I forgot to mention this in the previous post. Liliana’s become quite the adept at taking out her feeding tube. During the course of a weekend, she had managed to take out the entire feeding tube twice and then halfway once during a feeding session. This was the weekend before last when Sean was sick so I was lucky enough to have to replace the tube by myself.

The first time she did it that weekend was on a Friday. I was bringing Sean a can of soup when we decided to get some fresh soup instead, so we hopped into my car and when we got to our destination, Liliana was sporting a yellow feeding tube hanging from her cheek on both sides when one side should have been down her nose.

The second time she managed to take it out successfully was when I was changing her diaper. One swipe of her hand and it was out so fast, I hardly knew what happened.

The one time that she almost took it out in its entirety was during a feeding, as stated before. She had already drank some milk and then with one of her hands, she pulled on the little bit of tubing between her nose and the tape on her cheek holding the tube in place. I managed to stop her in time from taking the whole thing out, but now that it was out like this I did the only thing that came naturally. I pushed it back in, fearing that if left out like that, she’d manage to take all of it out. Putting it back in triggered her gag and all the milk she had joyfully taken from the bottle was now coming back out.

We resorted to putting mittens on her hands. Sometimes we find that she was able to take a mitten (or two) off. I might have to make some of my own mittens for her or maybe deck some out with velcro for a better fit.

In any case, she took her NG tube out last night. Thankfully, Sean has recovered enough to have been the inserter while I was the helper. The tube looks to be more secure now and hopefully we won’t have to reinsert it until it’s time to change the tubing itself (it’s good for 30 days).

Liliana hasn’t been taking to the bottle all that well recently but last night to our surprise, we tried the breast and she was going at it like a monster. We usually use a nipple shield to simulate the feeling of the bottle or the pacifier, but this time we did without and she was doing fine. It was frustrating though because we couldn’t get a good position that would give her enough of an elevated angle for her reflux. The fact that she prefers breast over bottle is satisfying to me as a mother, but the discovery of it was exhausting (as is everything else to do with being a new mother).

Maybe one day, we can do away with the feeding tubes, the breast pumping, and the Dr Brown bottles and do things the way God intended us to do — just a mother and a baby sucking at her breast. And maybe a pillow for support because Liliana is getting heavy!