I certainly didn’t mean to be lying when I wrote the entry I posted yesterday, it was an entry I started on Monday night after we came home from the hospital and I just felt so defeated. So exhausted, so overwhelmed, so incredibly frustrated that with all the energy we put out to do this, do that, scope this, x-ray that, take this, swallow that, booby this, formula that, we are still fighting with the same agonizing battle with the feeds. I think I thought if I wrote that I’m over it, I would actually be over it. If I put it in writing then it would have to be true.
Or maybe it was true on Monday, on Tuesday, but today was a total disaster. Half our feeds were complete failures, he spent half the day screaming and all my energy went into trying to calm him down. First I thought maybe it was a bottle problem, again. Right now I’m using the Nuk bottles because he loves the pacifiers and thought it would be a good fit. I’m realizing more and more that it seems like he’s getting air in his feeds with the bottle design, and even though he really likes them I need to eliminate all the variables. I need to be able to say with complete confidence, it’s not the bottle, at least before I let anyone knock out my baby again and shove something down his adorable little throat. So we started with the Dr. Brown’s this morning and it was a total disaster. He seemed to want to take it but then it got bad, he was upset, throwing himself backward as usual, the fun stuff. Ugh.
This afternoon I went out and got faster flow nipples for the Dr. Brown’s and I also got the Advent bottles with the fastest nipples too (we started with Tommee Tippee bottles and he couldn’t get the hang of making a good seal with his mouth). Tomorrow the experiment continues and so does the solid food. Our nutritionist came today and she approved the move to solid foods, it could help with his acid reflux, and suggested we do oatmeal as a first step, not rice cereal. Her thinking was that the rice cereal would add to his constipation since he’s only pooping once a day, of course I thought that was normal but clearly I’m wrong as usual, or maybe just clueless.
And then that infamous lightbulb went off in my head. He’s only pooping once a day, even with the probiotics. We are adding rice cereal to every feed. Why? Because it’s what every single doctor, speech pathologist, nutritionist, GI, etc, has told us to do to help Aleck with his feeds. But what if what’s bothering him the most isn’t gas, or acid reflux. What if the reason why he’s so hard to burp is because burping isn’t the problems? Is my poor little man just backed up? Is the rice cereal just way too hard on his little insides and that’s why it’s hard for him to finish his food, to poop, to be comfortable? Woah. I have it all written down so I can talk to Dr. Cahan tomorrow to get a handle on all of this. Maybe the acid reflux isn’t the problem, maybe we’ve been too focused on one end and the issue is with the other end. In two weeks he’s only gained half a pound and that’s really not a good thing. I know everyone tells me not to be too concerned about his weight gain, and it’s really not my primary concern. I just want him to be able to eat comfortably, for both of us.
A few days ago my SI joint started acting up. I supplexed it after the first delivery and for the past two days I’ve had a ton of pain shooting down my left leg. Therefore the prospect of a full body contact session of burping, walking, doing stairs, bouncing while standing, bouncing on the ball, not only doesn’t it appeal to me, I physically can’t do it right now. I’ve had these moments where I just figure he’ll grow out of it, which is also what the nurse for my GI told me, and I know he won’t be taking most of his feeds off of bottles for much longer, but my legs and lower back can’t take another day of this. And clearly the pain and discomfort are getting in the way of his growth and developement and if we have physical therapy, occupational therapy, splints and more surgeries coming up this little man is really going to need his strength to stay on top of his game.
So wish me luck because I desperately don’t want anyone sticking anything else down his throat, and if we can solve this without knocking him out I’ll be a much happier mommy.
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