Life, Lately

About a week before we left for our 2 week Christmas vacation, I was feeding Everett a bottle while on the phone with a friend.  As usual, Everett happily guzzled his bottle…and then promptly spit most of it back up.  Everett has always spit up a lot, but the problem seemed to be getting worse as each day passed.  As I watched the ounces come up, I casually said to my friend on the other end of the line, “I’m going to have to change his formula if this keeps up.”

But, of course, I really didn’t have any intentions of actually doing that.  Because if motherhood has taught me one thing, it’s not to make any major changes before travel.  The absolute last thing you want is a child having an adverse reaction to a change you’ve made to their routine on vacation and away from their doctors – and more importantly, out of the coverage area of their medical insurance (oh yeah, my insurance is that bad).  And changing Everett’s sole source of nutrition would be considered a pretty major change.  Probably the biggest change you could make in a (then) two month old’s life.  Not going to happen.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I was strolling the grocery store aisles ready to make a formula change over 500 miles from home.  There was just too much spit up.  Too much vomit.  So. Much. Vomit.  I was done.  The spit up from a feeding – one feeding – was soaking through multiple burp cloths and receiving blankets.  I had even started using bath towels, hoping they’d be more absorbent.  I small portion of me was considering tarps.  And then there was the vomit that would follow feedings for hours.  If I had to guess, 3 of every 4 ounces I was feeding him were coming right back up.  Probably more.  All of his clothes smelled like vomit.  My clothes smelled like vomit.  It coated his car seat, his rock n’ play, and anything else he got near.

Suddenly it didn’t matter that we were away from home.  This had to stop.

So I grabbed a can of formula specially designed for spit-up and went on my way.  I was sure that the little can was my answer.  It was made for spit-up; it would solve my problem.

But, of course, it didn’t.  In fact, the problem got worse.  The spit-up stayed the same but the vomit became angrier.  His appetite decreased.  Instead of 6 or more bottles per day, we were down to 3.  I panicked.

When I got a hold of the doctor, he suggested switching to another brand of formula, which I did.  Unfortunately, that made the problem exponentially worse.  We now not only had spit-up and vomit, but it was coming out of both ends.  After all, we had changed his formula twice in 2 weeks.  And the vomit was beginning to fly.  Literally, over my shoulder and across the room when I burped him.

A little over 12 hours after returning to Florida we were in the doctor’s office trying to figure out what made his insides so angry, so suddenly.  When they weighed him, we discovered that he had only gained an ounce in the 30 days since his last appointment.  One ounce.  When put on the growth chart, that put him just under the 5th percentile.  I panicked some more.  I’ve never had a child under the 90th percentile for weight.  I make big babies.  Simply put, Greenleigh or Hazeline at the same age could have eaten Everett.  They were ginormous babies.  Small babies?  Well, I don’t know how to deal with that.

In the end, the doctor prescribed an ultrasound of his stomach and changed his formula to the super expensive hypoallergenic stuff…which was so thin that it didn’t stand a chance of actually staying down.  I’ve discovered that the only thing worse than having to purchase a small can of formula for $38 is to watch it immediately being vomited back up towards you.  My entire house reeked of hypoallergenic baby vomit, which, in case you’re wondering, smells ten times worse than regular baby vomit.  Just trust me on that one.

In the past week we’ve been shuttled from doctor to doctor and test to test, all in an attempt to figure out exactly what’s wrong with our little boy.  We know that it’s more than reflux.  And thanks to the ultrasound, we know that his stomach sphincters are okay.  But other than that?  It’s a crapshoot.  A completely exhausting and worrisome crapshoot.  Luckily, we’ve been able to rule out the diagnosis that would require surgery.  As happy as that makes me, no one seems to be able to answer the most important question – Why?

Hopefully, this week will bring some answers and a few extra ounces at his weight check on Wednesday.