Mother's Day Getaway

I had a weekend getaway for Mother's Day. I woke up on Sunday in a luxurious hotel room and had a fabulous day of pampering...yeah, sure I did. In reality I woke up on pull out hospital chair with my little man sleeping in a hospital crib a few feet away. Not exactly how I pictured my Mother's Day, but Will was once again healthy, so I'll take it.

Thursday, Will's reflux starting getting bad...and I am using the word bad loosely...by Friday morning he had gone through a multitude of blankets, sleepers, onesies, socks, bibs & burp cloths (not to mention the several times I had to change my clothes). He was "spitting up" (ha! what an innocent sounding term) within a few minutes of every bottle and then again about an hour after each bottle. By the middle of the night it had progressed to being projectile. I was HATING reflux!

To give me a little break, Joe took Julianna to his parents for the morning while he helped his dad. not more than a few minutes after he left Will threw up again. It was so bad he needed a full blown bath and hair washing (oh yeah, totally got it in his hair). I gave him a bath, then started to get his next feeding ready. He gulped the whole bottle down as though he were starving (wouldn't you be if you had thrown up all the contents of your belly?). Not even 5 minutes after finishing the bottle the whole thing came back up all over him, me, the couch and the carpet. I cleaned us all up and called Dr M's office to see if there was anything I could do for his reflux because I COULD NOT take it anymore. Since he's so young still she wanted to see him.

So, at noon we saw Dr M. She was concerned that he hadn't gained any weight since the beginning of the week and that his spitting up had progressed so rapidly and so extremely. She wanted an ultrasound of his belly to rule out pyloric stenosis (thickening of the muscle between the stomach and small intestines). We went downstairs to radiology (I love that there is a lab, a pharmacy, and radiology all in the same building as the pediatrician's office). We had the ultrasound and went back up to Dr M's office. We then found out that the tech was unable to get a good enough look and we needed to go to AC's to get a better ultrasound. This was at 2pm and we had to be at AC's by 2:30.

We got the ultrasound at AC's at 3pm (because no doctor's office or hospital is ever on schedule) and Will had not eaten since 10:30, and even then he had thrown up the whole bottle, so he was pretty cranky. Just a few minutes later we were told that he indeed had pyloric stenosis. What was happening is that the muscle had thickened so much that nothing could pass from his stomach to his small intestines. When his stomach would contract to push the milk into the small intestines it couldn't go down, so it all came back up and with major force. P.S. is apparently pretty common in baby boys (between 1 & 2 months old) and sadly would go away on its own in a few weeks, but you obviously can't just not feed your baby until then. So Will was admitted and had surgery scheduled for the next morning.

Exactly 2 weeks from the day he was discharged from AC's, he was re-admitted for another surgery. Luckily this one was MUCH less severe. Saturday morning instead of walking in the March for Babies I watched all the walkers pass the hospital from the waiting room while Will was in surgery. It was a laproscopic surgery, so he has an incision in his belly button and 2 small ones on either side. He was such a trooper and only needed 1 dose of Tylenol for pain. Within a few hours he was eating and NOT throwing up! I was amazed at how quickly the surgery worked and how well he was recovering. The nurses were even surprised. I spent Saturday night with him at the hospital and let Joe go home to sleep (he spent Friday night there and was up ALL night with a crying hungry Will).

By Sunday morning he was doing so well, that later in the afternoon the surgeon said he could come home! So we got to come home and spend some of Mother's Day at home with just our family. It isn't the type of getaway I would ask for for Mother's Day, but it's one I won't forget.

We've now had a long talk with Mr Will and told him there are to be no more hospitalizations or surgeries. He's had more than enough in his first 6 weeks!