Monumental

We are about to embark on a monumental moment...Tonight, for the FIRST TIME EVER since Zachary's arrival, we are going to attempt to sleep through the night and eliminate the middle of the night feeding!!! This is HUGE! I mean, we have been SO exhausted and seriously felt like this may just be how it is the REST of our lives. But alas, today, finally, Z kept in enough of his food that we feel comfortable eliminating that feeding.

Here's a quick update on what this last week has been like for us...vomiting, vomiting, and more vomiting. Yes, we have been dealing with vomiting for the last 5 months or so, but not at every feeding, and certainly not in the middle of the night, as we had the luxury of dealing with almost every night this last week. I called the GI doctor twice because I felt pretty certain that this new formula-neocate-was causing all this vomiting, since it started when we started the formula. I mean, I'm no rocket scientist, or doctor, but really, it doesn't take either of those to put two and two together. Anyway, the doctor told us to stick with it for 3-4 weeks and that it was most likely not the formula because apparently neocate is the LEAST likely to make any baby vomit. Well doctor, Zachary is not just any baby. But I listened to her and we stuck with it for the remainder of the week, only to see no change in the amount of vomiting, other than it possibly getting worse. On Friday I called again and left a message, and while I was waiting for a call back, I took Zachary to the pediatrician for a weight check. Sure enough, he had lost weight. Granted it was only .5 oz, he still lost weight, which has NEVER happened. He has been a slow gainer at times, but always gained, even with the vomiting that was happening on a regular basis. SO, the fact that he lost .5oz made me really mad and gave me the information I needed to say we were done with neocate (the supposed magical formula). The nurse called me back on Friday afternoon (only after I called again and left a message informing them of his weight loss) and explained that I should STILL stay with it and that maybe we should try a continuous drip, meaning Z would be hooked up to that $&^# pump 24 hours a day. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? NO!!! Tyler and I refuse to do that, and I don't believe it would have made any difference since it didn't matter if we ran his feed for 45 minutes or 90 minutes (which yes we did try), he still vomited.

After that conversation, we said we would still stick with the neocate, until the next day was just so HORRIBLE that we said no more. We decided to go back to the Similac Sensitive because we didn't think we had anything to lose. We mixed it at a lower calorie concentration then what we were doing before bc I had a feeling that the concentration could have been upsetting his stomach, and whatta ya know, he has only throw up twice today, and they were small amounts compared to what he was doing. HOOORAAAYY!! Although I am trying not to get too excited because there is no guarantee that this will keep, as we have had days like this before. But I am hopeful that it will work.

And now we are going to change GI doctors, and we are looking for a naturopath since we kind of feel like traditional doctors have not done a whole lot for Zachary. But this is how we came to tonight, having successfully gotten in the amount that he needs and about to venture into this thing called a full nights sleep that we've heard of from many different people, but never experienced once we became parents. We are a little worried about the calories, but will have a better idea of how this is going when we see the cardiologist Wednesday.

I have had a few different conversations with people about healing this last week, and had people praying specifically for healing. I believe God IS going to heal Zachary, just in His timing. If you are a believer, your prayers are appreciated. Happy sleeping everyone! (I guess this update wasn't as quick as I thought it was going to be. Oops.)