oh come on...

how do you spell difficult? demanding? you spell it HARLOW. what about management nightmare? HARLOW. sleepy? happy? HARLOW. yes, i did say happy. in amongst all the problems, he is a very smiley fella.

homecare visited on tuesday. Harlow was not feeding so well, his intake had dropped over the last two weeks from well over 600 mls to less than 500 mls per day. you can try this yourselves if you like, just cut down your meals by 3/4 for a couple of weeks. thats every meal cut by 3/4. as a result of his lessening appetite, he was fitted with a nasal gastric tube. a tube that goes in through the nose and down into the stomach. when he has given up feeding from the bottle, we attach a syringe to the tube and POUR the milk into him.

at night we get to use a pump. on tuesday and wednesday night, i used the pump to feed him. i put the bottle on it, attach it to said NGT, hit the go button and watch as the milk is PUMPED into him. these are the lengths we are having to go to get him to drink his milk.

thats the feeding issues dealt with.

throw into the mix the fact that he doesn't have enough energy to go anywhere and that we have three other boys and you get parents who are not coping.

so, to give both Justine and I a break, Harlow has gone back to NICU. there is no other reason, its simply to give us a rest. while he is in there though, they are going to run some tests to see if his reflux has worsened and if that is responsible for the difficulties in his feeding.

there could be another reason for his feeding issues, he could be suffering from an oral aversion - a resistance to things being put in his mouth. if he was, you can hardly blame him. for the last five months he has had things put down his throat at all hours. at home there is iron, vitadol, vitamin e, 2x ranitidine, 2x 2 different diuretics, then 6x bottles on top of that.

so, this weekend we are going to reconnect with the other fellas; go out, eat ice cream, go to the park, all the stuff that we as parents are supposed to do but sadly never find the time.