Reflux is Back

I am so discouraged.  For the past month we have been trying to get Leah to sleep flat in her crib, not on the sleeping wedge.  We wanted to do this because (1) she is 6 months old, (2) she wants to move around a bit, and (3) she cannot self-soothe on the wedge which results in a lot of nighttime soothing for BA and me.  So about 3 weeks ago, we decided to take her off the wedge.  She did not take to this well.  She fussed/cried all night for the first week, and then she started coughing all night.  After about 30 minutes of coughing, one of us would give up and get out of bed to pick her up and soothe her.  The minute we picked her up, she'd throw-up all over us.  This week we have spent the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. every night cleaning up the mess.  There would be spit-up everywhere - on her crib, our comforter, our carpet, her sleeper, our clothes.  It is terrible.  And this week she started refusing her bottle.  At this rate, I'm not even sure how much she is eating.  We can only get her to eat about 4 ounces at a time and she is literatlly throwing-up every other bottle.  I'm estimating that she is eating half of what she was just two weeks ago.  We called the doctor today after she threw-up twice in four hours and he put her on Prevacid.  I was so excited about this - despite the $180 price tag for 30 pills - hopeful for any improvement.  She took it a lot better than that nasty Zantac she was on, and she ate 4 ounces at dinner, but then 10 minutes later she threw it up.  BA ran to the bathroom and held her in the bathtub while she threw-up two more times.  

Aside from how worried I am about Leah, this has turned our life upside down.  We get thrown-up on at least 3 times a day.  It's disgusting.  We are constantly doing laundry.  BA and I are averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep a night for the past 3 weeks.  I am sick and he is having allergic reactions due to a weakened immune system.  We are lucky to have my Dad visiting us and helping out but even he isn't immune from the mess.  He hadn't been here 24 hours before Leah spit-up all over him during a morning feeding.
 
And I am constantly trying to figure out what to do next.  I am a problem-solver by nature.  I will sit awake at 5 a.m. and google "reflux" looking for a solution that we haven't already tried.  I incessantly pose new ideas to BA and he's seriously tired of my problem-solving because everything we try seems to fail.  But I can't stop thinking about solutions and formulating action plans.  It's just so confusing because we thought the reflux had eased up a bit when  just last month she seemed to be doing well, spitting up less.  And now everything is back, worse than ever before.

Through all of this, Leah has had the best attitude.  She will throw-up her entire bottle and then look up at us and smile.  She is just the sweetest baby and it kills me that I can't help her.  And I suspect that most of her aversion to naps and the non-stop crying that we were fighting has to do with reflux.  She doesn't want to lay down when the acid is just going to cause her pain.  I feel so bad for getting frustrated at her when she won't sleep but we are all so tired and desperately need the rest.   

So I don't really know where to go from here.  We are going to keep her on the wedge and give the Prevacid a try this week.  Hopefully this will settle her stomach and stop the constant throwing-up.  I am going to add rice cereal to her bottle and we are starting solids soon.  I can only hope for some improvement.

A Peanut in Peanuts

I just finished my last, first week of school, EVER!  I am so excited to be almost done.  My schedule includes Constitutional Law, Federal Income Tax, International Commercial Arbitration, and Trial Practice.  Originally I thought my class schedule would be boring as hell, but after three days in class, I'm thinking it will in fact be boring as hell.  Ha.  No really, it's not going to be as bad as it first seemed.  I am actually pretty excited about Fed. Tax - finally a useful class!  I am loving it so far, probably because I have an amazingly funny professor, but also because the subject matter is directly applicable to real life.  And trial practice is going to be fun - we'll be acting out every step of a medical malpractice trial from jury selection to closing arguments.  That class will hopefully give me a vague idea of what it's like to do a trial and help me decide if being a trial attorney would be something I am interested in pursuing.  The other two classes will likely be snoozers, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

But that's not why you checked the blog today ...

