Kim Arthur, clinical research scientist at Seattle Children’s, holds both of her preemie daughters for the first time in May 2013.
My daughter pushes my hand away abruptly and the spoonful of food goes flying. I turn to her twin to coax her to eat a spoonful of puréed lentil soup, and she promptly gags on the tiniest lump and spits it out.
Typical case of the terrible twos? No, they are 3 and a half, and they are not just your average picky eaters. They were born prematurely at 26 weeks, and after five months in the hospital they had to get surgically placed feeding tubes in their stomachs because they weren’t able to breastfeed or bottle-feed.
And here I am, three years later, doing everything in my power to coax them to eat enough food by mouth to get rid of those tubes.
I turn away and say out loud, “I can’t do this.”
It’s not the first time I’m saying these words. I either say them or think them every time I sit down for practice meals with my girls. We are supposed to practice eating four times a day in order to get them to eat enough that we can get rid of those tubes.
