The Inevitable

Was anyone taking any bets on how long it would take Lucy to pull out her tube? Well the answer is 5 days! Sunday night Drew and I were trying our best to do our usual "pick up and organize before Monday routine" though you wouldn't know it by looking around. We were walking around doing the motions but not really doing much at all when we decided to leave the mess and go to bed. We too have a very orchestrated way of going to bed. We go to bed usually three hours after Lucy goes to sleep. This allows us some down time from the kids and some time to do all that a person needs to do without three children in toe and one in your arms. But mainly by the time we finish cleaning up, two hours have passed since Lucy fell asleep and it is almost inhumane to go to sleep and wake up an hour later to feed the baby. Sometimes I do just fall asleep after I put her to bed, but then I miss spending time with my husband. In order to keep up my milk supply I switched from nursing Lucy every three hours at night to pumping every three hours at night. This way she is still able to receive the tremendous benefits of breast milk through her GI Joey. Sunday night I finished pumping at 12:40am when I heard her waking. She is waking in the night out of habit and the only way I know how to get her back to sleep peacefully is to nurse her. I mentioned in our previous post that she gags when she nurses when the feeding tube is running, so I paused the tube to allow her to nurse back to sleep comfortably. I was able to lay her back down at 1:00am and I immediately followed. At 2:15 we woke to her screaming. When I picked her up out of crib she was soaking wet from the neck down, but her legs were dry. Because of the high volume of liquid that is being pumped into her she has been wetting through her diapers. Lucy has always disliked a wet diaper, who can blame her, so I went to change her. Keep in mind that she has four layers of warmth to take off in order to access the diaper! This is when I noticed that her entire crib sheet was wet and I kept feeling something dripping on my arm. "Oh sh**, she pulled her tube!" I yelled, and Drew came running in. This was the moment that I think was inevitable, we both broke down and cried! We are so stressed and tired that the thought of having to place a new tube was just too much for either of us to handle! After weighing the guilt, the worry, the fatigue, and the stress we decided to wait until the morning when we were more rested to place a new tube. We went back to bed and set the alarm for three hours later so that Lucy would not miss a feeding. Remember I told you that the the GI doctors were hoping that I would get more sleep now that she has a tube, bull **** (feel free to fill in any profanity you feel is appropriate)! I know that we will have to get used to this new routine, but for now it is overwhelming all of the time! We have never been in a situation like the one that we are facing right now. Knowing that there is something wrong with your child and you can't make it go away!

In the morning, we were able to place a new tube without to much trouble. I tried my best to make it as quick and painless as possible both for Lucy and for Drew and I. For those of you who know my husband, he is very weak in the knees when it comes to blood and watching someone in pain. As a mother, I have done things I never thought I would be able to handle. It's the "mama gene" that allows us mothers to stand strong at or child's side and watch as they are obviously scared and in pain. For this I am grateful to be the mother, I couldn't imagine not being there!