord for Your incredible work in Chase's life!
We left the ENT appointment and stopped over in the PCICU to say hello and visit for a few minutes with the great staff that took such great care of Chase. Then we went into the PCICU waiting room to feed and change Chase, where I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Anna Grace's mom. Anna Grace had her Norwood surgery yesterday (Monday) and had her chest closed today (Tuesday)! That's simply amazing! I also saw Maia's mom since they were out for a stroll. Maia's still on 7C waiting to go home after her Glenn surgery several weeks ago. Please keep her in your prayers!
After visiting with these sweet heart moms for a bit, hubs, Chase and I headed to Speech Therapy for his 1:30 PM swallow study. Imagine our surprise when we were told our appointment had been canceled! WHAAAA???! Apparently they told us our appointment was actually at 10:00 AM, not 1:30 PM. Hubs was all over it. He told them he called Monday, spoke with (I forgot her name but he knew it) at 3:36 PM and confirmed his 1:30 PM appointment for Tuesday afternoon. Long story short, they tried to shoo us into a general pediatric waiting room (with a single-ventricle baby?? No thank you!!), then told us they'd "fit us in" but it'd probably be about 30 minutes. Keep in mind Chase had to be HUNGRY for his swallow study so he hadn't eaten in almost 3 hours. There was NO WAY he was gonna hold out for another 30+ minutes. Blurg!! Hubs handled the whole situation awesomely while I kept tabs on our little guy and tried to keep the freak-out to a minimum. The staff was nice enough to let us wait in an empty exam room, and luckily it was only about 10-15 minutes before they were ready for us. We got him all situated and the radiologist was ready to start the swallow study. We were using a thin liquid (breastmilk consistency) with a regular flow nipple. The boy went to town on that sucker! He took in 20 of 30 mL's of the barium mixture and the radiologist said he was doing great!! In fact, they didn't even want to try the liquid with a slow-flow nipple since he handled the regular one so well! Woot!!! I was BEYOND excited!!! This meant I could finally start nursing my precious baby boy after 10 weeks of pumping and bottle feeding! Praise the Lord!!! I already nursed him during one of our stops on our way home from Charleston, and again before he went to bed! It was so awesome to finally get to do this after waiting so long, and -- no surprise -- he did fantastic!!!
So basically I'm able to start nursing him every other feed, and in between we'll still bottle feed with thickened milk, but we'll slowly decrease the amount of thickener we use until he's at regular consistency all the time. This process should only take a few days, after which I'll be able to nurse exclusively! I'm so excited, but also a bit nervous because I just don't have the supply to keep up with my little fattie. He's taking about 6 ounces every 3-4 hours, and when I've pumped, I barely get 3. I'm really hopeful that he'll help increase my supply now that he'll be able to nurse and I won't have to use the pump all of the time. If anyone has any suggestions for increasing milk production, I'd love to hear it! I spent the past 4 days pumping every TWO hours, but only saw a minimal increase in my daily totals. I know I can't take any prescription meds to help with this, but I might try some herbs like Fenugreek to see if it does any good.
On another note, you may recall that I eliminated milk protein products from my diet starting last Wednesday. Well, it's supposed to take 10-14 days for the milk protein to leave my system, but we've found no traces of blood in Chase's diapers for the past 2 days! Woot!!! I have no idea if this truly means he has a milk allergy or if something else has improved things, but I'm so grateful! I'll keep up the milk diet in case Chase does have a milk allergy, but we'll find out for sure in a few weeks when we retest his stool for blood.
Another random note... When we got home tonight, I gave Chase a bath (which he loves, by the way). Before I put him in the tub, I checked his weight and would you believe he's up to 11 pounds?! He's 10 weeks old and has put on about 2-1/2 pounds since birth! That's almost 30% of his birth weight! What a little eater! I'm so happy he's doing so well! And I'm so grateful for the prayers and support of our family and friends and blog readers! I know I don't say it here enough, but THANK YOU and keep the prayers coming!!
Whew! So that's it for my long overdue update. But I do want to say a big "PRAISE THE LORD!" for little baby Anna Grace's progress following her Norwood procedure yesterday. God has His hands on this precious girl and has big plans for her life! Please keep her in your prayers as she continues her road to recovery. It's no surprise, but this sweet family is from the Upstate!
Also, I want to ask for your prayers for sweet little Josiah. As you may know, his family FINALLY moved back home to the Upstate after his 7 months at MUSC. After a few short days at home with his family, he ended up at a local hospital for a few days. They were told today the idea of taking him back to the PCICU at MUSC was put on the table. Please, please, please pray for this family! They are so incredibly strong and are relying on their faith in God, but I just know they can only take so much! Their journey has been so hard and they truly need our prayers as they make some big decisions in the next few days.
