Category: Baby Book Addict

… especially when your little one is sick and you don’t really know why. For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably have some idea of what’s happened, but for those of you who don’t I wanted to pop in and post a little update.

Two weeks ago our sweet Katelyn started vomiting. And let me tell you, this went WAY beyond spitting up. This was forcefully splattering our faces, getting in our hair, drenching bath towels. Yuck. I didn’t know what had happened. My precious girl went from a happy not-at-all spitty baby to this vomit machine. In just a few days. It was ridiculous. We were both at our wits end not knowing what to do. I was afraid to even put her down because even when sound asleep she would open her mouth and formula would come back out! Without her ever waking up, I was afraid she would choke.

So I did what any parent would do after about 24 hours of her throwing up forcefully after every bottle (sometimes during a feeding while the nipple was still in her mouth!). I took her in to the doctor. Unfortunately, that first day I was only able to see a nurse practitioner. I didn’t care, I just wanted to get an opinion on what was going on with Katelyn. I knew something was wrong. Babies don’t just start randomly throwing up like this. It wasn’t normal. Her weight was fine. Her belly sounded normal. I was told it was “probably” reflux but to come back on Monday for a weight check (we went in on a Thursday).

After a very long weekend, Monday finally rolled around. I told my husband that I didn’t care what he had going on at work, I wanted him to come to the doctor with me. If I was going to have to make an ass of myself to get the help we needed for our daughter, I wanted him by my side. I knew this wasn’t reflux – we dealt with that with Garrett. This was something totally different and I was scared something was seriously wrong. Luckily we saw the doctor this time. And he immediately saw something different. He told us she had lost 4oz in 4 days, asked us a bunch of questions, felt around on her belly, and then calmly told us that he wanted us to go down the hall for an ultrasound, that he suspected something called pyloric stenosis. He also explained that if it was indeed pyloric stenosis then she would require surgery.

Wait, what?! Surgery?!? Yes, surgery. Our baby girl had to have surgery on the day she turned 1 month old. Very, very scary.

To explain, pyloric stenosis is, in the most simplest terms, when the muscle that connects the stomach and the small intestine gets too large to let food pass through for complete digestion. Since nothing or very little can pass through, the vomiting takes place. Dehydration and extreme lethargy can also occur. So the surgeon had to go in and cut through the muscle to make it where food can pass through again. So you know, this condition usually presents between 2 and 8 weeks of age. It is something that is seen in 3 out of 1000 babies. It is most common in males, especially first-borns. So for our girl to have it is even more rarer. It’s also hereditary… we’re still trying to figure out where it came from. In addition, now that she has had it her future children are 20% more likely to have it.

And while my daughter had to have surgery at 1 month old and will forever bear the scar on her belly, she is back to being her happy self. No more vomiting. Hardly even any spitting up. I can lay her down without fear that she will choke on vomit. It was scary for all of us. It was tremendously stressful. But our girl is happy and healthy again. I am just so relieved that what we went through was so easily fixed – a lot of parents and children don’t have it as easy as we did.

Think of this as a public service announcement. While you may never come across another parent dealing with pyloric stenosis … I want you to know to trust your parenting instincts. I was told my girl had reflux. I had my doubts. I knew it was something more serious than just plain old reflux. Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion. Trust your instincts … no one knows your baby better than you.

On May 9, 2015 and 1:31pm, we welcomed our second child into the world. She was 7lb 15oz and 20″ long. Her birth story is just as quick as Garrett’s … but a lot more painful.

It was a Saturday morning. Thankfully it was Nathan’s Saturday off (he works every other). Him and Garrett had just gotten back from picking up McDonald’s for breakfast. I had already eaten before they both woke up, but Nathan brought me a hot chocolate. As we’re standing in our little entryway, he hands me my hot chocolate and all of a sudden I feel like I’m peeing myself. I calmly put my drink down on the table, told Nathan to go ahead and eat with Garrett because I needed to go to the bathroom.

When I got to the bathroom I had a feeling my water was breaking, but when it broke with Garrett it was all in a gush. This was just a trickle. But it kept trickling. So I did what any normal woman in labor would do, I  shaved my arm pits, considered washing my hair (decided against it because it takes too long to dry because it’s so long) and got dressed. By that time Nathan was in the bedroom asking if I was okay. I calmly looked at him and told him yes, but that we needed to get started on our way to the hospital.

