Gitmo

Carly is home from the hospital, now, and that has been its own kind of stress. Until further notice, the Wolf will remain in the hospital. He isn't allowed to leave until he gains some weight and can prove that he is able to survive out of the box. Carly has been a trooper, dealing with the separation and her guts and everything quite well, but sometimes it gets the better of her and she has to excuse herself to cry it out.

One of the bizarre things about our kid is that he is way more developed than most 33-week premies. First of all, he's LONG. Almost 19 inches. He's one of the biggest 33-week kids they've ever had in the NICU. Next, he has been bottle-feeding and breastfeeding since day one. He managed the whole latch-and-suck mechanism by day 3, and the nurses are flabbergasted. He's not supposed to even have the capability to learn that until week 35 or so. There are other things that are probably just coincidences, but he just seems like he's got his shit together. So it can be a little confusing when he fails to hit some mark.

As I mentioned, his number 1 goal right now is to gain weight. And he's not really doing that, even though we've been increasing his food intake daily. It's only been a few days, but he should have had a steadier gain than the stop-start he's been showing. Today, one of the nurses told us that if he doesn't gain weight, they'll have to put him on a feeding tube. Especially if he manages to down the whole huge meals they're giving him, now.

What? Wait... if he downs a bottle every 3 hours that is nearly twice what he was eating the day before, you say he'll have to go on a feeding tube? That sounds backwards. But yeah, that's how it goes.

You see, the kid spends a lot of energy just sucking down milk. Working his jaws and neck and throat and everything requires a lot of energy he just doesn't have. So by eating more, he uses more energy. A feeding tube would fix some of that by reducing the amount of energy he expends just gathering food. So it's weird.

The measure is whether or not he gains weight. And less-measurable is the amount of energy he uses to eat. So, for that, we time how long it takes for him to drain a bottle, and whether he's able to keep it all down. This morning, it didn't look good. The room was too warm and it was a struggle for him to drink his breakfast in even 40 minutes. But by his afternoon feedings, he was a pro, slurping away at the bottle and smacking his lips, waiting for more, in about 15 minutes. Hopefully, his overnight meals will stack up, and tomorrow he'll be a fat toad of a baby.

Or, rather, he'll gain an ounce or two and keep it up every day. That's all I hope for at this point. Fat babies.