Ok...now I'm thinking that the poor suck causing not enough food to get in...is not the problem. Yesterday, the repeated cycle was this: she would suck on a bottle for 5-10 minutes and get nothing (not a drop) and be perfectly happy. Then, as soon as she would get some milk into her mouth, she would scream...mouth full of milk spilling over. It is a wonder that she got anything down. I was so frustrated watching her obviously hurt like this...I made some phone calls today. I called the speech therapist that we saw at the Lake and she gave me some suggestions. I need to decrease the amount of oatmeal (1 tsp per ounce instead of 2 tsp per ounce) and I need to powderize the oatmeal in a blender before adding it to the bottle. I'll also have to buy new Y-cut nipples to replace the ones that I cut to make the hole bigger. I felt like this was probably the wrong thing to do...but, I was just trying to make it easier for her to actually get some nutrition. Hopefully, the new tricks that Sarah told me about will help. She also suggested a Pharyngogram (sp?), which we scheduled for next week. It is a test that examines the swallowing...she drinks barium while they x-ray her throat to be sure that there are no swallowing or aspirating problems.
I also made an appointment with Dr. Wood today...mostly to get a weight, and to run by him all the new issues and ideas. She gained 8 ounces in the last nine days to bring her to 8 lbs. and 13.5 oz. He was pleased and said that I can continue to let her go about 4 hours between feedings as long as she wants to. I've found lately that the oatmeal seems to be filling her up more...when I try to wake her and feed her after three hours, she is still totally out and not interested in even trying to suck. He and I discussed possible reasons for the new feeding problems:
-maybe the Nexium was still in her system last weekend, which is why she did well with that in conjunction with the oatmeal...and maybe it left her system earlier in the week. We started it back Wednesday, so maybe it is taking a couple more days for it to kick in again. I am cautiously hopeful that full strength Nexium together with the oatmeal will bring her some relief...Please God!
-maybe her cold and congestion make her do the gagging that she's doing when she eats sometimes...it certainly can't help the situation.
-maybe neurological factors...
He checked her out again and agreed with me that she is not making eye contact and not smiling in response. He said that by 10 weeks, she should definitely be smiling. These are totally different problems that what Elise had...she was smiling by 6 weeks and was very animated. I didn't even suspect any problems with her tone until she was 6 months old. I'm not trying to diagnose anything by saying that...it's just an observation. We'll continue to play the waiting game with all of this...and give our worries to God. No worry...just prayer!
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