This is one of my old baby outfits from the early '80's.  My mom saved it and I wanted to snap some pictures of Leah in it.  She looks cute in it, even if it does make her look like a boy :)  

As we were throwing out some old boxes from the holidays, we decided to have a little fun with our little peanut. 

"Excuse me, exactly what is going on here?"

"Dad, I'm not so sure about this."

"Oh, it's a toy!  This is fun!"

Dear Leah

January 11, 2012

My baby girl Leah,

I love you so much.  You and your father have made my life complete.

Around 3 months you started recognizing me when I went in to get you up in the morning.  I would turn on the lights, you would squint and rub your eyes as if you were thinking, “Who the heck would turn on the lights and wake me up!”  Then you’d look up and see my smiling face staring back at you saying, “Good morning, baby.”  And you’d get the biggest grin on your face.  Your whole face would light up and you’d start frantically kicking your legs as if you couldn’t wait for me to pick you up and start the day.  It was the most wonderful experience for me – to start my day with this little person who had so much joy in her little body simply from seeing her mommy looking back at her.  You don’t really do that anymore.  Now when I turn on the lights, I’m lucky if I get a sleepy smile out of you.  You are growing up. 

You are the most adorable baby I’ve ever met.  You are sitting up now and that makes you so proud.  And you smile all the time.  You have so much energy.  The bath is my favorite example.  You kick your chubby legs so hard, water going everywhere, in your eyes and all over your face, and you don’t care.  You love it.  By the end of your bath, you’ve kicked up so much water that your daddy and I are wet.  It never gets old; for you or me. 

When I sneak in late at night to give you your pacifier, and I put it in your mouth, you shake your head back and forth rapidly like you are a little pit bull terrier shaking a chew toy.  It’s adorable and I love it.  It’s one of your little quirks that make you, you.

I love to watch you sleep.  You look so peaceful, your face all scrunched up and your lips pooched out.  It reminds me of the few fuzzy images I got of your face on the ultrasound.  When you fall asleep with the pacifier, and the pacifier falls out of your mouth, you continue making sucking movements with your little mouth.  You are in a moment of peace and I am overjoyed.  Sometimes, you will fall asleep in my arms.  I whisper into your ear that I love you and that you are fresh from heaven.  

I look at you and I am absolutely amazed at how you got here.  One day, you just started growing, and then almost 9 months later you were born.  And now 6 months into your life on earth, you have started to become the little person that you will be.  And I couldn’t love you more. 

Mom

My beautiful girl at 6 months!

Peanut's Post: Hanging Out with Mom

Peanut here.  It's been a while since my last update.  I am currently going through some changes in management structure at home.  The parents want me to sleep in my crib - Alone.  I know ... it's crazy.  And I am trying to assert my authority as the authority in the house but they are giving me a lot of push-back recently.  But, just so you know it's not a constant battle at home, I'd like to share one of my favorite activities with you - hanging out with my Mom.  

P.S. I like hanging out with Dad too, but I don't have any photos of that right now.

Mom and I like to chill, usually on the weekends, but sometimes at 6 a.m. on a Monday, too!



We just chat about current events, how cute I am, and whether or not I'm planning on pooping today.  It's so much fun!

Sometimes I like to lean in close if I'm trying to express my opinion ....

Mom says I'm a little pistol.  I don't know what that means but I'll assume it's a compliment.

Staring at Aunt Haley

Over the holidays we discovered that Leah is obsessed with her Aunt Haley.  And it's a good thing too because Aunt Haley is just as obsessed back (although she is a little more discrete in showing her affection than Leah is).

