Remembering Reflux ~ Part 2

As promised, I'm back to write more about Ben's infant reflux. I find that I keep thinking, "please little bean in my belly, don't have vicious infant reflux!" Then I remember that I am well-prepared this go-round! I know exactly what to do, how to handle it, and how to (not) let it be the center of thought for me all day long! So we come home from the hospital. I think the first couple days were just peachy. I don't really remember those first couple days much... so little sleep for a few days, so many visitors, and such continued excitement about being home with our little Benjamin. I know that I do have a couple pics of Ben not crying while lying down. He was probably just as exhausted. Feedings were going pretty well; they took forever, but the latched worked and it didn't take too long for both of us to get used to it. I am not bashful about breastfeeding in public. I try to cover up enough that others won't be uncomfortable, but with the boobs covered, I have no problem feeding in front of people. I remember the first time I knew something was 'off.' My parents, brother, and sister-in-law were over to visit when Benjamin was around 1 week old. It came time to feed him and this is what happened: After a couple minutes of eating (we were doing about 40 minute feedings at this time, about 20 each side) he started crying. But not his sad baby cry... it was like a mad baby cry... but I re-latched because I knew he was hungry. Drink, drink, pull-off, scream, latch, drink, pull-off, repeat. He was getting all stiff and tense, and I think quite naturally, I thought i must have been doing something wrong here. Or the boobs weren't working. Or he had gas. (That's what everyone says is the problem for every newborn, it seems.) He was fighting it so much that I couldn't comfortably feed him in front of my brother! And this is just a little guy, but I couldn't keep it all covered up. I tried and struggled for like 15 minutes and I ended up in tears (mommy-hormone-driven tears) and had to forgo the feeding for 30 minutes to regain composure while someone else gladly held a mad baby. I just clearly remember thinking, this is not normal. And then it happened that same way, again and again. Not every feeding for some reason, but often enough that I started to ask some questions. He checked out healthy with the pediatrician at his one-week check-up. I met with the Lactation Consultant on staff at the pediatrician's office and she was the most helpful and understanding LC I have met to date. (I am so happy she is still there, and will hopefully still be there when I have this little one.) She said it looked like everything was going well, checked his diapers, told me my milk was fine, and left me feeling very optimistic. Of course, when we were in the office, Ben was not screaming when he latched on. That was a perfectly normal feeding. But really, from there I think it just kind of went downhill. Ben screamed a lot. But we noticed that when he was held upright, he was much more comfortable than when laying down. He didn't sleep all that well, but we didn't really expect that of a newborn. I don't know the exact time-line, but I know somewhere around two weeks old, Erik had gone back to work and I called him a couple days in a row in tears. I just didn't know what to do for Benjamin. All day I tried... bounce him, walk round, go outside, car ride, hum, the 5 S's (which I despise because everyone told me over and over to use them and I really started to think there was something wrong with me for not getting the 5 Ss to work,) do bicycles, give Mylicon, sing and talk to him, feed him on demand, feed him on a schedule, let him cry a little, bounce him, burp him, cut foods out of my diet, blah blah blah... I tried everything and I was a mess. Of course the first day I call Erik in tears he came home from work and Benjamin hardly cried that night. But the next day, I think Erik came home a little early even, and he spent the next three straight hours with me trying to get this child to stop crying. And he had already been crying all day. Newborns need a lot of sleep and Ben couldn't get much because he was crying the majority of the day. When all else fails, go in the car and drive around right? So we load up to go get ice cream, and Ben cried the whole ride. As I mentioned before, it wasn't just crying... it was angry, mad, screaming. I remembered that just 3 months earlier my brother and sister-in-law had some days of crying with their boy, Jackson, so I took a video or Ben screaming and sent it to my brother and said "is this what J did when he was crying all the time?" and Brother said "yeah, kind of like that." Then I asked "for like hours without stopping?" and Brother said, "No. Not for that long." And that's when I decided to do some research. I just KNEW something was not right. More later... I have a video of him crying and I'll post it so you can see what I am talking about.