A Rough Start

This is where the real journey begins...

Having only seen Erik's face after the c-section, I had no idea what to think when they brought him to our hospital room. He was red, black and blue from head to toe. This couldn't be normal, I thought. The pediatrician on duty, who did the first evaluation on Erik had a grocery list of issues. He was bruised from the birth, he was jaundice, he has a sacral dimple, he was small, he has 4 birthmarks on his head, he has a hooded penis (don't ask - it ended up not being the case). But when I saw him for the first time, I didn't see one thing on her list. Call it looking through rose colored glasses, seeing him as God sees him, or seeing him for who he really was, I don't know, but he was PERFECT!

From day one Erik had personality. When it came to feeding, he would not open his mouth. He would pinch his lips together and clench his jaw. He was not going to eat for anything or anyone. All he really wanted, was to be left alone. He wanted to sleep. I can remember the nurses using a medicine cup to feed him only 5ml. Just trying to get food into him.

As Erik and I started the learning process of breastfeeding it was not easy, to say the least. We went to the lactation class, I spoke with nurses, I tried everything. Because his weight was an issue, it was big deal for him to gain weight, so to not get this breastfeeding thing was more than a frustration.

We will return to this subject soon, but to keep things in chronological order, I'm going to change directions...

When Erik was just over a month old, I was changing his diaper in the middle of the night and notice a hard lump in his groin area. I had Sean take a look at it and his first thought was a hernia, but neither of us were sure. First thing, the next morning, we were at the Dr's office. Sure enough, Erik had a hernia on the right side. We were sent to a specialist and was scheduled for surgery 3 weeks later. Well, Erik had some difficulty with the hernia and the surgery just couldn't wait the entire 3 weeks. So, the day Erik was 2 months old, he had surgery for his hernia.

When the surgeon came in to have one last chat before surgery, Sean asked if he would just peek at the left side to make sure it wasn't herniated as well. Within 5 mins, the surgeon was back in our room. Sure enough, Erik had double hernias... good grief poor little boy! But he made it through and kept on keepin on...

Now back to brestfeeding...

When Erik was 2 months old, we went to his 2 month check up. Our original peridatrician was out on medical leave. So, we saw a pediatrician who was covering his patient load. Her name is Dr. Bong. Sean took Erik, by himself, for this appointment. As soon as they were done Sean called to tell me he thinks we should switch pediatrictians. For the first time, she gave us a possible reason for so many of his odd issues he was having. He would gag and choke when he ate, his bottom had open blisters, his skin felt like sand paper and he wasn't able to latch with breadfeeding. She took one look at him and said, "I think he might have a milk protein issue". Of course I did my own research to learn as much as I could and sure enough, most of the symptoms listed were what Erik was dealing with. Now, we use a prescription formula. It's an amino acid based formula, so he can digest the protein found in milk.

Dr. Bong was also noticing his left eye was not focusing straight, so she sent us to an eye specialist when Erik was 4 months old. From the first appointment at the eye dr. we have been patching his eyes on a weekly schedule. More to share on that soon...

Dr. Bong also sent us to a neurologist when Erik was 5 months old. She was noticing that Erik did not have the proper head control for his age. Since we've seen the neurologist we've been taking him once a week to physical therapy.

This isn't even everything...

The next hurdle we had to jump was Erik's special circumcision. To our luck, our pediatricians husband happen to be a urologist. Basically, Erik needed to have a customized circumcision. When he was born they told us we would have to go to Denver, so it was a pleasant surprise that we could have it done here in the Springs. Once again, Erik did great. No issues with the general anethesia.

He is our little trooper!