(Turn up the volume)

The Crying

I am really losing my mind over Leah these days.  Since we are trying to transition her off the sleeping wedge and into sleeping flat in her crib we have not had a peaceful night.  She really hates sleeping alone in her crib.  The wedge became a substitute for her parent's arms and she would sleep pretty well on it - waking once or twice a night to feed (since she was born she has never slept through the night; she went 7 hours once but that still included a 9:00 p.m. feeding and a 4:00 a.m. feeding - in other words, our standards for a "peaceful night" are extremely low).  It was predictable and manageable.  But since we've moved her off the wedge she is not shy about telling us how much she hates this idea.  She is still in our room because we had company over the holidays and we have more company coming, so this is a small part of the problem because when she cries it is at full volume and no matter how hard I press my hands over my ears I cannot dim the noise.  It is so loud in there my ear drums start hurting.  Last night she woke up crying at 9:30 p.m.  So I tried to feed her thinking she didn't get enough during the day, but when I tried to give her a bottle she turned away.  So I changed her diaper and put her back in her crib where she slept until about midnight.  Then she woke up screaming at the top of her lungs and did not stop for an hour.  There is no logical reason for all the night waking.  I know this because the minute we picked her up from her crib, the crying ceased, and she started smiling at us - like she was thinking "gotcha!"  I am so frustrated with this.  She cannot, or will not, calm herself down in her crib.  This has been going on for too long.  And at this rate, I don't feel sorry for her - I feel sorry for me.  I cannot take this anymore.  Plus, after she cries for an hour in the middle of the night I cannot calm myself down.  By that point I have so much anxious energy over the crying that I am literally unable to fall back asleep because I am just waiting for her to start crying again in 10 minutes and wake me up again.  So I lay in bed with butterflies in my stomach over this.  I didn't fall back asleep until 3 a.m. after her hour of screaming at midnight.  BA is being much more patient about the whole thing but even he is cracking.  She woke up again at 4:00 a.m. last night, this time just fussy and whining, but BA was able to ignore it until 6 a.m. when he got up to feed her.  There just seems to be no break in sight for us.  Every time I think we are turning a corner we relapse.  It's just so hard right now.

But, let's think back to happier times ...  We did so much over the break that I couldn't blog about everything at the time, so here's another one of our adventures from the holidays.  

My mother has been watching the Rose Parade every year for as long as I can remember.  So this year, during her visit, we decided to attend the float decorating that is open to the public in the days leading up to the Parade.  It was so cool to see how they are assembled.  The floats must all be covered in some sort of natural, organic material and even though it takes over 6 months to build the floats, people work round-the-clock to decorate them in a matter of days just before the parade so the flowers don't die. 

A sample of some of the organic materials used to cover the floats

Check out the path made of potatoes

Taking a break with Grandma

Yay for the Rose Parade!

Christmas 2011 - Better Late than Never

Better late than never.  It's not that I forgot about Christmas, it's that we've been so busy doing other things that I haven't had time to stop and blog about it.  So here is the re-cap.  Christmas morning, we made my family's traditional eggnog pancakes - it's my Dad's recipe and during Christmas time he would substitute eggnog (sans the booze) for the usual buttermilk the recipe calls for.  My mom flew in from Florida later that morning and we opened presents that afternoon.  Leah got a ton of presents.  She was by far the most popular family member this year.  And Santa even stopped by and brought her a new high chair!

Santa Leah just waking up - Peanut had several "costume changes" throughout the day as you will see

Discovering her new highchair

Grandma has arrived!

Merry Christmas from Baby Leah!  She's now changed into her present-opening outfit from her Nana

Even babies have to take a break from the excitment

BA had an especially wonderful surprise gift for me.  It was a personalized book he made online called "A Story for Leah" and it was all about Leah's first 5 months with us and our first 5 months as her parents.  It was almost 50 pages of our photos and it was just beautiful. 

We wrapped up the day opening our stockings.  Peanut got a second Wabanub (pacifier with a stuffed animal attached) a bottle of Ajax, some baby spoons, and a case of formula!  The rest of us got the traditional goodies, candy, notepads, little gifts.

And BA and I gave each other a night out on the town.  A few days after Christmas we went to dinner on Rodeo drive at McCormick and Schmick's (thanks Dad for the gift card!) and then we went to a Cirque Du Soliel at the Kodak theatre in Hollywood. That's the same theatre where they host the Oscars. Grandma and Aunt Haley babysat Leah and BA and I had a wonderful time.  It was a great holiday season.