Our Million Dollar Baby

Nile has been one costly little guy. Part of the reason that I think I haven't been that great about taking pictures is it has been a crazy 10 months with this guy. About three weeks after he was born he started spitting up like crazy. At first we thought he was just going to be one to spit up a lot. Then it progressed and it was A LOT! So we took him to the doctors and they told us he had acid reflux and gave us a prescription for Prevacid. Well $70 later and three days later he wasn't doing any better. After he would eat he would literally throw up. When we fed him we had to cover ourselves with towels. You should have seen my laundry pile! There was no way I could keep up it was that bad.
I was under so much stress trying to figure out what was wrong with our little guy. We could not figure it out. I had tried different formulas, etc. I was emotionally drained and at my breaking point. I went to the temple looking for some kind of peace. I had an experience previously where I was dealing with something that was extremely stressful and had gone to the temple and felt immediate peace so I was searching for that same thing. Well I never go it. I was so disappointed because I was so exhausted from being so stressed out about it all and not knowing what was wrong with my little baby. On my way home I was praying and expressing my frustration to my Heavenly Father that I had not received the peace that I was looking for. Right at that moment the words came to my mind, "I'm giving you this feeling so that you know that something is wrong" At that moment in time I thought great, thanks.
Well I took Nile to the Dr again and the Dr suggested that I take him to Primary Children's Hospital so that he could have an upper GI done. So Brad and I made an appointment and took him in. Well we found out the problem, he had Pyloric Stenosis. There is a muscle at the bottom of your stomach that allows food to transfer from your stomach to your small intestines. Well that muscle was enlarged so food couldn't get through from his stomach. His food would sit in his stomach and it couldn't go anywhere so it would just come up...that's why he was throwing up everything. They told us that he needed to have surgery that day and that we needed to take him up to the Primary Children's in Salt Lake for that surgery and that we needed to go right
away because he was dehydrated and they needed to put him on an iv and give him so fluids. Honestly what could have been a stressful sitiation, I was at total peace. It was just such a relief to know what the problem was and to know that we were going to fix it. We took him right up to the hospital to the ER and they gave him some fluids. We couldn't believe how much better he looked. My parents met us up there and Brad and my Dad gave Nile a blessing. He went into surgery that night and came out great. It was so sad to see my precious little baby be hooked to IVs and have to have surgery but what a blessing to be able to fix the problem. He had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days to recover. Going there made me so appreciative of how healthy my kids are and how extremely blessed we are. There were so many kids there who were there for long periods of time. The little boy who shared a room with Nile was born with something wrong with his stomach. He had had several surgeries and was in there for months. His mom had to work so she couldn't be there a lot. It broke my heart. We are so blessed.
Looking back now, I can appreciate the answer Heavenly Father gave me when I was expressing my frustration. I know that if he had taken away the stress of it all I wouldn't have felt the eagerness to find out what was wrong, and things could have been a lot worse. It was a sign to me of how much our Heavenly Father loves us, and knows what is going on in our lives. And most of all that he doesn't always answer our prayers the way that we think he should, he does it in the way that is best for us.
Well the story doesn't end there. He was fine after that, but a few months later he stopped drinking his bottles. I took him to the Drs and they gave me medicine for acid reflux. Poor little guy. Well, he started drinking again for awhile and then all of a sudden one day he would not drink his bottle. It was a total headache. I would try and get him to drink his bottle but he wouldn't drink it, then he wouldn't sleep because he was so hungry (this is before he started eating baby food) it was a nightmare. I seriously was taking him to the drs every week-just ask Brad- because I didn't know what the problem was with him, and I knew that something was wrong. What baby doesn't like a bottle! He would still get up a lot at night because he wasn't getting enough during the day. I tried different acid reflux medicine, different formulas. I know that my dr thought that I was crazy, but I knew that something was wrong. Finally Brad found Enfamil AR online and suggested that we try it. I didn't think it would do much, but I suggested it to my Dr. and asked for a sample so we could try it. At that appointment I broke down because it had been the billionth time I had taken him in for it ( We had even taken him in for another upper GI because we could not figure out what was wrong) My Dr. told me that he would grow out of it. I told my Dr that he should try taking him home and deal with it. (His wife just had their 6th kid so I figured they were experts) Well he sent me home with that formula and guess what. It worked! Hallelujah! So of course our guy has to have one of the most expensive formulas and he refuses to drink the generic brand. Nile drinks bottles like a normal baby FINALLY!
This explains a little why I have been so horrible about taking pictures this year. Getting the camera out was the last thing on my mind when I had a baby throwing up everywhere and stacks and stacks of laundry, or when I was spending my whole day begging and crying trying to get my baby to drink a bottle.
The crazy thing is, even through all of this, Nile has been one of my favorite babies. I think for me Carter was so traumatizing because I just had no idea what I was in for. Easton was a little easier and now Nile has been a breeze...ok maybe not a breeze, but more enjoyable. Now I just have to convince Brad to have two more.