Wrong Seven Hours

The squirrel screamed through his appointment with the GI specialist yesterday. We'd been warned off about Dr. Monorail's shitty bedside manner and instead rescheduled with a very nice lady doctor. She was so amazingly sweet and pretty that I can't even think of a clever nickname for her. Anywho, she gave us some tips on dosing the Prevacid and ordered a swallow scan to see if he is aspirating formula as he eats. I'm pretty sure he is, on account of the fact that I can hear and feel the fluid rattling around in his chest after each feeding. I didn't even know this was a possibility until I talked to Melissa's friend Sandy. But, I'll be damned, there it is.

Dr. Sweetnpretty (I will not be denied!) said that it was usually just a matter of getting the formula thick enough so that it isn't aspirated. Now, we've done experiments with thickening Orion's feeds before but never under the current circumstances. Before, he was on breastmilk that was already upsetting his tummy and was not used to having to push out a poop that had any body to it at all. At this point, I think his digestive situation is pretty different. Just think, he's probably only a month away from being ready to eat from a spoon. My baby! With a spoon!

So, last night before bed I prepared his bottle with some rice cereal. This time, I blended it up in the Magic Bullet and added enough to actually make an impact in the viscosity. That amounted to two tablespoons in five ounces. It seemed like a lot, but he was still able to drink it down through a stage two nipple in about 20 minutes so it couldn't have been that bad. He even took another two ounces of non-riced formula to top it off. Then, per usual, he nodded off to sleep at 9pm.

When I laid down for bed at 11pm, I started worrying about the possibility of constipation. I was able to make myself feel a little better about the fact that it's a lot easier to treat the constipation from the rice than the pneumonia from the formula in his lungs. Then I went to bed attempting to apply The Secret to the procedings just in case. Over and over again I repeated "Sleep through the night, painless digestion" as I went to sleep myself.

When the little waking squirrel wimpers woke me up, I looked at the clock. A quick count on my fingers showed that he'd been down for (Holy Shit!) seven hours. He'd never done more than four before without having screamed himself exhausted for half a day first. I was simultaneously overwhelmingly thrilled and bitterly dissapointed. This mythical seven hours of sleep had allowed me to reach the blissful waking hour of (gulp) 4am.

At this point, I was too scared of the constipation issue to give him another rice bottle. I decided that I want to see him poop before he gets more and that for the first few days we'll only do the overnight bottle with rice. So, he had a regular one and wheezed milk for the next three hours until it was time to get up. At which point, I woke up and he kept sleeping while the rest of the house got ready for work. I think someone slipped NyQuil in the rice cereal. He woke up smiling and laughing when I put him in the carseat. I could get used to this.

We still haven't seen a poop, so I don't know if the second part of the "Secret" juju I laid on him worked or not. I guess we'll find out when we get home from work. Just in case, I'll be coming prepared with Karo Syrup and apple juice to get the tracks moving. Party at my house! There will be Vaseline covered Q-Tips for everyone!