I'm so excited that it is finally spring. With spring comes new life and new hope and a new beginnings. Boy could I use all of that.
This winter has been a tough one. My first clue should have been a sense of apprehension (if you could call it that) following Christmas. Have you ever smelled the air and knew that there was going to be a storm? That's the best way to describe what I felt deep inside. I shrugged it off as nothing much... and I suppose if you do as I do and compare your life to others, it probably was nothing much but to me, it was my reality.
My tough winter all started when my baby started to get sick. It was a gradual decline where she started to refuse food and become increasingly fussy about feeding. She started refusing to nurse one day and wanting only a bottle, then another day she would only nurse and refuse a bottle. This progressed throughout the month of January to the point that she was refusing to eat altogether and the only way to get nourishment into her was to sneak a bottle into her mouth when she fell asleep. When she did eat, it was not very much at a time. She was often fussy and difficult to settle. I thought it was a phase at first but it soon became clear that there was something the matter. I did some research and discovered her symptoms matched something called "silent reflux." Usually babies with reflux are easy to spot as they are always spitting up but silent reflux, it almost never comes out the mouth just up the esophagus and into the throat and then back down again, causing pain both ways.
Her doctor wasn't overly concerned at first but as she progressed, she dropped from around the 90th percentile to midway between the 25th and 50th. It was difficult as my Dr was in and out of town and so I seemed to see locums quite often and I'd have to explain everything over again. Eventually it was confirmed that she indeed appeared to have reflux and was put on an antacid to ease the discomfort.
To someone reading this, reflux sounds like not too big of a deal, and often it isn't. In her case, the problem came when she developed a feeding aversion. She began to associate eating with pain and therefore refused to eat.
This was heart-wrenching for me. She would fuss because she was hungry but then refuse to eat, gradually getting more upset. Sometimes we were able to get her to sleep easily, and other times she would rock her and hold her as she screamed until she finally was so exhausted that she fell asleep when we could finally feed her, which in turn caused more discomfort. As a mother we use feeding as a means of comfort to our children, and to mine it was her biggest source of discomfort.
Then came the stress and the guilt. False guilt, I know but guilt none the less. Guilt over not being able to feed or comfort your own baby, guilt over not continuing to breastfeed, guilt over not having enough time to play with Bethany or having to shush her so Gracie wouldn't wake up and stop eating. Stress about if or when we would ever get a handle on this, and not having enough hours in a day to do all I had to do (it was incredibly time consuming). I do not deal well with stress over an extended period of time and I ended up yelling at my other daughter far to often, not sleeping well, and gaining weight. YUCK! That is not the person I am or like to be, yet there I found myself. I did my best to burry my emotions and look like I had it all together but I'm pretty sure I did a really crappy job.
Anyways, she wasn't gaining weight and barely staying hydrated... and then she got the stomach flu. I worried about her for a few days, hemming and hawing over whether I would take her into emergency (it was over a weekend). I finally did take her in and they gave her some medicine to stop the vomiting as she was dehydrated. I remember watching the closing ceremonies on the TV screen in the waiting area of the ER. It was about a week later that it happened: one day she woke up in the middle of eating and didn't spit out the bottle. Then she did it again a few days later. The next day she drank a few ounces while awake. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, if I should dare to hope that she might be better. Sure enough she started improving and with the arrival of spring, Gracie was a different kid. I never realized how much it really affected her until she had improved. She began to babble and giggle and wiggle and have energy and nap normally and be comforted. It felt so amazingly good to feed her when she was hungry and have her be satisfied. I knew we were out of the woods
Thanks be to God for spring and how it always brings new hope and life! And thank you to those of you who were so faithful in praying for her :)
Yikes... this was a long one. Thanks for reading and letting me tell my story to you. It's been quite cathartic.
Much love,
M
p.s. As an update, for the past 4 days Gracie has been going off of food again... I'm praying that it is just a little hickup, but whatever life brings, I am going into it renewed and with a new sense of hope. My God is good and faithful--He brought her through once, He can do it again!
p.p.s. I know it's been forever since my last blog but I was off of Facebook for lent, and with that I have spent a lot less time on the computer in general, so with that came almost no blogging too. I do "blog without obligation" but I will try to keep them coming on a bit more regular basis.
