Thanks by the Letters: F

Full Feeds:

As Max guzzles down his bottles, all day and night, it's hard to remember the days when he wasn't able to eat. But he started so slow, with the perforated bowel and IV nutrition for more than 3 months... we thought it would be forever when he would reach that magical milestone of "full feeds" before leaving the hospital. The doctors calculate how much his weights and the calories he needs to grow, and that determines how much they want him to take in each day. Once he started taking food by mouth, we were given a number. First it was 63. Max needed to drink 63 mls, by mouth, from a bottle, every 3 hours, every day, before he could go home. Eventually, that number went up to 70, because the more he ate, the bigger he grew, and the more he needed to eat to maintain and increase that weight.

It literally started with about 3-5 mls at each feeding. (That was like a teaspoon or less.) And they would only allow him to have 1 bottle feeding per day at that point. They in increased by the tiniest increments, every day. After he got to a certain point, they'd let him have 2 bottle feeds per day, and so on, it was weeks, waiting for him to reach full feeds. It was agonizing, for us, and for him. He LOVED to eat. From the minute they put the sponge with breast milk in his mouth for "taste therapy" he was hooked. He gulped down whatever we gave him, whenever we gave it, and usually, he'd get ahead of himself and get choked. He wanted more, we wanted to give him more, but the surgeon told us his bowel, was like a little bottle neck and if things got backed up in that bottle neck, we'd be in trouble again.

So we were patient. Slow and steady was the goal. Just keep increasing, little by little, no steps backward and get to that finish line.

Drop by drop ml by ml, he did it! And then he had to do it again. Because one he reached full feeds, with the stoma and ostomy bag, they did his final bowel surgery, restoring it to one long, single piece or bowel and after recover from that surgery, we started the feeding process again, from square one. This kid was a champ.

He still is. He still loves to eat. He actually screams at the end of almost every bottle, because he wants more! Now he's eating about 150 mls at every feeding. He's 14 lbs and growing every day.His pediatrician expects that by his 9 months visit, he'll finally be on the growth chart for his actual age. Still at the bottom end of the curve, but looking better all the time.

Friends:

There are so many, who have helped us through this difficult time, I hardly know where to start. Friends who are part of our lives and the lives of our children, who jumped in to help us pick up the pieces. Friends who we've had for a lifetime, and didn't expect to need, friends who were barely knew before this who crisis, but can't imagine life with out now that we're through it.

Families:

Thanks, of course, goes to our families. For the prayers, visits, money and more. Thanks for being here, by our sides.