At the beginning of my pregnancy, I knew that we would be moving mid-pregnancy. I also knew that I had two options … stay with the doctor that I love to pieces, who is now an hour from my house, or find a doctor who delivers at the hospital 20 minutes from my house. I chose to stick with my doctor. I knew we were facing an hour drive to the hospital. So I didn’t really want to waste too much time. We made it to the hospital parking garage in 45 minutes flat … I won’t tell you how fast my husband drove 🙂

After getting settled into my birthing room, and being checked out, I was already dilated to 4. Then the IV hell began. I have horrible, horrible veins. With Garrett it took 3 people to get an IV in me. With this pregnancy, it took 5 people and a total of 2 hours. It finally took the anesthesia guy being able to numb my vein to get it in place. Yeah,  fun. At that point my doctor came in and informed me that I could have the epidural at any point, but that my contractions were so irregular that she was afraid that taking it so early would possibly slow down the process. This terrified me. I only had 5 hours from my water breaking with Garrett until I was holding him in my arms. The last thing I wanted was a looooong labor. So I held off. Besides, the contractions weren’t painful at the point, just mild cramping every so often.

Big mistake.

Both of our parents were in the waiting room by this point, and they took turns coming back and visiting with me. My in-laws were in the room and my contractions were starting to come a little harder and more often. But still only uncomfortable. Luckily, they could pretty much tell that they were not the people who needed to be in the room at that point. They left and my mom came in. At this point the nurse came around and I told her I wanted the morphine and to get the fluids going to get the epidural process starting.

I got my morphine shot.

16 minutes later I was pushing my baby girl out.

Folks, 3.5 hours from the moment I walked into the hospital until I was holding my baby. One hour from the time my doctor told me my contractions weren’t consistent enough to be considered in labor until I had our daughter. Talk about a whirlwind.

No epidural. Only a morphine shot that really hadn’t kicked in. Talk about things not going according to plan. But you know what, she’s healthy. That’s all that matters. It’s true what people say … you really do forget about the pain the moment they are out of you.

So now, I am proud to introduce you to our daughter, Katelyn.

…at daycare and things are going really well!!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the whole situation. He’s never been cared for by anyone other than family. He’s never not been the center of attention. I didn’t know how he would react. But I’m so pleased to say that he has really taken to daycare. And I hate to say that he actually gets upset when he doesn’t go on Thursday and Friday!

Those first couple of days were rough on momma. The first day I chose to take off and stay close to home (I work an hour from home) just in case something terrible went wrong and I needed to be there. Hub and I both went and dropped him off. He didn’t cry, but he was apprehensive about us leaving. I was perfectly fine driving the 13 minutes back to our house. And was fine through a phone conversation with my mother. I lost it when I sat down on the couch with the dog and looked up at the pictures on our entertainment center. I broke down and cried like a baby. I second guessed our decision all day that day.

But I have never second-guessed it since. He loves it. His little personality is really coming out now. He’s such a ham! His vocabulary is expanding daily (he is a little bit behind where he “should” be, but not to the point where therapy is needed). In three days he went from barely being able to hold a fork to feeding himself with it. And can I just say that the kid now actually eats? Feeding time has always been a fiasco in our house … from the constant spit-up from his reflux as an infant to his pickiness now as a toddler, dinner time is a challenge. Not so much anymore, he does so much better now. He eats it without me having to constantly repeat “eat your food”.

I know I was apprehensive about placing him in daycare when it was technically a choice and not a necessity. But I am seeing my little boy blossom in ways I never expected each and every day.

And I respect my time with him more than I ever did. When you see your child all day every day, you tend to lose sight of what’s important. I treasure every moment I get with him on Friday, because that’s “our” day now.

Sometimes I tear up wondering where on earth my little baby has gone to. But at the same time I love seeing the little boy that he’s growing into. (He is more than likely going to be an only child).

How on earth will he be TWO next month?!

This post is going to be long and have absolutely nothing to do with books, just a heads up 🙂

Breaking up is hard to do ….. breaking up with your pediatrician, in this case. I have had it with my pediatrician and her office. I originally loved our pediatrician, she was so nice and attentive when we were in the hospital. She answered all my (silly, first time mom) questions with ease and enjoyment. I was glad I had a good recommendation for her, it made me feel good that he was going to be well taken care of. Then came his two-week appointment – she was out of the office that week and I would have to see one of the other doctors. Okay, I can deal with that – it was just one appointment after all. I went with my list of (still silly, first time mom) questions, Garrett and my mother in tow. And I felt absolutely dismissed by the doctor we saw. It was like she wanted nothing to do with me or Garrett, she just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as she could. Because of this I let Garrett’s reflux go way too long (she did tell me that it was “completely normal” – how was I supposed to know any different??). Everything seemed to be going smoothly until about a month ago we noticed that Garrett was starting to have more trouble with his reflux again. We tried to make an appointment – we were told it would be a week before we could get in to see our doctor (but we could get in immediately to see the abovementioned doctor we saw at the 2 week appointment, um – no, thank you!). I was beyond irritated. A WEEK before you could get in to see your doctor? I could understand if she was the only one in the office – and this wasn’t necessarily a sick baby appointment anyway. We almost switched doctors, we argued back and forth about it. In the end we ended up not taking him to the doctor, but did switch his formula on our own and, while he still has reflux, things are much better – I’m almost completely positive that he was allergic to Similac or something along those lines.

