Nothing new to report, but we're in the habit of reporting every couple of days, so here you go. Amelia is still at 3LPM on the flow of the cannula. They have thickened her feeds with rice and gone back to a 6 feed/day schedule with lower amounts in the hopes that she will stop having regurgitations. They also try to elevate her during her feeds and right afterwards as another way to alleviate that. And today they are beginning to "vent" her stomach, which means they leave the tube open after a feed to allow extra air that is getting into her stomach because of the constant air flow to escape. They hope that will be the final thing to allow her to keep her food down all the time. The thickening has indeed helped, but not completely stopped the issue.

She ate 15cc today, which is better than the last time, but not where things really need to get going. It's my contention that until she gets something "good" eat, she will never learn to eat a whole feed. Since her birth, she has never felt hungry (excluding the time after her g-tube surgery) so I don't think she can correlate eating to a solution to hunger, and so she has no motivation to eat horribly smelling and tasting rice cereal and formula. That's my theory, anyway. I know I wouldn't want to eat it either, no matter how much I liked my mother giving it to me. We'll inquire about adding some positive taste to the feed - we know she likes her dum dum lollipops and lip smackers, so a good flavor I think would help... it certainly couldn't hurt. The problem is, we have to be very careful with her diet and nutrition, as there's little more important to her overall prognosis as that. So we don't know what is allowed.

I doubt we'll have another post before the holiday - Xina's family is in town now and we'll be busy when not with Amelia. So if you don't hear from us, Merry Christmas to you all. Your continued support, prayers and well wishes have helped us get through these last (nearly) nine(!) months. We appreciate you taking your time to keep up with Amelia's progress - we have wonderful family and friends.