Easy to Swallow

Today was a good day. Well every day is a good day...today it was just easier to believe that.

Haddie had her swallow study today at Marietta Memorial to determine if she is still aspirating or not. To be honest, we didn't expect her to do great. She has been taking a little bit of baby applesauce off of a spoon the past two weeks and seemed to be doing okay with that. However, two weeks ago we tried a thickened liquid with our speech therapist and Haddie choked on that. So we went in thinking that she may pass on "pleasure feeds" such as applesauce and other stage 1 baby foods but probably would fail any liquid tests. That would mean that she would have to get  G-Tube in her belly to receive the liquids.

We were wrong. She crushed it. She was barely awake too which usually causes her to choke. She took 3 big swallows when we offered her applesauce on a spoon. Then we tried a nipple filled with some stuff and she did okay on that too. I suggested to our speech therapist that we might as well try the bottle since she hadn't aspirated yet. They made the milk thicker like honey and she took 4 big swallows. She did all of this without choking or coughing.

So in basic terms, she passed and passed well. We will now start to feed her milk by mouth with the spoon and the bottle but will do so with thickened milk. Whatever she does not take by mouth we will still put into her feeding tube. We will do that until she no longer needs the tube because she is taking everything by mouth. We will also be able to give her pleasure foods as well. It looks like we have avoided the G-tube. Once again, that wouldn't have been the worse thing in the world but it was another minor surgery and to us, a step back.

Thank you for your prayers. God is good. Do they make bumper stickers that say "Proud Parents of a Baby That Can Swallow Well"? They should.