Silent Reflux: The Culprit Identified

And it was working on killing us both: me by taking my sanity and Zoë with her lack of sleep.

My momma instinct was screaming inside of me: "Something is wrong! This cannot just be pure colic. Your sweet baby is screaming in pain. SOMETHING IS WRONG!!"

But I thought I couldn't be right. The pedicatrician assured us it was just colic and would eventually go away. And it would have. But I don't think little Zo Zo hitting the three month mark would have done the trick. And for the record: I love our pediatrician. She is awesome. But she is also human and doesn't know everything. She can make mistakes too. Not saying I'm not guessing but the proof is in the pudding. And let me tell you, it's good!

Okay, so anyway...

My momma instinct burned inside of me. It questioned. It wrestled with itself. It grew weary. It lost it's sanity. And yet I still just couldn't put it out of my mind: something was most definitely making my sweet girl severly uncomfortable. And it was growing worse by the day. Between heart-wrenching, pain filled (and it was seen in her body language too) screams and the 45 minute intruder, which was also stealing her sleep, my baby was not sleeping the way they say babies do. I could count on one hand...no, okay I'll just tell you - she was getting less than 3 hours of sleep during the day. Even with being comforted in the Moby. Thankfully, she was sleeping at night. But then I guess I would too if I didn't sleep all day and I was supposed to be getting minimum of about 6 hours of daytime sleep plus whatever I got at night.

After the initial appointment, around 3 weeks of age, one of my girlfriends suggested I go ahead and ask for the medicine. I should have listened but between not trusting my own instinct and Ben agreeing with our ped, I didn't. I continued on listening to screams on a daily basis. I bought the Moby so I could have my two hands. And my instinct continued to pound on the cell I had locked it in.

It pounded so hard I finally decided to look harder into reflux signs. I had searched before but everything I had found gave very little information. My sister had told me about a blog, KellyMom, that had a lot of information on breastfeeding but is full of other resources as well. So I searched. And read different posts. And it talked about silent reflux. And listed symptoms of reflux. And I was pointing out to myself how Zoë has a majority of them.

Not long after reading the blog, one of my girlfriends could hear Zoë crying over the phone. I had never said a word to her about how she seemingly screamed in pain. She just knew Zoë had colic. The second she heard Zoë, she was asking me questions I had been continually asking myself. Not only that but she stated how it sounded like she was in pain.

So finally, my momma instinct called the pediatrician. And I asked for reflux medicince. The ped had told us originally if we wanted she would prescribe a medicine for reflux if we decided we wanted to try it, even though she was almost positive it was just colic. Well, I wanted to try it.

And here we are on day 5 of the medicine. Day 1: everything seemed to be the same as before. However, I wasn't so sure of the best way to give her the medicine and I'm not so sure she really got a full dose.

Day 2: started like most days but by the end of the day my heart was leaping for joy. A day of only the normal fussy reasons for a baby?! REALLY!?!? I kept my hope down though. "What if it wasn't the medicine and God just granted you one really good day." So my hope waited in the back corner of my heart.

Day 3: I found an extremely happy baby waiting to start her day. And it continued. All day. She was even going down for "night night" without a hitch. I was still knocking on wood but my heart was finding more room to think this might be our new reality.

Day 4 & 5: my heart has been singing the Hallelujah chorus ever since we woke up yesterday. Ben has noticed the huge difference. My mom noticed a huge difference (she also noted if you want to keep Zoë occupied and happy turn on a ceiling fan :))

My happy baby has returned! She has normal awake periods and is her happy, contented self (the way she innately was in utero). She talks a majority of her awake hours. And, except for that blasted 45 minute intruder, she takes her naps during the day. It makes me sad I waited so long, but at least it's fixed now. Thank you, Lord, for medicine to help with these problems. And thank you for allowing my instinct to keep pushing.

Now this momma can enjoy her bundle of joy so much more and not wonder what is stealing that bundle's joy!