So I haven't posted in FOREVER, I sincerely apologize, been kind of busy raising a baby! So much has happened in our life in the last few months.
In May, when Raiden was just 6 weeks old we had quite a scare. For 2 weeks he had started to spit up large quantities, well that is what everyone was telling me it was - spit up. I kept saying he was throwing up because there was just so much of it with every feeding. 2 doctors and a nurse practitioner kept reassuring me that it was just reflux and that he was fine and to make his feedings shorter. Well on the day of May 4th I was fed up, the husband and I went to go eat brunch with our little man, and during brunch I had to change him twice and used 3 spit up rags because of his "spit up" - following brunch the husband went to work and I went to my parents. It was there that I held him as he slept and he would throw up every 15 minutes or so from feeding to feeding. Around 4PM I noted that he had only had 2 barely wet diapers all day and so I called our doctors after hours hotline and our ped's partner answered and told me to take him to the ER because my concern of dehydration was very real. I picked up Mr. W on our way to the hospital and they got us in a room quickly, unfortunately things slowed down after that. The ER doctor insisted he was just dehydrated and needed some pedialyte, which was frustrating because I told him very firmly that Raiden couldn't keep ANYTHING down, it wasn't like I was not trying to hydrate him - nor did I see him again after he instructed us that he just needed hydration (probably because he was embarrassed!). Raiden wouldn't take the pedialyte and the nurse said to just nurse, I didn't want to because at this point I think it hurt Raiden when he threw up and I knew it would happen. But they insisted so we nursed and within 5 minutes he was vomiting it back up. At this point we were left alone for quite awhile, and it was during this time that I could hear the nurses in the hallway discussing that it was just spit up and it was normal and I was just a paranoid first time mom, which just infuriated me as they went on and on... Then the ped doctor who had instructed me to come to the ER in the first place came in, and he was our saving grace - it feels like everything went super fast after that but all in all we were in the ER for about 9 hours before we left. He listened to what was going on and said he had 2 concerns that it was either reflux or pyloric stenosis. He ordered a ultrasound and while we waited he tried to put an IV in Raiden's hands. He was so severely dehydrated though his veins were super tiny and they couldn't get one in and blew the veins in his hands. Then they sent us to the ultrasound. Every 4-5 minutes we had to stop the ultrasound to roll him on his side so he could vomit, twice we had to pick him up and clear his airways cause he was choking. It was clear that his condition worsened significantly that day and no one was telling me it was just spit up anymore. His pyloric sphincter was only suppose to be 6-7cm and his was 16... in other words the muscle that allows processed food from the stomach to the digestive system kept growing after birth and had grown so large it had sealed off the digestive system from the stomach so the only place for food to go once it was in the stomach and broken down was right back up and he was literally starving to death, surgery was required - I called my mom in the hallway sobbing and she & my sister rushed to the hospital to be there with us and my father in law came as well... I was inconsolable. So we went back to our room and there were 3 nurses waiting to try and get an IV in Raiden's arm. Seeing your little one at just 6 weeks being held down as they put a needle in him and tried to get it into a vein is one of the hardest things to watch and endure. I had to leave the room several times because I was in tears at watching him in so much pain and not understanding what was happening and my father in law and mother stayed in there with him.
Eventually they got the IV in and wrapped and we were told that we were going to be taking an ambulance ride to a town 2 hours away that had a pediatric surgeon waiting to perform surgery on our little baby boy. Mr. W went home to pack bags and Raiden and I waited for the ambulance. I rode in the ambulance with Raiden in his car seat strapped to a bed and Mr. W drove behind us up to the town 2 hours away. We got to the hospital at around 6AM, my little man did so good and slept the whole way. Once we got there he woke up horribly upset and it took a good 45 minutes to calm him down and get him back to sleep and at that point the husband and I were able to get about 2 hours of sleep before they came and woke us up for surgery. I carried my little boy to another room where they were doing the paperwork for the surgery and I had to hand him to a nurse as I signed papers to let them put him under and all that jazz. I was an emotional wreck. We kissed him and they took him off to surgery where they cut a one inch incision in his tummy to cut his pyloric sphincter. The surgery took about an hour before they brought him back to his room. Seeing him lay there moaning was heartbreaking, but I was so thankful that the surgery was successful.
Raiden in recovery
From there we waited a couple hours and then had to bottle feed him 40cc of pedialyte, couple more hours we did 40cc of pedialyte 20cc pumped breastmilk, couple more hours it was 30cc pedialyte 30cc pumped milk, couple hours later 20cc pedialyte 40cc pumped milk, and a couple hours later we were able to do 60cc of pumped breastmilk - he threw it up within 20 minutes, but the nurses reassured us that probably had to do with the thickness of breastmilk and so we attemped another 60cc of breastmilk a couple hours later and he successfully kept it down. Thru the next day every 2 hours he would get 60cc of breastmilk. Towards late morning we were so happy because he was starting to get very angry that he was only getting 60cc of pumped milk, he was expressing the want to nurse and he wanted a lot more then 60cc and we were given the go ahead to nurse and boy did he go to town! We were released that day.
The day we got to go home, 5/6/13
Going home outfit from the hospital!
You wouldn't have even known he had a life threatening issue 2 days later, he was eating up a storm and as alert and active. I can't tell you the relief I felt.
So that was the first part of May, then on May 14 my husband was offered his own store and we found out we would be moving to Oklahoma and we had to be there with a place to live confirmed by June 2. So we found a cute cottage home on Craigslist of all places and on June 1 we packed up our little family and made the 2 day drive to our new home in Oklahoma.
So as you can see a lot of changes in our household. I will go into further detail later. But that is enough for one sitting. I have a kiddo to attend to!
