The Two Week milestone

Baby Girl is 2 weeks old today. How quickly time flies! All 3 of us have learned a lot in the short two weeks but we've all still got so much more to learn :-)

It's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks full of the normal stress and sleep deprevation everyone warns you about, plus added stress and sleep deprevation as a result of our move. Things seem to be settling down though. Tim's back at work and while I miss him terribly during the day, it does help me get back into the "normal" frame of mind. And although I wouldn't say Baby Girl has settled into a predictable consistent pattern (just when I think I see one developing, she decides to change it :-), we have at least both become more comfortable with feeding, napping, and other little routines we do have.

Today also marks another milestone for Baby Girl. For the past 4 days feeding her has gotten progressively worse - especially at night. It started on Monday really bad - after feeding her she vomited - not quite projectile but quite a large quantity. She'd been starting to spit up a couple of days before that, but not in that kind of quantity. Feeding became more difficult too. As soon as I'd start she'd wiggle and writhe in my arms, and arch her back, suck furiously and contort her body and fuss non-stop. She'd also wheeze and get severely congested in her nasal passages. I couldn't feed her. But she'd constantly be hungry. I called the Breast Feeding Nazis - er, uh, I mean the Lactation Consultant Hotline at our hospital where we delivered - at least a dozen times over the first two days this was occurring and got a tonne of conflicting "diagnoses" and advice:

- your milk isn't letting down fast enough for her
- she's using you as a pacifier. Stop feeding her so frequently and find other ways to soothe her
- this is baby's way of ensuring your milk supply increases as she grows so that it continues to meet her needs
- your milk supply is low because it is hot and you're dehydrated and you've been feeding her constantly so you need to replenish. Drink more fluids
- she's going through a growth spurt and this is just one of those "cluster feedings" they warn you about - feed her whenever she's hungry and it'll pass in a couple of days - you just need to grin and bear it.

I also got a tonne of advice on how to deal with sore nipples from frequent feedings. All of which I already know, and it was never one of my complaints when I called in anyway - I can deal with my own soreness - my concern was Baby Girl and whether she was in pain, or getting enough food, or having some kind of reaction to my milk, or something.

By tuesday night I'd had enough of the whole "breast is best; whatever you do don't give up" rah-rah squad and Tim suggested it may not be anything wrong with the breastfeeding and that I call the 24-hour nurse's line at our Pediatrician's office (When stressed and panic-stricken mom heads fail, sleep-deprived yet still calm and cool dad heads prevail ;-)). We definitely needed an objective assessment from someone who cared more about my baby's actual real-time health than about whether or not I was committed to breastfeeding her.

I described what was happening - the contortions, the fussing, the congestion and wheezing, the not sleeping on her back (it was Tim who put 2 and 2 together and realized that she spit up more frequently and in larger volumes when on her back), the spit-up (which I learned was vomit, not so much normal spit-up), etc. The nurse told us the vomiting was a concern and we shouldn't wait but should go ahead and take her to the emergency room (of course, it was midnight, because trips to the emergency room don't happen during the convenient daylight hours :-)). So we packed her up and took her in. After waiting the requisite 2 hours to be seen by a physician we finally hit the jackpot. The doctor listened to everything, and after checking her out, he said he believed she was suffering from acid reflux. He suggested scheduling an appt with her pediatrician to get her more thoroughly checked out, and if necessary get medication perscribed and in the meantime to help ease her discomfort have her sleep in a more upright position so gravity can help keep the food and stomach acids down. So we took her home and that night had her sleep in her carseat in the middle of our bed. She still spit up, but she seemed more comfortable and peaceful, and it wasn't in such large volumes.

Today we had our pediatrician's appt. The doctor asked me to describe her feeding patterns. I went through it all again - body contortions, arched back, crying, fussing during feeding, not going to sleep on her back (she'd actually started grabbing on to us and pulling herself upright during diaper changes and when we'd try to put her down), etc and her doctor confirmed - She has a classic case of acid reflux and all of the classic symptoms.

When I got home I did some research at www.babycenter.com and lo and behold found a whole article on Gastric reflux in infants and a tonne of comments and descriptions from parents whose babies were doing exactly what Baby Girl was doing.

Her doctor perscribed Zantac, and said we should see a difference in a couple of days. I hope so - it's been so distressing watching her in what I now know to be signs of such extreme discomfort and pain. But at least we know what it is now and that there are ways to help her.

On other news - Baby Girl is now back up to her birth weight! Actually passed it by half an ounce. They weighed her at our doctor visit just to see if the vomiting had caused her to lose any weight and she weighed in at exactly 9lbs 4.5oz. Good girl!

Oh - and what kind of blog entry would this be (and what kind of Mommy would I be) if it didn't include a photo of our munchkin? ;-)

I know, I know... it looks like all we do around here is sleep. True for Baby Girl, but still not true for Mom and Dad yet. This is a rare moment for Tim :-)

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