We had our first successful night with the feeding tube! By successful I mean there were only 2 alarms that sounded at 3 and 5am.....also, she is only down 5 ounces (to 18 lbs 4 oz) from the day before.

When you program the pump you need to factor in the milk that will be in the tubes. We underestimated last night and the milk was gone about an hour sooner than we expected. Despite the fact that a buzzer was sounding just a few inches away from her head, Paige didn't move a muscle. She slept through the whole process of being unplugged, refilled and plugged back in. The alarm only snoozes for 2 minutes before it sounds again or you restart the pump. Since we're still new at this we had to "snooze" the alarm 3 or 4 times before we had everything ready to go. Paige just kept on sleeping.

Its about 10:20pm now on night 2. Mike is working but Jessie was here to give me a hand while I Macgyvered Magrubered the whole system on my own tonight. Paige was a little grumpier this time. She cried for about 3 minutes and when I went to check on her she had tried to throw all the tubing out of the crib. All she managed to do was get it caught on the pump bag and add tension to the tube on her face. She actually did get about 4 or 5 inches of it pulled out today during her nap. Man was she mad when we pushed it back in. We also removed Friday's tape and replaced it under slightly less traumatic conditions. She is overall a pretty laid back kid but she is making her feelings known about having this tube "messed with". I think for the sake of all involved, we are going to leave the tube as is until next Friday. No new tape, no new steri strips, just let it go. While she is under anesthesia for her biopsy they can re tape to their hearts content.

Speaking of her biopsy:

She is scheduled to have an upper endoscopy on Friday at 7:40am at the UofM/Children's hospital. We will need to arrive by 5:40am...sigh...so we'll need to leave by 4:30am....double sigh. The doctor will be looking to see if there is a physical problem with Paigey's digestive system (ie. inflammation, excess mucus, missing enzymes etc) that may be causing her apparent malabsorption issues. After the results of the biopsy are in we'll have a better idea of how long the tube will stay in place, what other treatment she will need to help her grow and so on. I don't know how long the procedure will last, but I do know she will be completely under anesthesia, a fact I am very uncomfortable with. I'm sure I will talk with the doctor 3 or 4 or 14 times between Monday and Friday 5:40am.

The honeymoon phase of this...stuff...is officially over. I've tried to will everything back to normal on numerous occasions this week. I've fantasised about just not bringing her to the doctor.... or answering the phone....or leaving the house...and having everything turn out just fine! And then I look around and see stuff hanging from her crib and syringes drying on a towel and rubber tubes sticking out of the diaper pail. Her 10 month old cousin officially outweighs her. The diaper covers that go with all her cute summer dresses slide off of her and land around her ankles. I am trying to remind myself that all of this "stuff" can't last forever. She's not going to the prom with a tube up her nose. She's not going to be wearing a portable food pump backpack down the aisle.

If I can wrap this post up soon I'll get 3 hours of sleep before I need to refill the pump. Feel free to leave questions as comments. I'll post again before Friday I'm sure. Thanks to those of you who have offered to help, we really do appreciate it though the only thing we need right now is a few more hours in a day to catch up on our rest.