Sorry it's been a while, but now we are through a wonderful Christmas season. We had been working on breastfeeding with Erik. Now I had been to the classes, read the books, researched blogs and tips, and talked to mom after mom about what to expect. After going to a class with Erik for a month, the nurse suggested I talk to my pediatrician because there may be something else going on, as to why things weren't coming together. So at our next appointment we talked to him and he suggested seeing a a specialist to see if his mouth was perhaps shaped weird. We were on the road to see a specialist, when we had a bit of a disruption...
It was one of those midnight diaper changes, and I was cleaning Erik up, when I felt a hard lump just below his tummy. I had Sean come take a look and the first thing he said was I think he has a hernia! We called our ped first thing the next morning. We got Erik in right away and sure enough, he had a hernia. Part of Erik's issue we thought, was he would grunt and push so hard when he would have bowel movements he must have pushed it down. We had an appointment with the specialist within a few days and the surgeon confirmed it was a hernia, but he couldn't get us in for another 3 weeks for surgery. He gave us the warning signs of when to take him to the ER and what to do in the mean time. Well, in the mean time we were still working on breastfeeding/formula feeding.
Nothing seemed to work or help with his symptoms when he ate. He would choke and gag, get congested, his skin felt like sandpaper, his bottom had open sores, and he wasn't gaining weight fast enough. At Erik's 6 week check up our original ped was out on leave for a medical issue, so they reassigned us to a different Doc. I wasn't able to go so Sean took him. Sean called me after the appointment and said we had to switch doctors. She had answers and she didn't settle for just letting him get through it. She gave us a special formula. Within a week his symptoms were disipating. What an answer to prayer! I dealt with giving up my desire to breastfeed and it was the first major lesson in reminding myself, "It's not about me" (this topic could be an entire blog of its own).
We did take Erik to the ER for his hernia while we waited for his surgery date, which in turn allowed us to move the surgery date up (because the doc realized it needed to happen sooner than later). We were so glad to get this done. However, it wasn't so simple. When the surgeon came in right before going in to the OR, Sean asked if he would just peak at the right side to make sure it wasn't herniated too. Within 5 minutes, he comes back and says, yep it's herniated too. OF COURSE!
I know the title says "The first big hurdle" indicating only one, but they happened simultaneously. Maybe they weren't the hurdle...
