The Damn NAM

Yesterday was not a lot of fun. We headed over to Rush in the morning to pick up Simon's NAM. It's much bigger and bulkier than we thought it was going to be. And needless to say, Simon did not appreciate having it stuffed in his face. Once it was installed, it was time to try to feed him. That didn't go well...Simon basically choked and gagged the whole time, seemingly unable to open his little mouth wide enough to allow the bottle to get through. Even their pro cleft baby-feeding nurse, dubbed the "Baby Whisperer," couldn't get him to take in and swallow anything. Instead, he just let the milk dribble all over his nice little outfit.

For the next couple of feedings after getting the NAM, we basically had to pull the thing out, feed him, and then put the NAM back in, with Simon screaming his little head off the entire time. It's an incredibly messy process because it's held in with denture cream. So he gets this goop all over his mouth which is really hard to clean. Yuck. And of course they make this denture cream pink so that you can't even really tell where it is until you finally mop up a big gooey gob from somewhere in the back of his mouth with a q-tip.

Miraculously, and thankfully, he finally "figured it out" yesterday evening, at the exact moment when Aunt Birdie walked in the door. Something about her presence made him relax and just start eating. Since then, he's been feeding pretty well, and much more quickly. He was boring us to tears the last few days, spending 40 minutes to suck down a couple ounces of milk. He's cute and all, but watching him suck on a bottle for 40 minutes every 2.5 hours gets old pretty quick, especially in the wee hours of the morning. But with the NAM, he's sucking down 2-3 ounces in 15 minutes. So that's ONE good thing about the NAM.

Anyway, Simon got through the day. The nurses made a point of mentioning several times that he's incredibly strong and willing to fight. Betsy and I were well aware that he's a powerful little guy, but didn't really have a good frame of reference. The nurses confirmed for us that he's particularly punchy and loud. The first little signs of his personality are starting to come through...