No more tube feeds

Abraham's NG tube came out on his way to the doctor on Friday. I decided that since he has been taking mostly oral feeds either by bottle or breastfeeding that I would give it a try without. Also the last time I put it back in the hated it and it broke my heart to see him suffer through it again. It is uncomfortable to be put in however not as painful as other things that he has had done to him. I did not have official doctor's orders however today the Speech therapist,occupational therapist, pulmonary doctor and dietitian all agreed for a trial. Sadly they are recommending mostly bottle feeding since it can be measured. When we met with the OT/lactation consultant today, he was fussy we thought he wanted to eat however he wanted to sleep. The breastfeeding he did in during that appointment is not as effective as I have seen him do at home. The goal is for him to eat 7 x daily 4 oz. If he does not gain weight or loses weight in 2 weeks then we will do a trial of waking him up at 3AM for an 8Th feed. If that is not effective then the plan is to add Neosure to the breast milk. If this still does not work then the NG tube will need to be put back down and used again. I really don't want to use formula in fact the first ingredient is non-fat milk the second is corn syrup solids. Also one can is $16.00. I could use this money to buy him more toys to play with. This sure beats NG tube feeds which the all the professional feel he would be best without. There was also a change with his oxygen requirements. Since I did a trial run of 7 hours without oxygen a month ago and he did fine other than a few desats (low oxygen) while feeding his doctor has decided that he only needs oxygen while sleeping and eating. His o2 sats must be higher than 94%. If he drops below and comes right back up then he can stay off the oxygen. If he stays below for more than 5 minutes then he will need to be put back on. He will require consist monitoring again. He is going to have a echo cardiogram in 3 months to ensure that his heart is functioning well then a complete oxygen wean might occur. I really wanted him off the oxygen and thought that he would out grow that need before the tube feedings were done. However the NG tube is more invasive than the oxygen so I can accept this. He is moving in the right direction now he just needs to prove that he can grow on straight breast milk without the NG tube. Development: when I put him in his swing he reached for the toys on the tray without encouragment. The NP today felt that he is coo appropriately however has some asymetrical movements. On a side note his former NICU room mate, Yair is 10 pounds now and is out of NICU. He looks really good. He is still in the hospital however is closer to going home. His mother is far away from home I think around 3 hours and has another school aged son. If I figure out how to post pictures that I took recently I will.