Food...Finally!

Jonathan was put back on the milk again today. Hooray!

He's only being given small amounts to start off with (7.5mL every 3 hours) and the amounts will be increased depending on how his digestive system tolerates it.

We weren't there for the first feed but the nurse said that he looked a bit confused when he was given the first mouthful (who can blame him though - it's been a very long wait!) but seemed to enjoy it by the end. I managed to stick around to give him his 3rd feed for the day though and it was really great to finally get some milk into his belly, even though it was just by syringe, one small drop at a time - it made all the time I've spent with a pump worth it!

Chris and I returned to hospital in time for the next feed but unfortunately when the nurse checked his stomach contents, there was still quite a bit of milk sitting undigested in his stomach, so she decided to skip the feed. The nurse told us that it usually takes a bit of time for the stomach to get into action again after surgery so it may just mean that the gastro surgeons will decide to decrease the amounts he is fed to a level that his system can tolerate. In the meantime, the nurses will repeat the process of checking his stomach contents every 3 hours and then deciding each time whether to feed him more or just leave him to digest what's already there and skip the feed. Hopefully his system kicks it up a gear overnight but at least it looks like we're moving in the right direction!

Here's Jonathan's milk-drunk look after his feed:

As cute as he looks with a dummy, hopefully he'll get fed more and more milk so that we can wean him off his dummy-dependency:

In other news, after seeing the MRI scans, the neurosurgeons at Great Ormond Street have decided to hold off on the surgery on Jonathan's brain for now. The doctors think that his brain is still stable at the moment so it's better to wait until later to do the surgery. This means that Jonathan will stay at St Thomas' for now and they'll concentrate on getting his feeding up to speed whilst monitoring his head size and any other signs that there may be increasing pressure in his brain at which point they can reassess if it may be time to get the brain surgery done.

The brain problem has been one of the most worrying for us because the doctors are unable to tell us what impact the hydrocephalus has on the functioning and development of Jonathan's brain, so we're hoping that the doctors' decision to delay the operation is the right decision to make!