Pacing.

Smile.

 Sleep.

 Eat.

Repeat.

I wish I could make peace within myself regarding Ava's feeding situation.

Lying awake on this plastic-covered brick of a hospital fold-a-bed, I feel like I've been forced to watch 24 hours of Sarah Maclaughlin's ASPCA commercial, Clockwork Orange-style.  My heart is a raisin.

I have to keep reminding myself that the amount of milk I am giving her is being well supplemented by the continuous trickle she's receiving through her G-button via pump.  It's hard to watch her take only an ounce or less by mouth and be sated.  It's a constant internal struggle to embrace the sound logic of how her doctor has laid out a plan to "prime the pump" and get her digestion running like a well-tuned engine again by keeping it constantly stimulated.  

I was so convinced she would take off like a bottle rocket (boo, bad pun!) after her surgery because of the way she bounced back from her hernia repair in March.  At second consideration, we're playing a different ball game this time. 

Her food now requires thickener (to keep her aspiration-proof) AND a higher concentration of formula, which seems to go down with all the grace and ease of a wet towel.  I know that I would gag and yarf a little if the first thing to hit my dry throat in the morning was the consistency of melted marshmallows.

We're going to see if backing off from the thickener and carefully pacing her feeding speed might make this more tolerable.  I'm hoping that lowering the amount of ThickIt will also stem the green river that high-tides multiple times a day.  (My apologies to John Fogerty.)  This has borne disastrous consequences to her bedding and back end -- apparently one of ThickIt's trademark moves.

All said, the numbers argue that sweetfeet is doing well on paper, and that she is making progress at a pace normal for a wee one who's recovering from low volume feeding AND abdominal surgery.  The emotional, reactive side of me still fights the urge to rend my Target tee shirt and cover my head with the ashes of all the cigarettes smoked on the hospital property line when I see my helpless baby gag and cry.  But I won't throw an Old Testament-style fit.  Patience, Dennis Hopper.

I may occasionally sneak off to lose my marbles in private, but I'm gonna get right back on the horse and continue to be attentive and observant.  I'm gonna take my gummy vitamins, eat real food, take frequent showers, and  get twenty minutes of sunshine a day, because my brain works best when my body is well (and by this I mean I aim to maintain, not to pamper.  My job is mommying.  Not heathering.) And as I see more of the joyful child I know beginning to resurface, I will throw increasing amounts of time into playing and singing and snuggling, all for the sake of insuring her that she IS going to be all right. 

Even if all right seems like a pinprick of light at the end of a tunnel.

It's small, but it's still a light.