Claiborne's Hospital Stay

Well just when we thought we had turned the corner in Claiborne's weight gaining issues we got sucker punched!

Let's recap shall we....C had dropped to the 3rd percentile at her 3 month checkup so we started supplementing after every feeding and even added a feeding back in during the day. They wanted her to gain 5 ounces in 4 days, she ended up gaining 7 which was awesome! She was up to 9.8 pounds and we would go back in 3 weeks to see how everything was going.

Last Wednesday I snapped the below picture during the day, C wasn't keeping anything down and couldn't even nap because of it.

Thank goodness our pediatricians' office is open until 7:30 so I could take her in once Mack got home. They weighed her and she was up to 10 pounds 5 ounces ( yay baby C ) but no fever so they didn't think it was a virus. They told me to give her pedialyte for her bedtime bottle.

Poor girl couldn't even keep the pedialyte down so we called the doctor back and they told us to head to the hospital. We are lucky that we live close to a hospital that has a pediatric ER, we didn't have to wait at all. They started an IV, drew blood, and then took her for an x-ray. The x-ray showed a lot of air in her colon, that coupled with her not being able to keep anything down bought us am admittance to the peds floor.

We finally got up to a room around 3:30am so there was very little sleep for C and myself. She also was now not allowed to eat, which if you have ever been told not to feed your hungry sleep deprived child you know how brutal this is. All we could give her was a soothie dipped in sugar water.

The worst was when I would have to pump and set her in the crib. She would just scream until I finished and could hold her again.

She had an ultrasound the next day which was clear for what they were looking for but they inadvertently found that here kidneys are backing up urine every time she goes to the bathroom. This condition is called hydronephrosis and they do not think it is at all related to why she couldn't eat.

So after waiting for the specialists to come and see her and deciding the next course of action we bought ourselves another night in the hospital.

By now I have forgotten what day it is, what a shower looks like, and that I have another child whom I haven't seen in 2 days. Thankfully our parents stepped up and helped us out big time with Hudson.

Friday they brought in a swing for C to see if she would try and sleep a little since she was literally getting about 3 hours of sleep at night and 20 minute naps through out the day. They were even giving her tylenol at night to try and get her to relax.

Friday morning she had an upper GI, which is where you drink barium and then they look at her with the x-ray machine...it is pretty cool. What is not cool....seeing your child literally taped down and screaming because she's starving. When they gave her the 2 ounce bottle of barium she downed it in about 5 seconds, the techs were shocked.

The Upper GI showed that she has severe reflux :( That night we started trying to ease her back into eating by giving her an ounce of pedialyte every 2 hours or so. Poor girl was so angry when she would finish.

Mack enjoyed swooping in for snuggles after work.

Friday night they stopped her IV fluids and let her nurse on demand. She slept a little better but was still hungry and uncomfortable.

She was even happier Saturday morning when they said she didn't have to have a barium enema! They had been able to see what they needed to on an x-ray the night before.

We took a long nap on Saturday while waiting to be discharged. I practically ran out the doors when they said I could go get the car. I did get concerned though b/c in the time I went to move my car poor girl threw up all over herself. I was so scared they weren't going to let me take her home...

Thank goodness they decided to write her a prescription and send us on our way!

After getting C settled at home I promptly relaxed with a glass of wine, some JT on pandora, and a nice bath.

I really missed by big guy while I was with C but he was is in wonderful hands!

We went to our regular pediatrician Monday and Claiborne had lost 10% of her body weight since Thursday :( She is still not eating as much per feeding as she was but we are slowly working her up. She still throws up after some of her feedings and we head to the pediatric GI doctor tomorrow to come up with a plan of action. The pediatric urologist will be next week.

The most frustrating part of all of this is the fact that there isn't a "quick" fix, this is going to be an ongoing issue that we are going to have to manage as we go. I hate seeing my sweet baby girl uncomfortable and in pain and know that there is little to nothing I can do to help her other than holding her upright after she eats, having her sleep at an incline, and giving her her medicine.

Thanks for all of the prayers, we have felt them!