Sick Baby

Our poor baby girl has actually been sick for the first time this week.  It started last weekend, while Cory, Rachel and Emily were here.  She was having a lot of diarrhea, and just not acting quite like herself, especially when it came to eating.  She wasn't eating much, and was just fussy with her bottles.  I started to wonder if it was just that so many different people were feeding her, and she just felt out of sorts or something.  That was until she threw up.  I was getting dinner ready Monday evening, and Rachel was feeding Kinley.  She was being fussy again, and not really taking much.  After that, Cory was holding her, and she threw up pretty much everything she had eaten.  That's when I knew my "mommy instincts" were right, and something was wrong with our little sweet pea.  Kinley has never so much as spit up anything, so for her to throw up a bunch was completely out of the ordinary.  I was able to feed her the rest of the bottle Rachel had started, and she kept it down.  Later, after everyone had left, I fed her for the last time before bed.  She seemed fine and I held her for a while until she was good and asleep.  As soon as I laid her down in the bassinet, she threw up everywhere again.  We knew something was definitely wrong, and we would have to call the doctor first thing in the morning.  I wasn't sure what we should do during the night.  I didn't want to starve her or anything.  When she woke up to eat, I went ahead and fed her.  John had off the next day, so he got up with me.  She had finished eating, and was just laying in my arms, and again threw up everything.  All over me, herself, the chair.  I felt so bad for her.  So, we got her cleaned up and changed again.

As soon as the doctor's office opened, I called.  Luckily, they were able to get us in at 8:45, so we didn't have to wait all day.  Dr. Flanagan checked her out, and said he thought she just had a stomach virus.  He told us to only give her Pedialyte for 8 hours, and then we could start trying to slowly introduce formula again, just a little at a time.  She was able to tolerate the Pedialyte well all day long.  She was definitely thirsty, because she sucked it down every time we offered it to her.  Around 10:00 that night, we started to give her some formula again.  I only gave her about an ounce, just a little bit at a time.  We also gave her Pedialyte.  We did this all through the night and into the next morning.  About 1:00, after I fed her, she threw up again.  We weren't sure if she just ate more than she could tolerate, or what, but I was a little worried that we were regressing.  She did fine the rest of the day, but then about 10:00 that night it happened again.  She had seemed really hungry, so I fed her a little more than 2 ounces, because she had been doing well.  Well, I ended up wearing those 2 ounces!  We decided to just stop feeding formula altogether at that point, and call the doctor again in the morning.  We just gave her Pedialyte throughout the night, and I called the nurse line first thing in the morning.  The nurse called me back and said she put a message through for our doctor, but to just give her Pedialyte until we heard back.  They called back again within an hour and said Dr. Flanagan wanted to see her again.

We took her back, thankful that they fit us into the schedule, even though it was getting close to lunch.  Dr. Flanagan really pushed around on her stomach and couldn't feel anything out of sorts.  He also said if she could keep the Pedialyte down, he really didn't think it could be any kind of obstruction or anything.  He said that he still thought it was a virus, but that it was irritating her digestive tract, and keeping her from tolerating the formula.  So, he gave us some samples of a formula without lactose, and wanted us to feed that to her throughout the weekend.  He told us to first start with 1/2 formula, 1/2 Pedialyte, and gradually ease into full feedings of formula.  He said that if she did ok throughout the weekend, on Monday or Tuesday, we could try her regular formula again.

We never had any problems again.  She was able to keep down the formula every time we fed her, and her diarrhea also cleared up.  By late Sunday night, we started to reintroduce her regular formula, and she was able to keep it down just fine.  Luckily she was able to stay hydrated enough with the Pedialyte, that we never had to take her to the hospital.  We would definitely like to stay healthy now!