I hate buts, and I cannot lie

Last we chatted Greydon had had a decent feeding, and then night before last he took an entire bottle, the WHOLE thing, so we were pretty darn excited. Kristen called to tell me while I was teaching team, I relayed the message and all of the kids clapped.

But...... yes there is a but, this was not the gateway to fields of feeding greatness we had thought. From there he jumped back into his old slothful ways.

It has been that Greydon gets fed every three hours. If he is asleep, he gets fed every three hours. If he is awake, every three hours, if he eats on his own, the rest is given to him and even if it took 2 hours to get that far, by the time the third hour hits... you guessed it FOOD.

So the new theory is that maybe he is too comfortable and never is feeling real hunger cues, therefore not feeling the drive to do his part. So instead of three hours the last couple of days we have been trying four, kind of. We have been waiting for him to wake up on his own and act hungry, and whatever he eats during the day, that's it, and if he wants more, he has to work for it. (within reason)

Come to find out, I'm the softy. I've already bought him a pony, a motorcycle, a ping pong table, and two pinball machines so withholding food isn't something I'm really comfortable with... Ok I haven't really bought any of those things......yet... but I still don't like the idea of him being hungry. They pricked his little heel a few times to check his blood sugar, and it has been fine, so he's not wasting away. Though he didn't gain his traditional daily ounce today. It has started to look like it might work. It hasn't yet, it often takes them a few days to realize, "Hey. People. I'm still hungry over here."

But..... so many buts, we just found out that the surgeon called and is going to do Greydon's hernia surgery next Thursday.

This means;

His poor little swollen groin will be repaired, good news.

He will be in the hospital already and will have medical professionals night and day, instead of outpatient surgery... also good news.

(Are you ready for the big but?) It will take 2-3 days at least to recover from the surgery, during which time he won't feel like eating, so you just feed him through the tube what he is supposed to get...every....three..... hours.... Which means there is no point encouraging the four hour wake up when you are hungry method because it will all go out the window after the surgery anyway.

We will now take our big buts back to every three hour feedings whether he is hungry or not. So we won't gain any ground on feeding this entire week and he will have to work on all of that starting three days after the surgery which means he's not coming home any time soon. The day after his surgery is his due date. He won't be coming home by then we know.

Even though the more aggressive feeding schedule wasn't yielding very impressive results yet, it was a path to progress down, and now we are just sitting on the side of the road waiting around instead of getting to where we want to get. We're a little bleak-hearted.

The real kicker is that even though Kristen's leave got extended, she will have to go back to work eventually, and it is looking like all medical leave options will run out much closer to his coming home than we had hoped. Kristen is more than a little bleak hearted about that. (I am such a great provider, no feelings of testosterone induced shame over here, nope perfectly content being a student instead of raking in the cash... nope feeling just great 'bout that. blah blah future blah blah higher education..blah)

Still we don't know for sure, he could recover from the surgery fast and get home not too long after his original due date. He is still dang cute. Today he was fussy after trying to eat, he didn't get very much so Kristen was trying to encourage him to keep going, but he wasn't having it. To give him a break we will try to burp him or hold him in ways good for his reflux, and then see if he will try to eat some more. I picked him up and put him in one of his favorite positions. He stopped fussing in about 3 milli seconds and was out like a light. aaaand we were done with the feeding. We did give him the rest by tube since he hadn't got much at all, plus by then we knew we were going back to the scheduled feedings anyway. He slept there for a long time and made noises so cute two thirds of southern Provo got a little happier without knowing why.