Dr. Jekyll and little Miss Hyde….

Well, it’s been a while since I updated this blog and I apologize to my loyal readers (did ya catch that sarcasm?!) Actually I’ve been wondering if anyone even reads this, but oh well, I will continue! (BEWARE! This is a LOOOOOONG post!)

Leah and I had a wonderful trip to FL last month, although it was heartbreaking that we had to go at all. For those of you who do not know, my dear friend Ashley (who is also my sorority sister and the real sister of one of my two best friends) and her husband Billy lost their twin girls Taylor and Riley after they were born prematurely. Please consider supporting the March of Dimes in honor of these little girls whose time with us was short but sweet.

On a lighter note, Leah was able to meet more of her family and spend some quality time with her two grandmas and grandpas. It was also a nice break for me to be able to get out of the house on my own a few times and for Leah to get some fresh, Florida air after being stuck inside in Michigan! We really missed Josh but I sent him pictures of Leah almost daily. Anyway, he was busy with work and law school.

So, on to the subject of this blog. I have been talking with many of you via facebook regarding Leah’s feeding issues (which really started at birth), and I am so thankful for all the advice, but I thought it may be good for me to just put all the info on one place, and what better place than my neglected blog, so here it goes:

Before she was born I had intended on nursing her because, 1. “it’s best for baby” and 2. It’s free (minus the cost of all the cute nursing tops, tanks, bras and nightgowns I bought! lol) As soon as she was born we started trying but it just wasn’t working. Normally the problem is latching but that wasn’t our problem, our problem was that once she was latched she wouldn’t eat for more than a minute or two before stopping. Nothing I tried and nothing the nurses tried seemed to help but they continued to tell me “keep trying”. Well, I heard “keep trying” for the entire hospital stay (48 hours) and she had only nursed for, maybe, a total of 20 minutes…TOTAL!! And I kept asking “are you sure this is ok…she’s not eating” and they kept saying that it was ok because she needed so little colostrum at first, but I still felt like it couldn’t be alright. But I trusted them so I kept trying even though she was sleeping all day and all night and never crying or anything.

When she was born she weighed 6 lbs. 7 oz. (that was early on a Thursday morning) and when we left the hospital (late Friday evening) she weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz. They said that is was normal for babies to lose weight the first few days and that I shouldn’t worry, even though they said 5 oz. was a little high. So we leave the hospital (with no instruction or back up or plan if the nursing still wasn’t going well- so unprepared) and arrive home and as soon as we get home I try to feed her and we are still having the same problem, she just wasn’t doing anything once she would latch. It was at that point that I just had a really bad feeling. It was like a constant feeling of adrenaline/anxiety….I just knew something was wring so I said “screw it, I’m making her a bottle!” (thank God for Similac sending free samples coupled with my past experience with feeding babies because Lord knows the hospital didn’t prepare me for anything other than nursing). She did drink that bottle and finally started eating regularly, although it was a REAL struggle because she was SO weak after days of basically starvation, that she would fall asleep while eating.

So then we take her to her first check up with her pediatrician that following Monday and despite having been on formula for about 3-4 days she had still not gained any weight after leaving the hospital. I explained to the doctor what had happened and what I did and she said that if I had NOT stopped nursing and started the formula that she would have been in really bad shape. She said that we don’t know why she wasn’t nursing but that I did the right thing by following my instincts.
Initially she was taking Similac Advance Early Shield but within a few weeks she started to develop some worrisome symptoms when she was eating. She would scream, arch her back, flail her arms and her arms and legs would be very stiff. Because of this her doctor recommended that we switch her to Similac Isomil Advance Soy Formula. That seemed to make a difference, although she was still a generally fussy eater, some times worse than others. Her doctor was concerned that it might be reflux, even though she was not spitting up, but she hoped that a simple formula change would do the trick.

That brings us to last week. After about 2 months on the soy formula it got much worse. It was like she was two different babies, a happy, sweet little lady until it’s time to eat then she turns into a sad, grumpy little (cute!) monster! She WAS eating enough throughout the day, and sleeping fine at night BUT every feeding was a struggle. She would scream the entire time and push the bottle away, force it out of her mouth with her tongue and shake her head from side to side. And if I would stop trying to feed her and switch positions and play with her she would sometimes calm down, but as SOON as I would move her into “feeding position” and grab the bottle she would start screaming again, even before the bottle would get to her mouth. Just knowing it was coming would set her off. So I spoke to her doctor again and she again mentioned that it could be reflux or a protein allergy but that she usually tries the easiest and least invasive fix (and I agree with this philosophy) so she told me to try Similac Sensitive R.S. She said this particular type has rice cereal in it which will be heavier in her stomach and hopefully help (IF pain from reflux/heartburn is actually the problem).

So we bought the new formula and even though her first feeding with it she only took 2.5 oz, she seemed to do ok (she normally takes 3-5 oz at a time). It wasn’t until after she woke up from a long nap after eating that she vomited up all of the new formula that she had eaten hours before. This was particularly alarming because she has never vomited like that before, she rarely ever even spits up and anyway this new formula was supposed to decrease vomiting and spit up, not make it worse. So again I called the doctor that evening (yesterday) and she said it may have just been a coincidence and to give her her old formula for her nighttime feeding (so I wouldn’t worry about her vomiting at night) and then try the new formula again the following day (today).

Well, I did that and she kept it all down BUT in the beginning if the day she was back to refusing the bottle, just like before this most recent switch. I called the doctor AGAIN (lol) and she said that it might take her some time to get used to it but that if she vomited again that I would need to bring her in because then we’d need to really look closely at either medication for reflux or the possibility of a protein allergy.

The rest of the day went ok so we will keep trying and see how this goes. I did have to buy new nipples for her bottles because the old ones had holes that were too small for the new, thicker formula and when I tried to make the holes bigger on my own I made it too big. We are just hoping this works because it is SO sad to see her struggle SO hard just to eat.

Whew!! Sorry for the long post…if you are still reading this you are either very kind OR have feeding issues with your own little one!