I just realized I didn't include any pics with this l-o-n-g post! I'll make it up to you later this week... :)
Saturday, November 28, 2009
No News is Good News!
We're in the midst of a rather quiet weekend here in 7C. I "officially" moved into Chase's room on Thursday so I could be here for all of his bottle feedings, which worked out perfectly since he has excelled at the bottle thing and pretty much went straight to full feeds and eliminated tube feeds from the get-go. What an incredible blessing!!!
So I have to tell you something that I've been waiting to say for a L-O-N-G time (33 days, to be exact): During rounds this morning, the "D" word was finally mentioned to us! That's right!
There is a REALLY good chance -- assuming Chase has a quiet, boring weekend -- that we will be discharged early next week! Can you believe it!? I feel like I've been waiting forever for that day to arrive! So here's our game plan: Assuming we are discharged next week, we plan to hang out here in Charleston for an extra week or so while we settle our family of FOUR into our rental house -- all together under ONE ROOF for the first time!!! Hubs and I want to have some time to settle into life with a precious newborn while we're still within a 10-minute drive from MUSC, should anything weird happen with Chase (we don't expect this to happen at all... we're just boy scouts!). We won't know until Monday, but there's a chance we'll need to schedule another swallow study (to see if we can try less-thickened milk and eventually regular milk) and perhaps another visit with the ENT folks to do a flexible bronchoscopy here in Chase's room (to see how he's healing and determine whether or not his paralyzed left vocal cord is showing signs of recovery). SO... although we might be discharged next week, it'll still be another week or two after that before we're able to make the trek back to our home sweet home. But can you believe it? There is a light at the end of the tunnel and this leg of our journey may very well be in its final stages!
Of course once we do get home, life will by no means return to the "normal" we once knew. And not just because we're adding a new member to our family. In reality, Chase is still a very fragile little guy (although he looks so incredibly healthy and normal!). We've been advised that it is extremely important that he doesn't get sick between now and his next surgery, the Glenn, which should take place when he's around 6 months old. So basically, once we're home, we're HOME -- meaning no showing off our little rock star, no church, no grocery runs, no shopping trips, etc. Basically, the only time our little one will leave the house is for his doctors appointments. And our sweet LO will have to follow suit. We don't want Chase getting sick because his sister picked up a cold while at Sunday School, so she'll be living in our family's little bubble, too. I know this is going to be so incredibly difficult for me (all of us, really), but I know it's in Chase's best interest and right now that takes precedence over everything else. So let me just say now that while I'm looking forward to being back home and showing off my amazing son, it'll be a long while before he can make public appearances. I, on the other hand, will still be making solo appearances at church, grocery stores, etc. ;) Aren't y'all excited about that!? LOL!
Well this quick little update turned out to be much longer than I expected! Hopefully there won't be much to share tomorrow (Sunday), but maybe, God willing, on Monday, I'll be able to write the happiest post ever, announcing our discharge plans! Woot!!
Thanks to my sister J for sharing these lyrics yesterday. They fully sum up my feelings regarding God's work in my family's lives!
So I have to tell you something that I've been waiting to say for a L-O-N-G time (33 days, to be exact): During rounds this morning, the "D" word was finally mentioned to us! That's right!
Discharge!!!
There is a REALLY good chance -- assuming Chase has a quiet, boring weekend -- that we will be discharged early next week! Can you believe it!? I feel like I've been waiting forever for that day to arrive! So here's our game plan: Assuming we are discharged next week, we plan to hang out here in Charleston for an extra week or so while we settle our family of FOUR into our rental house -- all together under ONE ROOF for the first time!!! Hubs and I want to have some time to settle into life with a precious newborn while we're still within a 10-minute drive from MUSC, should anything weird happen with Chase (we don't expect this to happen at all... we're just boy scouts!). We won't know until Monday, but there's a chance we'll need to schedule another swallow study (to see if we can try less-thickened milk and eventually regular milk) and perhaps another visit with the ENT folks to do a flexible bronchoscopy here in Chase's room (to see how he's healing and determine whether or not his paralyzed left vocal cord is showing signs of recovery). SO... although we might be discharged next week, it'll still be another week or two after that before we're able to make the trek back to our home sweet home. But can you believe it? There is a light at the end of the tunnel and this leg of our journey may very well be in its final stages!
