Jesus Take The Wheel

As I sit and listen to the older 2 arguing I feel a sense of calm, probably because my brain is telling me “at least Sophia isn’t screaming”- she is napping, which will only last about 12 minutes before she refluxes again and the screaming ensues.

I had an idea of how things were “supposed to” work out. With PJ still unemployed when Sophia was born he was going to help me with Phillip & Hannah while I tended to Sophia and established a good breastfeeding routine. We were going to have a great time with a newborn, 2 & 5yr old. Even though financially we were a mess, we were going to enjoy our perfect little family. Then reality set in when we had a milk & soy allergy baby who 1. requires a specialty formula that cost 50 some dollars a can and 2. has severe reflux. We kept (and continue) hearing she’ll outgrow it by 3 months- its colic….she’ll outgrow it by 6 months- its reflux…well sometimes it takes until a child is 8-12months for the severe reflux to go away, but it will get better………..

Don’t get me wrong I thank God every day for my little girl, but, there are days when her medicines aren’t working that I feel completely helpless. I have, on numerous occasions, thrown my hands up in the air and cried because there just wasn’t anything else I could do! Today is one of those days; she has outgrown the dosing on her meds and is having a terrible acidic spit up day where she screams no matter what you do! Recently I have read 2 different books about allergies & reflux to try to make some sense out of a senseless situation. Seems that we are doing everything we can, we have to wait until her little tummy adjusts and matures. But when I look into her painful eyes, I feel like there MUST be something else I could or should be doing. The doctors get to see her miserable for 30 minutes tops; I am with her the other 23 hours 30minutes. They don’t see the big tears when she suddenly awakes, acid coming out her nose and mouth accompanied by terrifying screeching. Often my heart feels like it was torn out and shredded.

We do have our good days, sometimes even 5 in a row! Which then it makes me hopeful that she is outgrowing the terrible GERD. I feel responsible for this recent acid breakthrough. On Friday she started showing signs that her medicine wasn’t working properly anymore and needed to be adjusted to her new weight…but…I figured it was something else and thought it could wait the weekend. Slowly over the weekend she got worse until today she’s miserable, and so am I. I have to update the GI doctor on her new weight so he can adjust her medicine…but first I have to find out how much she weighs…and I can’t do that without a car. Sigh.

Right on cue, Sophia is waking up. Hopefully the extra dose I gave her helped.

*It’s like that song, “Jesus take the wheel” I’m throwing my hands in the air and hoping, praying and crossing my fingers that she starts to outgrow this and finds some relief. *