Reflux

So I dove into this motherhood thing believing I would have enough time to blog about it. Well things have been quite different than I thought.

Let me get you updated....

My sweet little Josi was born on January 24th and 11:39pm. It was a great moment to finally meet my little girl. She is a beautiful little girl, but has been far from an easy baby. Birth story will come later..

About 3 weeks into this whole motherhood thing, and many days and nights of constant fussing and crying, Joe and I decided we had enough. We took her to the doctor and he said she had acid reflux. I totally know what she feels like because I had it horribly while I was pregnant. Our pediatrician put her on Axid and changed her formula to soy based formula (We had just stopped breastfeeding at this point...that was a horrible experience for me...more on this another day). It seemed to end her fussiness and she seemed like a happy, normal baby...or so I thought.

Two weeks ago, Josi and I decided that we would take a mommy and me music and play class. I was beyond excited about this. Josi is very alert and I knew she would love it. Well she did in fact enjoy the first 30 minutes of the class. Then all of a sudden she began crying as if she was in pain. I tried to console her and nothing I did worked. Finally, after enduring stares from moms and all of the children at the Norman Gymboree Play and Music, I gave up and decided to take her home.

That weekend, she progressively started to get worse. Crying a little bit more and more intensely every day. Finally, Monday came around and I called the pediatrician again. They decided to up her dosage of the Axid. The pediatrician also diagnosed her with Sandifer's Syndrome (it's not as bad as it sounds). Sandifers is an infants reaction to the pain of reflux. She will be laying there perfectly happy and then all of a sudden she jerks her head to the left, arches her back, is very silent for a second, and then lets out a shrill of a cry. It's quite scary. The doctor said many parents mistake it for a seizure. Well Wednesday rolled around and the higher dosage still wasn't helping. The nurse said to give it a couple of more days unless she got worse.

Well it got worse...

Thursday had to have been one of the most difficult days I have ever faced. She cried for 16 hours that day. I just had to hold her tight and rock her. Nothing I did worked and she was visibily in pain. That night, she woke up multiple times each crying out in intense pain. She slept in the Sandifer's position when she actually did sleep. I decided that was ENOUGH.

We went back to the doctor on Friday. They changed her formula to the fabulously $25 dollars a can hydrolyzed formula and also switched her to Prevacid. I had so much hope that it would help. She seemed slightly better and even sat through Easter Sunday church, but then we started having a couple of bad spells and today was even worse.

I do not want to sound selfish, but I am going to talk about myself for a minute. When you have a baby, people sometimes forget to ask how YOU are doing. Everything becomes so hyperfocused on the little one...and believe me..I'm constantly hyperfocused on her...you forget that you may be losing it as well. I know many of you may not care about the nitty gritty of this sitatuation and believe me, I know I have an otherwise healthy baby. I thank God for that every day. But the past two weeks have really been trying. Seeing your little baby go through so much pain and not being able to help her has been just horrible. The sleep deprivation we went through when she was a tiny, brand new baby is nothing compared to what I have been going through the past few weeks. Last week, I didn't get more than three hours of sleep any night. By Sunday evening, I was seriously delirious. I kept forgetting to put my car in park and almost fell asleep on the road (this is something I have NEVER done). I do most of everything alone because Joe is gone right now with the Air Force, and even if he was here, she only wants her mommy when she is crying. I want my happy baby back. I want her to be able to lay on the floor and play. I want her to be able to enjoy her little life and not have it in pain. I want to stop being woken up at night to the shrills of a baby in pain. I don't want to look back at her infancy and remember it like this.

You would think they would be able to just find a cure or a quick fix for infant reflux since 25% of infants have it, but alas, they have not. Tomorrow, I'm calling the doctor and demanding he refer us to a pediatric GI specialist. I hope we can find an answer. She grows everyday and I feel her infancy already slipping away from us. Time flies!

I wrote this as I needed to vent... The last couple of weeks have been very challenging and have been a true test of my patience. I never knew I was capable of loving anything like I love my Josi. I never knew I was capable of being so patient with a little one, even living through the sleep deprivation and inability to cook a good meal. It is true...she cries ALOT...and it is LOUD...and she fights me when I try to hold her, but maybe when she is in pain, she knows her mommy loves her and is just trying to make it better. At least I can give her that. I may not be able to take the pain away right now, but I can give her as much love as possible.