Sunday, March 15, 2009

Stress and chaos at the Needham household

It's been quite a couple of weeks for us! Mason developed some issues recently that we've been trying to deal with, and we're still not quite sure what the problem was!

A couple weeks ago we noticed that he was acting strange after we would feed him. He had more spit up than Maddy and he seemed to be in pain. We assumed it was a breastfeeding issue so we went to see a lactation consultant. While we were there, she noticed him spit up little curds. We were told this was a sign of acid reflux so we made an appointment to see our pediatrician. Unfortunately he was out of town (of course) so we saw the on call doc. The next few days were progressively worse! He was clearly in a lot of pain and was having a hard time keeping his milk down. It was so bad he couldn't even sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time without waking up screaming. We were given a prescription by the on call doctor for the reflux (a billing nightmare, not worth getting into). The problem was that this medication took 5 days to kick in! So, needles to say, it was a long 5 days. On the 7 th day nothing had changed, so we headed back to the Doctor. We were able to see our Doctor this time and he prescribed Prevacid, a much faster acting prescription. (hmmm, why not start with that one?). Well, that seemed to work for a day before we had the worst episode yet. It was horrible listening to Mason in such pain. So... after hours of torture we headed into the Emergency Room. 5 hours of him getting an IV, a catheter, blood drawn, an ultra sound, and every other thing under the sun, and they came up with nothing!



So we went back to our pediatrician one more time to come up with a plan. Amanda is now off of all dairy products, and we've tried a different feeding schedule and some hypoallergenic formula. He seems to be doing better today, but we're definitely not out of the woods yet!

Then there's our little miss Maddy. Just as cute as a button and without a care in the world. She's doing great. In fact, we should think about putting this little piggy on a diet! As you can see she's making good use of the bed bed we're not sleeping in!


Oh... parenting is not easy!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor little guy :( Amanda looks so sad in that picture I bet you guys were scared... Hope all goes well from here on out. Love you and your babies are beautiful!

Joni and David said...

aww sad :( Hopefully he gets better soon!! We will be thinking about/praying for you guys.

Anonymous said...

My goodness, the picture of Amanda says it all. Wanted to put our arms around you both. Even though we are miles away we are thinking of you all and hoping this is situation with Mason is behind you. We heard from your Mom that they are both gaining weight and flurishing under your care. We are happy to hear that the sleeping at night is something now becoming "a thing" and that you can get well desearved rest yourself. We miss you and keep up the good work!
Love, Kathy and Fred