what a week!

it has been quite the week. and here's quite the explanation so consider yourself warned!

the end of last week we noticed that anders was acting as if he didn't feel good. he was fussy and uncomfortable and it seemed like there was nothing we could do to make it better for him. we struggled through the weekend while i searched online for answers (which is both a blessing and a curse). he's always had a lot of gas (that's my boy!); the NICU nurses warned us to burp him often. at first i thought that his symptoms were just normal baby stuff like we didn't get him burped well enough or something. but then everything started getting worse and we could just tell that he was hurting somehow. it is so hard to see him hurting and to not know what to do about it. it made me feel so helpless.

we had a lactation appointment first thing monday morning and i was mentioning our struggles with the nurses there (they are so nice and helpful!) and they said to call his doctor and try to get him in as soon as possible because it sounded like reflux. so i called the doctor's and got him in that afternoon. the doctor said it sounded like reflux but she wanted to try prune juice first just to see if maybe he was constipated or something. i was pretty sure he wasn't since he fills every diaper nearly but by then i was so tired from all the running around that day that i just said ok. she said if he wasn't better in a couple days that we would put him on some meds to try and treat the reflux.

so we went home that night and tried the prune juice but i realized that she didn't say how much or how often. so i gave him a little but i was nervous about giving him too much because i didn't want him to get diarrhea and then be hurting from that! so we had another long and difficult night and i called the doctors office first thing in the morning. we got another appointment for later that morning at 11:30 or so i thought. we showed up at 11:30 and they said "oh, your appointment is for tomorrow at 11:30!" somewhere we got our wires crossed but anyway, they told me to wait and they could get me in at 1:00. so finally 1:00 rolled around and we went through the whole thing again (different doctor this time) and she too thought that it was reflux and prescribed him Zantac. she said it would take 3 - 4 days to kick in...

so today is day 4 and it seems like anders is doing better. he still struggles with it when he's eating and stuff but he doesn't seem to be that agitated any more. his poor little throat must be raw! his little eyes water when you burp him. he's starting to sleep a little more soundly now too and so we hope he's on the up and up. he may have to be on the medication for awhile... we'll just have to see. but for now it seems to be helping so mason and i are very happy. that was a rough couple days there though when anders was hardly sleeping! i saw a sign once that said, 'when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.' i'm changing it to, 'when baby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!'