Of course once we do get home, life will by no means return to the "normal" we once knew. And not just because we're adding a new member to our family. In reality, Chase is still a very fragile little guy (although he looks so incredibly healthy and normal!). We've been advised that it is extremely important that he doesn't get sick between now and his next surgery, the Glenn, which should take place when he's around 6 months old. So basically, once we're home, we're HOME -- meaning no showing off our little rock star, no church, no grocery runs, no shopping trips, etc. Basically, the only time our little one will leave the house is for his doctors appointments. And our sweet LO will have to follow suit. We don't want Chase getting sick because his sister picked up a cold while at Sunday School, so she'll be living in our family's little bubble, too. I know this is going to be so incredibly difficult for me (all of us, really), but I know it's in Chase's best interest and right now that takes precedence over everything else. So let me just say now that while I'm looking forward to being back home and showing off my amazing son, it'll be a long while before he can make public appearances. I, on the other hand, will still be making solo appearances at church, grocery stores, etc. ;) Aren't y'all excited about that!? LOL!
Well this quick little update turned out to be much longer than I expected! Hopefully there won't be much to share tomorrow (Sunday), but maybe, God willing, on Monday, I'll be able to write the happiest post ever, announcing our discharge plans! Woot!!
Thanks to my sister J for sharing these lyrics yesterday. They fully sum up my feelings regarding God's work in my family's lives!
How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me
Things so undeserved
Yet You give to prove Your love for me
The voices of a million angels
Cannot express my gratitude
All that I am or ever hope to be
I owe it all to Thee!
To GOD be the glory, for the things He has done!!!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Feeding Success!
Chase has had an awesome few days! He took his first bottle feed Wednesday evening and did fantastic! We did more bottle feeds on Thanksgiving at 9am, 3pm and 9pm. Then today we did 3am and 9am. Basically we've been doing every other feed with a bottle and the others through his ng tube. Well, this morning at his 9am feed he kicked butt and downed 105 ccs (just over 3 oz) so we were given the go ahead to give him ALL bottle feeds and NO ng tube feeds!! Woot!!! AND they are basically letting me be in charge of his schedule, feeding him when he's showing signs of hunger rather than adhering to the "every 3 hours" rule around here. So it's like I finally get to care for him as his MOM!! It only took 32 days to get here!
The added bonus of course is that if he keeps up the great work, the ng tube comes out later this afternoon!!! WOOT!!! We are definitely making progress to get ourselves out the door sooner than later!
We are so very thankful for how God has chosen to work in Chase's life! We know His plans are perfect and He has some great things in store for our baby boy. I continue to be humbled that He has brought Chase through this journey so well up to this point. We are forever grateful to our Lord and Savior for seeing us through the hardest time in our lives and for blessing us with our sweet little Rock Star!!
Posted from my iPhone
The added bonus of course is that if he keeps up the great work, the ng tube comes out later this afternoon!!! WOOT!!! We are definitely making progress to get ourselves out the door sooner than later!
We are so very thankful for how God has chosen to work in Chase's life! We know His plans are perfect and He has some great things in store for our baby boy. I continue to be humbled that He has brought Chase through this journey so well up to this point. We are forever grateful to our Lord and Savior for seeing us through the hardest time in our lives and for blessing us with our sweet little Rock Star!!
Posted from my iPhone
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Bottle Time!
Chase went for an additional swallow study this afternoon since they weren't able to gather all the information they needed yesterday. Basically, he didn't take enough of the thickened barium mixture for the doctors to gauge whether or not he could successfully handle a full feed of thickened breastmilk. So back to the lab we went!
I was very impressed with how well he handled the thickened mixture today. He took about 20 ccs in about 2 minutes! That's pretty darn good for a heart baby! We were very pleased that he took the thickened stuff without any signs of aspirating or penetrating his airway. Praise God!
So the game plan is to try to give him his first official bottle feeding shortly -- between 4:30 - 5:00 PM. I can't wait to give it a try and see how he does! My prayer is that he'll take to these bottle feedings VERY well since this in the only thing keeping us here in the hospital. Please say some prayers for my boy and I'll let ya know how he does!
On another note, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HUBS! Today's our big 4th anniversary! What a blessing he's been in my life!
On yet another note, Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I hope everybody has a wonderful celebration with family and friends tomorrow!
I was very impressed with how well he handled the thickened mixture today. He took about 20 ccs in about 2 minutes! That's pretty darn good for a heart baby! We were very pleased that he took the thickened stuff without any signs of aspirating or penetrating his airway. Praise God!
So the game plan is to try to give him his first official bottle feeding shortly -- between 4:30 - 5:00 PM. I can't wait to give it a try and see how he does! My prayer is that he'll take to these bottle feedings VERY well since this in the only thing keeping us here in the hospital. Please say some prayers for my boy and I'll let ya know how he does!
On another note, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HUBS! Today's our big 4th anniversary! What a blessing he's been in my life!
On yet another note, Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I hope everybody has a wonderful celebration with family and friends tomorrow!
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