Monday we took the first of many car trips to Scottish Rite in Atlanta to meet with the cleft palate team that will handle Colin's care and surgery. I was expecting a total disaster since we would be traveling 2 hours each way with an 8 day old baby. It wasn't that bad and the team seems great.
The first priority is making sure that his cleft palate isn't causing any feeding problems and preventing weight gain. They monitored him while feeding and said that everything looked good. They want us to increase the amount of milk we feed him and go in to the pediatrician for weekly weigh ins to make sure he is gaining enough. They will do a corrective surgery at 6-9 months and one of the things that could delay the surgery is his weight.
Things we learned on the trip:
1. Take the number of diapers you think you'll need and double it! I took 12 diapers for a 7 hours trip and we almost ran out. We never go through that many in that short time at home, but somehow we did.
2. Feed the baby right before you walk out the door. For some reason I thought we would be able to feed him in his car seat. No dice...fussy baby...gas station feeding.
3. Pumping on the road is awful! It's awkward, takes twice as long, and no matter how discrete I tried to be, I'm pretty sure I flashed at least one trucker.
4. A chauffeur is absolutely necessary! My mom drove us and there is NO WAY we would have been functional to drive considering we are still adjusting to our newborn sleep schedule.
Our next appointment is in July and we will actually meet with the surgeon and discuss the surgery in more detail. For now, we will focus on fattening up our little man so I'm off to pump some more of the good stuff!
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