Feeding Clinic

Yesterday was Arie's first appointment at the feeding clinic at Children's Hospital. We were scheduled for 2:30. Because we live an hour and a half away from the hospital, I had to leave my house at 1:00. Everything was going smoothly when I looked up at the sign over the highway and read "ACCIDENT 16 MILES AHEAD, ALL LANES CLOSED". Crap. I called my sister frantic (she works at Children's in the therapy center) and she called ahead to the clinic. They told her that if I was more than 10 minutes late they wouldn't be able to take us! So we got onto a side road and FLEW there. And I mean flew. I was going 90mph down route 1, and praying the whole time that we would get there in one piece, that I wouldn't get a ticket, and that if I was late they will still take us. Let me remind you that it took me a few weeks to get this appointment, and as it was they squeezed us in only because my sister works there. Anyway, at 2:38 we signed in. WHEW!So after getting a history and weighing/measuring Arie, we starter the fun stuff. The first order of business was to try to feed Arie some rice cereal. So we put him in the chair and began the fun. The poor baby was gagging so much that drool was pouring out of his mouth. I tried for about 5 minutes before the therapist took over. She tried a couple bites, but it got so bad that he would start gagging from just looking at the spoon. The boy has an insane gag reflex. Just touching the spoon to the tip of his tongue set him off. After trying unsuccessfully for a couple of minutes, she switched over to a special flat spoon and managed to basically wipe some cereal on the inside of his cheek. He didn't gag... as much. But he did continue to cry and flail about. She was pretty impressed with the show... as was I. It is unbelievable to watch him. You would think that we were poking him with needles. By the way, he never did really eat anything. At least we figured out how to actually get the food in his mouth... even if he does just spit it back out.Aside from his spoon/texture aversion, they think he may also have silent reflux (no overt signs of reflux). He has this thing where he will drink about half a bottle and then freak out a little, and continue to freak out on and off until it's gone. Anyway, they want to do a barium swallow study and an upper G.I. test on him. That will be sometime in the next month. I'm already worried about that because he is supposed to drink this special liquid and I KNOW he won't drink it. Aside from that, I think they may have to strap him down to hold him still and that really bothers me. I might send Ben for that because I don't know if I can handle watching him scream the whole time. It's so hard watching him during these exams and tests. I can't even imagine being Baby James' mom... I'm sure she wishes she could just take every ounce of pain away. It's miserable to watch your child be so uncomfortable, scared, and upset and not be able to do anything about it.So that was our day. We had dinner at my sister’s house afterwards which was great. After I gave Arie his bottle last night he fell asleep in my arms. I rocked him for a while thinking about how fortunate we are that he is so healthy. His problems, although they seem big at times, pale in comparison to the problems so many other children are going through. Regardless, I held him and snuggles him close. He is so sweet and beautiful, and I am so thankful that I am his mommy.