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For those who are not aware, I have had a VERY challenging baby for the past 8 months. If you want to read about it, I have changed the font color......if not, you can just skip over the details to what is going on in the rest of my life.
He has tested our patience, so much so that it has been torturous at times. He is a hard one to explain. I guess I can start from day one since that is when it started.
I knew he was going to be different....a challenge......after the first night in the hospital. He screamed most of the night. I thought it was possibly because my milk wasn't in & he was hungry so we tried to do a little supplementing. But the next night was the same. And the night we went home was even worse. Holding him did no good. Nothing could make him stop crying. He would eventually just give out & fall asleep.....only to wake an hour later & do the same thing all over again.
The days weren't any better but at least I wasn't trying to get sleep. I love Josh but he gets frustrated easily when he is trying to sleep & is having to console a crying baby so I didn't even ask for his help. His job was to tend to the other two. Thankfully God gave me a supernatural helping of patience for Sawyer because I might have hurt him if I had to rely on my own strength & patience.
From very early on we were trying different formulas & when that didn't work, the pedi put him on reflux meds, thinking that was the reason for all the crying. Many tried to encourage me & tell me it was colic & that it would all end soon enough. From everything I read "colic" starts somewhere around 6 weeks & ends somewhere around 6 months. Well, he has blew this out of the water.....it started on day 1 & was still going strong months later. Even in doing all of the research, I'm still not sure what colic is anyway except for a diagnosis for unexplained fussiness.
He didn't really want to take a paci but I knew I would lose my mind if I didn't have some way to quiet his screams. It was all a futile effort because it never did console him. If my other kids were screaming I could put the paci in & it would somehow help pacify them most of the time. This was never the case with Sawyer. It was more a device for me to hold in his mouth to somewhat muffle his screaming.
Basically if he was awake, he was screaming.
I was learning how to cope, but I'm not sure I was doing much more than that. It seemed that life as we had known it simply had to shut down. I had been doing some preschool stuff with Samara that I just couldn't find time for anymore. I was doing a good job at keeping up with the housework & laundry but couldn't even find the time to do that anymore. Anything I was able to do I had to figure out how to do while holding a baby.
It was really getting to me......I was not only tired of hearing the screaming & constantly having to carry a baby around as well as being completely exhausted from lack of sleep, but more than anything, the guilt of neglecting my other children was OVERWHELMING! I didn't play with them or read to them as much as I used to & it just felt wrong!
At his 6 month check-up I explained to the doctor that something had to be done. He was NEVER content, he would scream the minute I put him down, he wasn't even happy playing on the floor next to me, he wasn't sleeping, etc. Things just weren't right. He told me to add another dose of the Prevacid so that he was taking it in the morning & the evening. I didn't feel like this was the answer but I was willing to give anything a try. He also recommended that I take him to see a GI doctor.
So we took him to the GI doctor. This doctor said it sounded like he had a milk protein allergy & changed him to a ridiculously expensive formula called Elecare. Well, his reflux was twice as bad on this formula. The doctor told me to give it a full 2 weeks before deciding whether or not it was working before I gave up on it. I did that & things never got better. I switched him back to his old formula & he started sleeping much better. I was warned by a friend that the GI doctor I had taken him to originally was not a good choice & she gave me the name of a new one. So I made an appt with the new doc.
About 5 days ago Sawyer started crawling & life has been turned upside down!!!!! This is a new child! For the first time EVER I have been able to put him down & walk away without him crying. He is content for long periods of time just playing on the ground, exploring. Before this, he MIGHT give me 10, occasionally 15 minutes of peace.
If someone had told me this, I would NOT have believed them. (well, actually someone did & I did not believe her) I had heard so many times that "things will get better, just hang in there"......but nothing ever did. So I was not about to get my hopes up.
But people, this is a changed child. The difference is BEYOND amazing! I am SOOOO grateful to be able to actually play with the other kids & clean the house & do the laundry, etc. again. MAYBE, just maybe we can work on some sort of schedule now!!!!!
Because I already had the appt scheduled (& we were only on day 3 of Happy Sawyer), I decided to go ahead & take him to the new GI. I am glad that I did as I felt that he was MUCH more thorough & seemed to want to know everything about everything to make his diagnosis. Which, was......drum roll please......a high needs child. Let me just tell you that that diagnosis was very possibly my worst fear. There is no "fix" for a high needs child & it is something we will deal with, in one way or another, for the rest of his life. This was, however, what I felt like might be the issue. Thankfully high needs children are much happier when they become mobile! Hallelujah for crawling! & I know God will equip us (just as he did this time) with the tools to work through any future frustrations.
While dealing with all of this, I found out that we are pregnant with our fourth child. This was quite the surprise & I had a difficult time coming to terms with it......especially in light of the challenge #3 was bringing to our family.
BUT, I am learning to be thankful for God gifting our family with another sweet child. I know things will be absolutely chaotic for the next several years but my prayer is that my children will have such a close bond because they are so close in age.
One of my biggest fears about being pregnant again was my "high-risk pregnancy" & being put on bed-rest yet for the 4th time. This just was not an option for me considering I have 3 very small children. I did not want Mom to have to give up her life, yet again, for months while I lay in bed. When I went in for my first appt, I voiced my concern & we figured out what we thought would be a great solution. From 26 weeks on we would do an FFN test. If the test came back negative we wouldn't worry about my contractions & would just proceed as if it were a normal pregnancy. Brilliant!
UNFORTUNATELY that didn't solve my concern for my mother having to put her life on hold to help me.
When I went in for my first appt, the midwife said that she felt like I was measuring bigger than I should be so she sent me for a sono.....probably just to make sure I wasn't having twins. Everything went great, the baby looked wonderful, I was measuring a week ahead of what we had originally thought UNTIL the end of the sono when the sonographer said, "& it looks like you have placenta previa. I will need to called the office & see what their protocol is for previa." Um, OK, have no idea what that means. Well, protocol is pelvic rest! She explained that pelvic rest means no sex & no lifting over 15 lbs (as I am standing there holding 19lb Sawyer). Josh & I kinda ignored the part about me not picking up/holding Sawyer that weekend.
BUT, come Monday, Mom was at the house. She told me I needed to call the office & explain my situation & ask how strict the rest is. Ya, uh, the answer stunk. She explained that it can be very serious & the restrictions are very strict. Lovely, just lovely. That means that Mom is stuck watching Sawyer every single day.
It is very likely that when I return for my sono in a month the placenta will have migrated & they will lift the restrictions, but until then I am not allowed to lift anything over 15lbs. BOOO!!!!
Please be praying that this will correct itself quickly & that the rest of the pregnancy will be uneventful so that Mom can be relinquished of her duties.
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