Follow up with Pediatrician

I couldn't take it anymore. I was getting more and more concerned with Lexi and my weight check for her wasn't for another week. I decided to call and try and get an earlier appointment. Matt and I took her in today to see what we needed to do.

Unfortunately, instead of gaining weight over the past 3 weeks, she lost 1 oz. She weighs 12 lbs, 2 oz, at 7 months old.  I know that it's only 1 oz, but a loss it a loss and it's not good for a baby that is already small.  I was a little nervous about what Dr. Ally was going to say. When she walked into the room, the first thing she said was "so are you ready for the NG tube?" I told her I wasn't. Because I'm not. I don't think that we've come to that point yet.  So we had to go through all our options. The one question Matt and I never felt like we got a real answer to was how long can we let Lexi go without taking any liquid before it's too long?  We finally got our answer and it is 24-48 hours. That seems like such a long time for a little baby to go with out food.  Dr. Ally said our ideal situation would be to find a family member to take the babe and Matt and I go on a vacation for a few days.  We can't do that though because we don't have anyone to watch all the kids and I don't think it's fair to leave my screaming baby that won't eat or sleep in the hands of someone else.   At this point, I, as the mom had two options. One, to let Matt take her away for UT or Vegas for the weekend and wait for her to get hungry enough to take the bottle, or have home health come in, put a tube in her nose and feed her that way. As hard as this is, I have decided to send her to UT with Matt for the weekend. It's such an awful feeling to know that she could potentially scream for up to 48 hours before she takes a bottle. I don't feel ready for this. I don't feel ready to not nurse her anymore. It makes me so sad. She's my last baby and I wanted to nurse her for a whole year. I did find out though that often times when a woman has a breast reduction, the mammary glands are cut and while milk can be produced, it doesn't always produce fatty milk. It makes sense because the same thing happened with Mitchy. My older girls were breastfed and bottle fed, so they thrived.  In a way, it makes me feel better to know that it is out of my control as to what is happening.

Even though I know it's NOT my fault, I can't help but feel that way.

Anyhow, I will send my baby with my hubby this weekend and hopefully this will work. If it doesn't, then my only option is to put a tube in her nose. I really want to avoid that route. I feel like I have to exhaust all my avenues before I will go the medical route.