Micah and His Tummy

Micah is expensive. :) This kid is well on his way to meeting his deductible and he is not even 3 months old yet. HA!

But he is my little Rock Star.

I am sure many of you who follow my blog remember what a difficult and trying pregnancy this was for me. And now in infancy it hasn't stopped. :)

Micah was born 4-5 weeks early. {we technically don't know when his due date was, but my doc went with Feb 13th and I wasn't going to argue, but my calculations said the 18th}. Anyway, he was born perfectly fine and healthy all things considered. Didn't even need a trip to the NICU! Praise God.

However, from birth he experienced reflux. No one wanted to do anything for it and wanted to see if he would grow out of it in a month or so.

Nope. Still has it and each week that goes by it seems worse and the spitting up seems greater. Although that is probably due to the amount of milk he takes at each feeding now.

My doc prescribed zantac for him at around 8 weeks. After giving it to him for 5 days I called back and said this is not helping. My doc then ordered a sono of Micah's tummy to check for pyloric stenosis. A conditioned where the tummy doesn't empty well into the small intestine {short version}.

That was a miserable experience. Which I want to document here. Feel free to skip over this part if you want.

This is what Micah thought of the sono!

Notice his little hospital bracelet.

He couldn't eat for 2 hours before. Praise God he slept right up until about 30 minutes before the sono, but after that he was an angry hot mess.
The sono tech was super rude at times. She kept asking me if I had a paci or something to soothe him with. I said "he doesn't take pacis and he is starving." She just kept getting angry as she was performing the ultrasound that Micah was wriggling about too much. (Thankfully there was a student sono tech in there that was pleasant and helpful).

Then the sono said "well, don't you have a bottle to give him?" I said "no I don't I breastfeed and no one told me to bring on, so why would I?" She looked at me like I was nuts! What bf'ing mommy EVER brings a bottle? So then she just got up and said "well feed him then!" Wow! That student gave me a look of sheer sympathy.

I nursed and they came back 10 minutes later. He was better, but once they put that gel on him and started taking pics he got angry again. So once again so did the sono tech.

The tech then said "why don't you just come over here and hold him." Ok ask nicely please...I didn't know. The student suggested I football hold and nurse him to help keep him calm. The tech shot that idea down like it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard!

Anyway long story a bit shorter she finally got up and said we were done. I was like really? I wasn't even sure she got any worth while pics, but I just wanted out of there. Then all of a sudden once I calmed Micah down she turned all sugary sweet. Crazy!

The results: negative for pyloric stenosis, which is great because the only "cure" is immediate surgery.

The doc wanted me to stay with the Zantac and keep him posted. Another week goes by and I just don't see any more improvements.

I schedule an appointment and my doctor ups Micah Zantac dose. He was sure that all Micah has is reflux and needed a "healthy" dose of Zantac. Micah also doesn't poop much at all and struggles to pass gas. The doc suggested Miralax or prune juice to help.

Off I go to try this new plan. Micah won't drink my breastmilk from a bottle. Spoiled kid. :) Doesn't matter who gives the bottle it is a no go, he gags and chokes on it like we are killing him. Doesn't even matter if he is starving he will wait for the tap. So I then tried Miralax in just water...nope. Then I tried prune juice. After fighting him for 30 minutes he finally took it. 20 minutes later it all came gushing back out {because that is how Micah spits up like Mt. Vesuvius or Old Faithful}. Yum. That stuff stains! Thank goodness for Tide stain release.
Because I like to clean up messes, I tried prune juice for 3 days each time yielding the same messy result.

This time a week goes by and call back and say this is STILL not working, figuring he will just need to out grow these issues. Lo sort of did the same thing only she was much older and experience each problem separate from the other.

They have now scheduled an upper GI barium swallow for Micah. Great. To truly rule out pyloric stenosis and confirm reflux.

I am hesitant about this currently. I am trying everything in my power to find and fix the problem myself. I have cut out all sources of lactose in my diet and all my sugar free products because those can upset a baby's tummy, especially preemies. So far nothing has changed.

It looks like I am going to have to do the upper GI just to be certain about what is going on. As a mommy/parent you just want to "fix" everything for your kids. It is no fun watching them suffer. The irony is so far he has suffered nearly 12 weeks with this, which is how long I suffered with pre-term labor and I would gladly go back and experience that all again if it would take the pain from my son. I just want an answer or a fix to this. However, I think he may just have to out grow it and all I can do is try and love him through it.

I will update if we do go through with the upper GI, but for now this is where I story ends. No answers.