Just when we thought we had figured things out Emmalee decided to have problems again.From 7 pm Tuesday night until 8:30 am on Wednesday Emmalee threw up everything she ate. This would normally b concerning, but most likely a stomach flu. When I called the office that's what the nurse said. I asked her how long they normally last and she said three to four days. I said it's been going on with her for the last 3-4 weeks and she's only 6 weeks old. She had also been constipated for 3 days over the weekend, which can be normal for babies her age, but I am a bit paranoid because of everything that has been going on. So Wednesday we went in to see the Doctor again, and he was even more concerned than I was (which is never a good sign when your pediatrician leaves the room to think). He said she was a bit dehydrated, most likely from all of the throwing up and because she was refusing to eat (if I threw everything up for 12 hours straight I probably wouldn't want to eat either). When he came back in the room after thinking he said it could be a number of things. It bothered him that rather than continuing to improve her symptoms were still getting worse. But at least she is gaining weight now, a bit slow but hey we'll take what we can get. He told me "don't take this personally, but you're going to have to stop breast feeding her and go exclusively to alimentum". Alimentum is similac's hypo-allergenic formula. She had been have chunks of mucos in her poop again which is a sign of an allergy of some sort. He also made an appointment at the hospital for her to have an ultrasound on Thursday to rule out pyloric stenosis (a condition where the pylorus thickens with scar tisue so that food can not pass from the stomach and can only be cured by surgery). Luckily when we went in for the ultrasound everything looked good there, she was just majorly bloated. A plus about being on the formula is that all of her infant acne/rash that was on her face, upper body, scalp and neck cleared up within 12 hours of being on it. And she seems much more content today than she did yesterday. The reason she's on formula is because the Doctor is worried about allergy, but also because she could have allergic colitis which is normally cleared up in infant by being on formula for about a week and then they can normally be put back on breast milk without recurrences of the problem. The formula soothes the colitis and gives it time to heal. If her syptoms don't improve after being on the formula for 10 days (he's going out of town for 10 days and doesn't want us reintroducing the breast milk until he's back) then she will have to go in to have a scope done of her upper GI. If that shows nothing, then we'll look at the lower GI. Until then she is on formula and two medications for acid reflux because just being on one wasn't controlling it.
On a more happy note: I love being a mom! Her smiles and coos (however rare or non-existant they may be on some days) are the best things in the world and make up for all of the screams and vomit. She really focuses on things with such intensity. Yesterday she was looking at the side of her swing for like 15 minutes and talking to it and smiling at it. My mother-in-law finally tied a baby doll to the side of the swing so that she would at least be talking to something other than the bar on her swing. I took a video of it with our camera so I'll have to post it later if I can figure out how. And though baths aren't her most favorite thing, she LOVES having her hair washed. Hopefully we can figure out what's making her so uncomfortable so she can just be colicky instead of colicky with pain. And so that she will start eating more.
