Another Reason Astroglide Should Be on Every New Mom's Shopping List

I'm on the road from Texas to Pennsylvania, and I got the most awesome email about feeding tube awareness week.  It's one of those stories that makes me feel like I'm normal because other people are just as awkward.

I asked the writer of the email if I could share it, and she agreed, on condition of anonymity.

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Dear SRMM,

Thanks for your post about feeding tube awareness! So many people have no idea about kids with feeding tubes. My son is now six and thankfully has had his G-tube removed, but for a long time it kept him alive. I'm forever thankful for his second belly-button.

Thanks for giving such a public shout out to all the tubies. And I thought I'd share my best tube story with you, just because I feel you may be warped enough to appreciate it. :)


The boy was still a tiny baby, four months old and maybe 6 pounds - we'd only been home from the NICU for a few weeks. Late one Sunday night, hubby and I were changing the water in the balloon of the tube, as instructed by the surgeon.

This involved inserting a syringe in the tube button to drain the water from the balloon that was inside his stomach, keeping the tube in place. We successfully drained the water out... and then the boy sneezed. And the now-drained and empty tube shot out of his abdomen. Oh. My. God.

So now we've got a squirmy, sneezey baby with a hole in his stomach where the tube's supposed to be, and hubby and I are looking at each other, wondering what the hell just happened. There's a clock on these things, you see, and if you can't reinsert the tube within an hour or so, then they have to go back in surgically to do it.

So at this point I am freaking out, hopping around and kind of flapping my hands, "whatdowedo, whatdowedo, ohmigod, whatdowedo?" Hubby thankfully is made of sterner stuff and called the doctor.

Did I mention this was late on a Sunday night? Oh, yeah, and that it was Mother's Day? My very first one. Welcome to motherhood. So we start calling the surgeon - and of course he's not on call, because it's late on a Sunday night and it's MOTHER'S DAY.

Finally the doc who is on call gets back to us, with these instructions: you need to reinsert the tube yourself. As in, shove that sucker back through the hole in his stomach, and make sure you do it right.

Seriously? Seriously?! This is not covered in those stupid What to Expect books. The doctor tells us we will need Vaseline to put on the tube to help reinsert it - she will wait on the phone and talk us through it.

And here is where I make a giant ass of myself.

I start running around, frantically searching the house for Vaseline, and finally return to phone, to shout, "We don't have any Vaseline, but we've got Astroglide! Will Astroglide work?! It's lube! We've got lube!"

There is silence on the other end of the phone. Hubby is staring at me with that look that means, "I can't decide whether to laugh or divorce you."

After (more than) a few moments, the doctor finally says, in a remarkably calm voice, that, yes, Astroglide would probably work fine. It is only later, once the tube is back in and the boy is fed and sleeping peacefully, that I realize what I'd done. Crap. Crappity crap crap crap. After that night, I tried to slink invisibly in and out of the doctor's office for all the boy's follow-up appointments.

Life with a tubie - always interesting. And yes, now we keep Vaseline on hand at all times.

Thanks again for your recognition of our tubed kids!

Sincerely,
Anonymous

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Dear Anonymous,

You are awesome.  And an amazing mom.  In a moment of crisis, you didn't hesitate to humiliate yourself in order to save your child from needing surgical intervention.  You didn't even hesitate.  Rock on with your bad self.

Also?  This is yet another reason to include Astroglide in baby shower gift baskets.

xoxo,
SRMM