state of motion

Never more have I understood the genius behind Target's marketing campaign. "Life is a moving target." Amen!! Juuuust when we think we have things figured out and somewhat under control, it all changes. For the past 3 months Caroline has been a champion sleeper, aided by her Miracle Blanket swaddle. She would sleep 10-12 hours every night without a peep. Here lately though, she's gotten stronger and is starting to bust out of her swaddle. I had to get up several times last week around 1:30 to re-swaddle her, after she busted out of the swaddle and her flailing limbs woke her up. Thursday night I came home after dinner out with the girls in supper club, and Bill commented that he had to 'double bag her.' When you start tending to your child in the same manner you would tend to your groceries, you might have a problem. I went to check on her and the poor child was absolutely mummified in two swaddle blankets...I doubt she had any circulation to her toes. Daddy was all proud of his ingenuity, but I was a bit worried. I knew our swaddle days were nearing the end.


So we attempted to do without the swaddle blanket last night. I knew it was probably not a wise idea to make the switch cold turkey, but I was just hoping maybe she would do ok. BIG MISTAKE. I was awoken at 11:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30 by her fussing and flailing. Finally I caved and did a half-swaddle and got her to sleep till about 9 this morning. This is going to be a long sleep-deprived process...


But on the upside, at least her strength and coordination is improving! She's getting stronger and stronger each day, which I know is a good thing. She has transitioned from Butterbean to Jumping Bean to Wiggleworm. And she started rolling over! The first time was last Wednesday, and she's done it every day since then! 

I managed to capture the big event on film. As you can see, it's more of a prop-myself-up-by-one-arm and gravity takes over from there. But exciting nonetheless!

And as if that weren't enough to contend with, we're also making formula changes...again. Lately we've noticed several episodes of pink spit up, which worried me that she might be spitting up blood. Specifically a few days ago, I noted that the pink spit up occurred 3 hours after she ate, and 1 hour after she took her medicine. So presumably there should have been  NOTHING in her stomach for her to spit up. The GI doctor has finally started doing some tests, which is a good thing I guess. She had an upper GI series done on Thursday....not fun at all. Even though it was a painless test (drink some barium and take a bunch of x-rays), she screamed throughout the entire procedure and was very unhappy. The attending physician said she could see the reflux occuring, but otherwise her anatomy looked normal. I called the GI doctor twice to try to talk to him about the results of the test, and discuss what tests he wants to do next, but he never returned my phone calls. So much for our miracle doctor.  After her pink spit up episode, and after the doctor failed to return my phone calls, I made an executive decision to switch to the hospital-grade formula. SUPER expensive, and probably not covered by insurance, but it's the last resort in terms of formula. I am hoping and praying this helps her. One of the other moms on the 'babies with reflux' group on Babycenter told me her story, which sounded entirely too familiar: 


"Our pediatric GI didn't think our daughter had MSPI,  but she gave us a can of Elecare [hospital-grade formula] just to get us off her back.  On Elecare my daughter went from spitting up 24 times a day to 3-4 times a day.  She stopped screaming and arching her back entirely."


Could have been written by me. On an average day, Caroline spits up 25-30 times. On a bad day, probably 40-50 times. So with that in mind, yesterday I went ahead and started transitioning her to the Elecare formula. Switching formulas is always a nightmare...things usually get worse before they get better...so I'm going to give it a good 4 weeks to see if she improves. And if she does, I'm writing a big fate hate letter to all the doctors who have ignored me for the last 3 months. 


So between the formula switch and the de-swaddling, baby girl is probably going to be a nutcase for the next few weeks. But hopefully with all these changes we'll hit the bullseye and say goodbye to fussy baby and hello to perpetually-happy baby. Until she starts teething anyway...  :)