Joshua is 6 months old! Actually, he has been for a few days now. On Sept 7th, he’ll turn “4 months adjusted," based on his due date. That’s the age we go by when following milestones and answering questions from strangers.
On his 6th month birthday, Joshua got his first ride in his "car." He loved it!
August started out great visiting family in Minnesota. We visited at the end of July, and Joshua really thrived at that lower altitude; he didn’t need to wear his oxygen. Jeremiah had a blast with his cousins.
Living it up with two of his favs, "Yaynee" and "RyRy."
"Look, Ma, no oxygen!" It's good to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house (near sea level)!
A rare pic of our family together.
Jeremiah had fun singing his ABC's
last month with Grandma Gus and Aunt Greta.
Jeremiah showing off
his rendition of Pat-a-Cake to his cousins in Minnesota.
Then we returned to Colorado, and things got pretty bad. I weaned off pumping, so Joshua no longer got the freshly expressed
milk. No big deal since we have a deep
freezer stocked full of frozen pumped milk (about a 3 month supply). Well, it turns out he hates the taste of
frozen/thawed milk. He absolutely
refused to drink it any which way we thawed/prepared it. Ok, that’s unfortunate after all those late
night pumping sessions, but at least we have formula, right? Well, the same formula that we had been
using to augment my fresh milk suddenly caused a reaction of projectile
vomiting right after feeding when it was given full strength.
Bottom line, Joshua's reflux got a lot worse, and he also
developed a reaction to the formula, likely an allergy to milk. This is all clear to us in retrospect, but it
took a lot of trial and error with reflux meds and dosages, formula:breast milk
ratios, rice cereal, etc to figure out. During
those two weeks, he would not eat more than an ounce or two over several hours,
and he seemed to cry nonstop all day, wouldn’t let us put him down, wouldn’t
sleep unless we held him, and he just seemed to be in pain. He had been gaining about 1-1.5 oz a day, but
during those 2 weeks, he LOST a total of 5.5 oz rather than gaining 14-21 oz. It was pretty stressful on all of us. Finally, as we were contemplating whether or
not to bring him to the hospital for dehydration, we made a last ditch effort
and ran to Wal Mart to buy a can of Nutramigen formula (the protein is
partially broken down, for cow’s milk allergy).
That was the magic bullet. He
just guzzled it down, and he didn’t throw up.
Since he has been on that, he has been great, happy, content, sleeping
on his own, and back to gaining 1-2 oz a day.
He topped 12 lbs today (12 lbs, 0.5 oz to be exact)! He’s like a “normal” happy baby now. Whew!
We’re praying this continues because formula reactions can take about 2
weeks to present with babies.
I’M WONDERING IF AT
LEAST ONE MOM OUT THERE CAN RELATE TO THIS STORY:
One day, after being awake every 1-2 hours with Joshua during
the night, I reached my breaking point.
James was out of town serving as the medical director for a big international
rugby tournament, something I was trained to do in my sports medicine
fellowship, and I was “stuck” in the trenches at home, totally sleep
deprived. Joshua was refusing to eat,
crying nonstop, and when I looked away for a second, Jeremiah, my sweet
thoughtful boy, came up to him and just wound up and hit him on the head. Now, if I stepped out of the situation and
looked in, I’d say can you blame him? If
I had an annoying toy that wouldn’t stop making noise, I’d hit it to see what
happens, too. This “annoying toy” was
causing Mommy to not give Jeremiah the attention he needed. But I wasn’t objectively looking in from an
outsider’s view. I was at my wits end already, stressed out that Joshua was
losing weight and not eating, and I could barely think straight because I was
so tired, and I was feeling sorry for myself for being a prisoner in my own
home because we still don’t take Joshua out much. I dragged Jeremiah to time out
and plopped him down. Now with TWO
screaming kids, I lost it. I put my face in my hands, signed deeply, and just silently
prayed, “LORD, I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Puh-leeeeze help me before I go completely
insane!” Amazingly, Jeremiah suddenly
stopped crying and sweetly said, “Hey Mommy, isn’t it fun having Joshua home
from hospo?” My head jerked up in shock,
and I looked at him to see if he was serious. He was smiling. I said, “Do you really
think it’s fun to have Joshua home?” and he nodded his head and said, “Yes!” Even more amazing, at least temporarily,
Joshua stopped crying, too. My bad mood
veil lifted as I remembered promising myself several months ago that I would
never complain if things got difficult at home because the worst day at home is
still better than the best day in the NICU.
I knew we’d make it through the day, and we did. Yes, the Lord can speak through children when
He needs His message to get across clearly.
Sanity preserved…for one more day at least.
