Maybe she wants more time, too.

Yesterday, A came down with a cold.  We’ve been working with her to try and reverse her oral aversion by starting with a nice massage, introducing some formula on her fingers, and then allowing her to lead the session in whatever direction she sees fit.  Sometimes she does great, sometimes she doesn’t.  However, we don’t push it. 

Because of A’s cold – she is congested, miserable and sleepy.  She hasn’t shown any real interest in her OT.  As much as this bums me out, because I want to see my beautiful A eating from a bottle again without a yucky tube taped to her face – it also makes me breathe a little.  I am hoping that the Doctor will decide that A needs to be kept a little longer.

A friend of mine said that she really believes A got sick so that we would have more time to figure this out.  I smiled at the thought that A loved me so much she got herself sick so that she could spend more time with me.   

Every day at 1am the nurses come in and weigh A.  We weigh her on the same scale, every day.  She has been consistently gaining weight – 70 grams two days ago, 40 grams yesterday.  Tonight when the nurse weighed her she had lost weight.  She was down from 4836 to 4815.  Thinking this must have been an error, we re-weighed. 4806.  No way!  Reweighed, 4799.  Not possible.  Re-weighed, same result.  I suggested asking the NICU for a new scale – there’s no way she lost weight…she’s TUBE FED.  However, the NICU scale read 4806. Reweighed, 4806.  A lost weight.  It’s not possible.  It’s just not possible!  

Maybe A does want to stick around for a while longer.  The Dr can’t send her home if she isn’t gaining weight – and clearly she is making that difficult.  What’s truly bizarre about today is she was even bumped up to 30cal/oz for one full feeding because of an error in their nutrition department.  She had even more calories than she normally would have in just one feeding and still managed to somehow lose weight.  It’s just insane.

 I will be interested to see what the next step is with A.  I would like to know how it’s possible for her to lose weight. 

 Maybe she wants more time, too.