Another Surgery?

I met with the pediatrician last Thursday. Jill had another weight check (12 lbs., 15 oz.). She is under 13 pounds and almost 7 months old. Her milk intake has remained the same for the last 3 weeks. She is still only drinking about 2 ounces of formula at a time. (A baby her age should be drinking about 7 ounces of milk in one sitting.) Her daily intake is only around 500 ml. A more acceptable amount would be closer to 800 ml. And she doesn’t have a lot of interest in solid food. On top of the feeding issues, she is really far behind developmentally. I had to fill out a 6 month developmental questionnaire a few weeks ago (“Does your child ____.”) I had to check “no” on almost everything. She only occasionally rolls over, she doesn’t sit up, no crawling, etc. (On a more positive note, one of the few skills that she is actually advanced in is she starting waving this past week). The pediatrician has basically given us two weeks (by October 30th) for Jill to have some sufficient weight gain (an ounce a day would be awesome) and hopefully catch up a little developmentally. If things are basically the same or worse she wants us to have Jill put on a feeding tube.



As you can imagine, I’ve been a bit discouraged about the poor weight gain and possible feeding tube. Through this whole situation even before birth, I feel like I have been forced to be Jill’s advocate. Sometimes it is troubling trying to figure out what is best for her. If a feeding tube will help her catch up then I want to be supportive of that. What bothers me the most is that the surgeon would ideally want her to have a fundoplication procedure to stop her acid reflux problem at the same time a feeding tube is placed in her stomach. While this procedure would stop her acid reflux she wouldn’t be able to burp or vomit and would most likely have to have this surgery repeated in a few years. The possible complications associated with this surgery really scare me.


If you are praying for our family would you please pray:
1) Jill will drink more milk, eat more solid foods, and gain a lot more weight in the next two weeks. (Note: The day of Jillian’s dedication when our church prayed for her, she had by far the largest formula intake she has ever had in a single day – 710 ml.)
2) Bryan and I will have wisdom in deciding the best care for Jillian (medications, feeding tube, surgery, etc.)