Feeding

By day three, we were thrilled to have Ben walk into the NICU and see that VOILA!  Little man was not only off of the warming bed, but he was also off of oxygen as well.  Such a lovely sight to see him without that oxygen tube.

Although he was a trooper and got through those first obstacles, now we had to tackle eating.  Evidently when you are this little, it's really difficult and exhausting to get through the whole feeding process.  We were told by the nurse that the doctor was contemplating putting him on a feeding tube because he had a minimum (at the time) of eating 15mls per feeding.  If he didn't do that they were going to put him on a tube.    We were pretty upset about the possibility, no one wants to hear that.  First thing the next morning, I called the NICU and he made it through the night sans feeding tube.  Yay!

Unfortunately, I got a call early afternoon from the Neonatologist and he said that they needed to move up Axel's minimums and he wasn't eating enough - to help him to continue to get stronger and gain weight, they would need to put him on a tube afterall. 

I lost it.  I pictured a slurpee straw up his little nostril and the image just killed me!  But then a nurse called and said that we could go help give him a bath and that helped me feel better. :)  We got to the NICU and I was terrified to see this huge tube in his nose - and it only looked like a little bit of dental floss.  The tiniest tube I've seen!

And clearly he wasn't fazed... so I was okay.

So little man now has a minimum of 40mls that he has to eat per feeding.   He gets really tired and typically either falls asleep or just loses interest in the process.  It's something that we really have to take day by day and evidently it's a very common issue with preemies; they just don't know how to do this yet.  All the nurses say that there will be a light switch that comes on and it's like, OH!  This is how it works!

We've had some good days and some okay days, and each time we hit a milestone we celebrate.   He's on a strict schedule... he eats at 12, 3, 6, 9, 12, 3, 6, 9...  we were feeding him each time with a bottle with the hopes that he would get to 40mls.  Whenever he would eat, he would take about 13 - 14mls average and then he would have the remainder of the bottle gavaged through the tube.  This proved to still be very very exhausting and he actually went backwards one day, not really eating anymore than 6 - 8mls per feeding, so just yesterday the doctor asked to switch things up.   They are now doing bottle feed, bottle feed, then a pure gavage feed through the tube.  This allows Axel to rest and get some energy back to try and conquer the bottle.   They started this yesterday, with 6pm being his first pure gavage feeding.

We were here for his 9pm feeding and... drumroll... we got up to 36ml!!!

 

We get forehead rubs and they make us happy.

 

Exhausted after some good eats!

So where are we today? 

Last night he supposedly took 40mls which is AMAZING and is exactly what we want.  He has his next bottle feeding at 3pm, so cross your fingers that this continues... once he can prove that he can do this consistently without requiring a gavage, they will then remove the tube from his nose and we'll work for the next few days to maintain.   

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.  Ben and I are humbled by the kindness and the love that all have shown thus far.   I will work on keeping this updated,  I promise!  Thanks again and Axel looks forward to meeting each and every one of you!