Well, I don't know that he technically qualifies as the newest FoLC anymore, but he may still be the smallest...

At 15 weeks, he's back under 8lbs. The home health nurse came yesterday and he'd lost 6oz since last week. We came in this morning to the doc's office [I'm still here waiting for him to pee - 3 hours after our appointment was supposed to start - an hour after they put the pee bag on him]. We have two pediatric nurse practitioners and two docs in the office. We usually see one of the PNPs. The one we usually see [with regards to this issue] wasn't in yesterday when they got the results from the home nurse visit, but the other one and one of the doc's decided that we best come in today and put him in the hospital.

When we got here we saw the PNP we have been seeing about C and she and the other doc decided to hold off on the hospital if at all possible. He looks good, he's not dehydrated, he's eating but spitting up a lot. Yesterday he ate 3oz out of a bottle during the home visit and then spit up before we reweighed him. He should have gained 3oz [a liquid ounce of breast milk weighs one ounce too], but he only gained between 2-2.5 so he spit up over .5oz.

We're going to put him on another medicine to help with the spitting up [hopefully - he's already on Zantac] and see if that helps. We're also going to be supplementing every feeding again - we did that for about a month earlier. So nurse, pump, bottle feed [with higher caloric breast milk - add a bit of special formula to it].

Anyway - if all the stuff doesn't work this week or if the heel stick blood work or pee work doesn't come back well, he could still end up in the hospital - very likely next week if he doesn't gain enough. So please - if you pray, pray for him/us.

He just peed! So I think I'm out of here [wifi in the doc's office... nice!]!

Will update later. Thanks.
Carol

Aw, poor little guy! I'm sure he'll be fine. I'll certainly keep him in my thoughts, Carol. Give the little man a snuggle from me.

I'll be praying, Carol.

Have they checked for a tracheo-esophageal fistula? I guess they probably have but it fits the symptoms and is easily fixed.

Anyway, you have my prayers, Carol. Here's hoping they find out what the problem is quickly.

Nan

Nan - that doesn't sound familiar... With Maggie we just called it reflux and she was eventually fine - but she wasn't a month early and still continued to gain - slowly but she always went up [though we weren't checking her every week either though].

I'm back at the doc's office waiting on the test results - someone should talk to us soon... I'll ask them about it.

Thanks!
Carol

Will definitely pray, Carol! Please keep us posted on how he's doing.

Caroline

Sorry to hear about little Christopher's problems, Carol. Hopefully though, since your daughter Maggie may have been suffering from something slightly similar but turned out fine anyway, Christopher will turn out fine, too.

Ann

You have my good wishes as well, Carol. Give little Christopher a hug from me, as well.

Mona

Poor little guy. You're all in my thoughts and prayers.

No hospital this week. Nan - I asked her about that and she thought about it for a minute and said she didn't think so - that'd she'd expect breathing problems with that too which we haven't noticed.

His tests came back much better than they expected so that's good. We're giving him another medicine to - hopefully - help stop the spitting up. We're also going to do almost every feeding as pump, fortify the milk with a special formula to pump up the calories, then nurse some when he's done with that. *sigh* Don't they know I have NaNoing to do *g*?

Seriously - they said it could be a number of things - they're going to test my milk to make sure it's as high in calories as it's supposed to be [4th nursed baby in fairly rapid succession, said it's not unheard of]. They said it could also be that he has an exceptionally high metabolism [you know, one of those guys who can eat anything they want and never gain an ounce] or that he's just not absorbing everything right [but again - his blood work looks good].

If he hasn't gained AT LEAST 4oz by Friday he'll be in the hospital. They'd prefer at least 5-6. He'd not dehydrated or have any other obvious signs of anything except that he's not gaining weight.

Just for a frame of reference: normally I plan 2-3 hours for a doc appointment. That includes everything from shoes and hair for my older kids to accounting for them running behind and then the trip home - today took close to 8. No telling how long next week might take even if he doesn't end up hospitalized....

Anyway - I'm ready for some serious peace and quiet. DH ended up going with us [I didn't know he was going to try] and that was a good thing because mid appointment, we got a call that DD6 was throwing up at school so he went to get her and then we ate lunch [after he peed after an hour and a half] and then waited another hour [almost] in the waiting room - they'd said come back in an hour for the test results - we came back in 1:15 or so and it still took almost another hour for them to get the results.

Somehow, I doubt I'm going to get any NaNoing done tonight as much as I'd love to do nothing but. The laundry and playroom cleaning that had been on today's schedule hasn't been touched.

But the pizza was good .
Carol

I'll be praying for you guys and hoping for the best.

JD

My prayers are with you.

Did they consider he just might have a problem with your breast milk. Granted this was quite a while back but I had a friend whose baby kept throwing up breast milk. They tried the baby on a couple of different formulas before they found one that the kid tolerated. Then the baby gained weight fine.

Another reason for throwing up is a hernia. I just saw some show on TV where this 3 year old kept throwing up. They found an extreme case with him where there was a tear in the diaphragm and his stomach and part of his small intestines had slipped up into his chest cavity. The only reason the boy was diagnosed is his mother insisted on an x-ray. Anyway they said that this type of hernia is a birth defect and were surprise it hadn't been detected before. That usually it is just a small amount of the stomach that slips through the whole but that throwing up is a common symptom. Also that it is very repairable with surgery.

As I said my prayers are with you. I also know that it is very frustrating not to know what is going on with your baby. Don't let the doctors put you off - push to get the answers.

Update:

The new medicine seems to be helping a lot. Today's he's had 3 breast milk bottles with the new medicine - very little spit up. He's had two formula bottles without the new medicine at the same time and he's spit up quite a bit. It could be either one of those things - we didn't intentionally pair them up that way - it just happened. We'll try mixing it up too.

They are testing my milk later this week when I take him to the doc with a sample. He does better with the Gentlease formula than the regular stuff, but still not great. He does best with breast milk in general. I've tried cutting out virtually all dairy [it wasn't intentional - we were just really low on milk that week so I left it for the kids...] and it didn't help either.

I also bought new bottles tonight. Yeah, we had some from other kiddos but since we used them last, we've moved and loaned them out. They were all returned but... No clue where they are. We've always had real good luck with the Dropins as far as little air in the bottle goes so maybe if there's less air... He burps well already though...

Okay - lots of work to get done today and tomorrow so I can NaNo inbetween all this this week .

Thanks all!
Carol