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Nebraska, United States
A former full-time teacher living her life-long dream of staying at home. And homeschooling to boot! Comments make my day. Thanks for stopping by! kimlepper at gmail.com

Monday, October 28, 2013

Fighting off Colic

All during my pregnancy with Charlotte I was preparing myself for another "Samantha".  I planned on taking 8 weeks off, started the mspi diet at 38 weeks pregnant, bought a boba, another white noise maker, more swaddling blankets that we like, and I mentally prepared myself to just hold and sleep with my baby 24/7.

But secretly I was really hoping for that second baby everyone told me I was going to have.  You know, the "easy" one.

Anyway, the first week was great and I would have gotten a lot more sleep were I not watching her all day and night because of her silent gagging/turning blue trick she kept pulling.  I had to swallow my pride in the hospital and send her to the nursery for them to watch her so I could sleep. Luckily there was an amazing nurse who took care of my baby the way I would.  She could do the perfect swaddle and brought her to me while she was awake and rooting (instead of a screaming and frantic baby, which another nurse did, but I won't go there). 

My favorite nursery nurse Gretchen!
After leaving the hospital I got sick and was fighting off pneumonia while I was trying to get through severe (and horribly painful) engorgement. 

The second week (with the help of a happy side effect of some much needed pseudoephedrine) my engorgement was getting under control and I felt well enough to make it to MilkWorks for a mom's group.  While there I heard the leader and another woman describing symptoms that were describing Charlotte to a T- nursing every 30-60 minutes, fussy after eating, lots of gas, squirts in the diaper, grunting all the time and painful cries.  All symptoms of a food intolerance but also of oversupply. 

Oversupply.  Huh.  I hadn't thought of that. 

Since I was already on the MSPI diet, it was fairly easy to conclude that I probably had oversupply.  They gave me some information about block-feeding and I was off.  Within 24 hours there was such an improvement that I was able to say Charlotte was "easier" than Samantha at this point.  And then I started thinking about Samantha and my supply and realized that I probably had oversupply with Samantha.  And then the guilt tried to settle in. 

But I wouldn't let it!  Samantha is a fighter and uber resilient and there's a reason God gave her to us first.  She survived.  As much as I did know about babies and colic and mspi, there was a lot I didn't know too.  And that's ok.

Tee hee hee...you've got 2 minutes before I start fussing.  Make good use of it!

So, back to conquering oversupply.  After that was under control we still had the horrible scream/fuss fest that lasted 3-7 hours in the evenings.  Then I realized they coincided with the days that I had coffee in the afternoon to help me get through the rest of the day. 

Crap. 

Let's just say that was a hard cycle to break.

Ok so two weeks in and we've conquered the mspi diet, coffee detox, engorgement, oversupply and pinkeye.

Did I not mention the pinkeye?  Yeah, that was Samantha's gift to Charlotte.  The evening before her baptism.

Week three came and she was still having perpetual gagging/coughing fits and suffering through never ending bugger-infested sinuses .  Ever heard an infant try and clear their throat?   Have you seen Jurrasic Park?  Remember the velociraptors and the sound they make when they call each other?  Imagine that sound coming from your infant. Not fun.

At her two week appt the doctor suspected GERD and told us to keep her elavated after feedings and to just keep doing the nasal rinse and blue bulb sucker for her cold. 

Got it.  I became a blue-bulb expert with Samantha. It's like my sonic-screwdriver.  No nasal passage can stop me.

But after a week of constant nasal rinses and pulling gobs and gobs of snot out of my child I noticed her RANK breath and called the doctor again.  She said to bring Charlotte in.  After looking at her again and hearing all the symptoms were still the same (if not worse) she said she thinks it's all due to refulx.  That snot I keep sucking out?  Probably milk and acid from her stomach that is coming up and pretending to be snot after those gag/cough sessions. 

Lovely.  My poor baby.

We also tried the binky route.  We found one she'll take 20% of the time.
I did some internet research to see what the "natural" treatments for GERD were and we were already doing them (diet change, keeping her elavated, chiropractic care, no smoking, etc), so we decided to go the medication route. 

Which takes about 5 days to take effect.  Today is day four.  Yesterday was sleep-all-day-and-make-mom-and-dad-suspiciously-watch day.  Today is starting out somewhat the same but she's still coughing and gagging after she eats. And has horrible breath.

I'm just gonna lay here oh so quietly
and then jerk suddenly to make you come see what happened, only to have moved my hand in a slightly different position.
She even slept through her ever-moving and loud big sister holding her.
And mommy addressing birth announcements
(I'm determined to get these out this time around!)

Basically I typed all that to say "So, we'll see..."

1 comment:

Geek for Hire said...

and people say that I can be wordy
=P

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