You're invited

You're invited to a party.
My party.

My pity party.

It's been a really rough week.
The boy just doesn't eat. We started OT this week and unfortunately, it's not a magic answer.

As much as I hated that fucking G tube, I've found myself wishing for it back. Usually he eats well at night but shitty all day.

Well, last night he even ate poorly all night. which means he won't even come close to his goal intake for the day.

He does this nom-nom-nom thing where he sort of gums at the bottle but doesn't actually suck on it. So he pretty much gets what can trick out of the nipple by gravity.

I've tried changing nipples, bottles, nursing- nothing works. When my boob touches his face, he screams. He hasn't nursed since November 25th.

I weighed him last night and after a couple of weeks of good weight gain, he's only gained 4oz in the last 8 days. We're back to suckage again. (8lb 10 oz) for the record.

You can see in the pictures with Santa how much smaller he is than the babies who started out in his realm. He's tiny.

I don't know what else to do. I'm the only person who can get him to eat, and now even I'M failing.

I've even tried not fighting with him. When he gets hungry enough, he'll eat, right? But no.. you take the bottle away and he cries- he's hungry! But he won't suck on it!


I don't know if it's an oral aversion or reflux or what. He had a few days that he seemed to be in pain again, so we upped his meds again and it seems to have helped. At least he's stopped screaming for an hour after every meal.


The thing is- he seems HAPPY. Everything else is great. He's full of smiles and laughs. He's really found his hands. Oh.. he LOVES to suck on those hands! If I could get his hands to squirt milk, we'd be in great shape.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to spend 90 minutes trying to force 2 oz of milk into him, set him down and 12 seconds later, his hands are in his mouth and all you hear is slurp-slurp-slurp.

The other day I heard this loud yell and glanced over and he'd flung his entire body upward to whack at a mobile toy on his swing that was out of reach. He's determined. And strong.

But he's SMALL. Small small small.

Some days it feels like all I do is feed him. Or try to feed him.
I'll spend up to 2 hours trying to get SOMETHING in him.. then take a break to pump some more.. then start over again.

Last night I reached empty on the patience meter. I tried to get David to take over but it just didn't happen. I ended up leaving Robbie in his swing to go take a shower (the only place of quiet in the house.) and when I got out, he was still screaming. David couldn't be bothered to handle him for TEN FUCKING MINUTES.

I toyed with the idea of just leaving. But where does a woman with no income and a baby with a compromised immune system go at 9pm?

Apparently she goes to the recliner and pats and rocks.

Oh, and to add to my woes, I'm waiting to find out if I'm laid off or not.

I work for the AT&T. You may have heard that they're cutting 4% of jobs. That includes 5 people in my office. The 5 people with the lowest seniority.

I'm losing seniority because I'm on a leave of absence (not considered maternity leave, so it's not protected.) so I may be one of the 5. All week has been at least daily phone calls from the union trying to determine if I'm going or not.

It's not the end of the world. Last day on payroll would be March 16th, I'd get 12 weeks of severance and 6 months of benefits- we'd manage. But seriously.. it's just one. more. thing.

Oh yes, and let's see, there was the $1300 in taxes that I owed on a previous car from 2006 that I didn't know about until last week. That was fun, too.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of worrying about everything.

I just want Robbie to be normal. Average. A C student is fine with me.

But I just need him to EAT. Babies are supposed to EAT. And mine doesn't.

If you could please just say some prayers for Robbie to eat, I'd appreciate it.

I'll leave you with a short video of what our feeding sessions look like.


--Trish