It's been a long time since I've written. Life has been a whirlwind, and we have been dealing with some stuff. I wanted to wait to write until there was some resolution to our situation. Now, I'm not sure when that will come. :)
Our sweet Ansley could use some prayers. So could her momma.
We went to the beach for Spring Break. It was supposed to be a fun girls' trip with the babies, and it was fun... in some parts... However, I spent several days sidelined with the stomach virus from hell. Seriously. I could give you details, but they would make you cry. A side effect of my sickness was dehydration which seriously impacted my milk supply. My sweet baby got very hungry, so I supplemented with basic enfamil formula. Bad idea.
Immediately, she had a distressed cry and labored breathing. She then went pale, turned drowsy, and passed out. At that point, I called the doctor. While leaving a message, Mom and Lindsay called me in to look at her chest which was covered in red splotches. At that point we put her in her carseat and took her to the ER. By the time we got there, the Vanderbilt nurse had called me back, and upon hearing that Ansley now had facial swelling and hives, she recommend us to go to the ER. Good thing we were in the parking lot. She was experiencing anaphalaxis.
Once admitted, sweet Ansley finally vomitted it out of her system (all over me. i wore a hospital gown that revealed my backside. I was a dancing Harry.) The staff treated her with antihistamines and steroids, kept her for observation, and then we returned home. (While at the hospital, I was in and out of the bathroom getting sick as well, but this story is about Ansley, not me.)
From that point, I eliminated dairy--the seemingly obvious culprit--from my diet, and continued to work on reestablishing my milk supply. The day after we got home, I took my baby to her doctor, and they prescribed us an epi pen. We have four. One in her diaper bag, one at school, one in my purse, and one in our medicine cabinet.
My frozen supply now obsolete (since I had been consuming dairy while making it), I have been fighting to make milk. I still need to supplement one bottle a day. Our next try was isomil soy formula which Addison was on after I stopped nursing her at 6 months. For a few days, we thought it was going well, and then she broke out into hives. Now, my diet is dairy and soy free.
Our next try was Alimentum. She seemed to do ok, but began screaming at night, and we thought Alimentum was the culprit. We found out that she had an ear infection, so we thought that maybe that was it. Then she refused Alimentum.
Next we tried Nutramigen. Immediate, gagging, projectile vomit. BLESS HER.
The last couple of days we have tried Elecare--the last stop amino acid formula. She threw it up the first time, took an hour and a half to take the diluted second bottle while she was screaming the whole time, and has sleep eaten 2 others. Now, she has a horrible cough, a runny nose, and eczema. If she were allergic to this, it would be like being allergic to her own body. We took her to the doctor today, and this could be seasonal allergies, or another ingestion. We are back to square one.
I am so stressed out and so worried, yet Patrick and I are fighting to be thankful for these circumstances, to find joy in this season. We have a precious happy little girl who we couldn't love more, and we just want to help her get nutrition... We pray that the Lord strengthens her and us through all of this, that he is glorified. We pray that she can grow out of whatever is ailing her.
Please pray for her and for us as well.
