Evening update (Wednesday 1/21)

The NICU team are slowly compressing Max's feeds over a shorter and shorter period of time. If his reflux causes him to vomit too much of his food back up when it's given over a 30 minute period, he's a candidate for a type of surgery. In addition, Max used to have a habit of inhaling his refluxed milk and damaging his lungs. Reflux itself can be painful for babies and parents alike of course, and maybe six months from now we'll be wishing he'd had the surgery. But right now, if he doesn't gain enough control over his esophagus, trachea and epiglottis, he'll need a semi-permanent feeding tube installed in his stomach, something we consider worse than reflux-induced crying (right now.)

The early results of Max's compressed feedings are mixed but, on balance, positive so far. He was in distress for the first few feedings after they moved from a continuous drip to 120 minutes. And after they moved to 90 minutes this morning Max vomited up 20 ccs of milk. However, after a late night phone call to the NICU, we learnt that Max has tolerated his most recent feeds well, with, at most, a "wet burp." Who doesn't have at least one wet burp per day? (Men only, please.)

No results yet from Max's 4:00 AM MRI. We did learn that they like to give MRIs in the dead of night because they're less likely to have to sedate the baby (Carolyn adds, "only if the baby knows night from day.")

PS All the links in the first paragraph came from Googling "my crying infant is driving me crazy." Some day, Max may very well drive us crazy with his incessant crying. We'd like to give him that chance, though.