So what does all this have to do with finally deciding to break up with our pediatrician? Well this week Garrett has developed a cough. I’m not really surprised, I had a cold two weeks ago and did everything I could to make sure I didn’t pass it to him. Plus the weather is turning – it’s just starting to become cold season. I didn’t think much about it until yesterday when he really started coughing. I definitely started to take notice at it a lot more closely. Then this morning he woke up terribly stopped up. I told Nathan we would have to have a doctor’s appointment today. So I called in to work and waited around for my doctor’s office to open (8:30am). I finally get through to make the appointment and I start in with my spiel about who I am and why I’m calling and immediately the woman who takes appointments transfers me over to the nurse desk (no, I did not ask to talk to the nurse, if she had let me finish what I was saying she would have realized I wanted to make an appointment to see the doctor). I start in on my spiel again and immediately the nurse asks me if he has a fever – no, he does not. She then proceeds to tell me that I should keep him elevated, get a humidifier, and a saline nose solution for him and not to call back unless he produces a fever … and she hangs up. That is not what I wanted. I wanted an appointment with my doctor. I don’t care if I spend the $200 to see my doctor for her to tell me the exact same thing – it’s what she’s there for and by golly I want to see her.

So I called Nathan and told him exactly what happened. He, like I am, was immediately ticked off. This is not the first time that this office has ignored our concerns. But it sure is going to be the last one. He calmed me down and said he would call me back, he had a meeting or something to go into. When he called me back he informed me that he had spoken to his co-workers (he works around 3 or 4 women who are mommies themselves and who know that we’ve had disagreements with our doctor in the past) and they all said the same thing – SWITCH DOCTORS. So that’s what we are doing. We are going to see another pediatrician today, we have an appointment at 3:30. They didn’t question him wanting to see a doctor when he called the other doctor’s office – they just made the appointment. Which is exactly what the other office should have done. But I am at the end of my rope with the doctor’s office we’ve been going to. And as much as I hate switching doctors, I just can’t deal with this anymore. I need a doctor who will listen to my concerns, answer all my (silly, first time mom) questions, and put me at ease. Plus I’m paranoid about colds – when I was 16 I let a cold go from bad to worse and ended up with pneumonia – so I know what colds can turn into if not taken care of. Hopefully we will be a lot better off in the long run. And I’m sure this cough is nothing but the common cold, but he’s only 3.5 months old and I want to know that he is okay – not to ignore something because I’ve written it off as “just a cold.”

Switching gears – I have determined that I have absolutely, 100% lost my entire mind. I have baby fever. WTH!? How can I have baby fever when my baby is still a baby? LOL!? Never in a million years did I ever think that I would want another child. I thought Garrett would be it for us. We would be a family of three. But the last few days I’ve realized how quickly Garrett is growing up and that my family doesn’t feel complete yet. Obviously I don’t want another baby right now. My goodness, if I was to get pregnant tomorrow they would only be 13 months apart! That’s insane. But I think it will happen before I originally intended for it to happen. I had originally said that I wanted to get Garrett out of diapers before I started thinking about another one. Now I’m thinking that I will try again after his 1st birthday. Nathan and his brother are 21 months apart, my dad and uncle are 25 months apart and my mom and aunt are 29 months apart. I’m honestly beginning to think that it would be the ideal time to start trying again. Everytime I think of this the first thing that runs through my head is “you’ve lost your f’in mind, Tara!” but I can’t help myself. I’ve even already got names circulating in my head – and yes, I think I will be one of those cheesy parents whose children’s first names all start with the same letter! Please, someone tell me how insane I am, lol! I don’t want to even think about how hard keeping track of two children will be … one is hard enough and he’s not even moving yet! But I think part of my problem is that I am slowly inching toward that next big age milestone – 30 – and I always said I didn’t want to be pregnant in my 30s (I don’t have a particular reason as to why, I just don’t want to be). Either way, it’s definitely something that I’ve been thinking about 🙂 And Nathan is so funny. We recently booked a trip to Hawaii in December. Just the two of us, my parents are going to watch Garrett. When I started talking about having another baby he looked at me and said “isn’t that why you wanted to go to Hawaii?” Haha. No, that’s not why – but it could be fun 😉