Stability?

Why, you must be thinking, has it been so long since the last post? Max turns 10 weeks old today. But Max has continued to be, as we knew and as has been expressed by all the professionals and other parents we share this with, an exceptionally challenging baby. He's very alert, very interactive, and when he feels good, a very happy boy. But he has not been happy most of the time. We have however finally begun to track down some of his issues. We started recording almost everything: how much Max eats, when he ate, how much milk G can produce, everything. And we started asking very pointed questions of the health professionals we've been taking him to see. We discovered two main issues.

1) Max has a lot of stomach acid, making him uncomfortable and unhappy. He's on baby Zantac now and that has helped tremendously. He seldom now just sits and cries for long periods. This has helped his ability to focus. Everything has improved from eating to sleeping. It is tempting to feel guilty about not figuring this out sooner and we've indulged in guilt, along with a lot of other strong emotions. But in the end such selfishness does nothing to help Max so it must be cut loose. Besides, who has the time to figure this stuff out when their baby barely sleeps and cries 70-80% of the time he's awake? Not to mention that it takes multiple conversations with multiple health care professionals and others to arrive at even a theory of what may be happening. This is very frustrating.

2) He has, as we knew, a lazy suck. Some kids apparently simply do not develop the 'natural' technique necessary to remove milk from the breast. After finally seeing a lactation consultant who helped us measure G's output, we are now assured she is producing nearly the amount of food he needs, and could produce more if his suck were effective (though it should be noted NOT enough, which is why we started formula in the first place). So we've purchased a 'system' to help Max learn to suck better. Simple and expensive ($50 for a plastic bottle and hose system that hangs around mom's neck), it rewards good technique with more food. If he sucks well, he gets to eat more. When his suck sucks, he doesn't. It used to be he would simply get frustrated and fussy. Now after one day (about 36 hours), he has improved quite a bit. We still have appointments with an occupational therapist (Max's occupation being eating) and more visits with the lactation consultant but things are looking up. Everything we've read says that not only is breastfeeding good, but that in fact any amount of formula is actually quite hard on a baby, whose underdeveloped body must work very hard to process it. So while his system is taxed trying to process formula he is also not receiving as much as he needs of the multitude of immune system building blocks found in breast milk. Our goal remains to keep him eating only breast milk if possible, while still getting him - and us - some rest. It is unlikely, though, that we can feed him solely breastmilk due to Max's suck, G's flow, and his appetite. The downside specifically is that formula, containing proteins that are harder to break down than those in breastmilk, causes perforations in his intestinal walls, allowing the proteins to leak into his bloodstream, leading to allergies and other problems. In addition, it causes the painful gas that Zantac can't help (since it's for stomach acid). We're more likely going to have to supplement with formula no matter what, so we're looking at probiotic supplements to aid in his digestion. Think of it as Activia yogurt for babies.

This is complicated by other factors however. We're also looking at having to give him some immunizations in preparation for day care when G goes back to work in about 3 weeks. This is sooner than we had wanted to put him through it. Many people report that after the shots their baby cries for up to 24 hours. It breaks our hearts. And in truth we really don't want to have to send him to day care. This would greatly complicate our ability to keep him on breast milk and would simultaneously expose him to illness, but we can't really afford not to have G go back to work. With the added cost of including her and him on BabyDaddy's health care, we just can't swing it unless BabyDaddy takes extra work, which G doesn't want, and which we're not sure I could find anyway in the sinking economy. In many ways he'd do fine we think, but he's probably just not quite ready when we consider how he's eating even now, at 2 1/2 months. He still won't sleep by himself or for very long like many babies. His need for constant contact and his many other troubles continue to make this a marathon for us, and everyone's exhausted. Except Bug the cat, who has been enjoying having us home all the time. She's exceptionally well rested, and really likes the diaper changing pad. She must now be awakened and removed almost every time we have to change Max.

It would unfair to write all this and not mention that overall there has been a lot of improvement. Max laughs and smiles almost every day now. He almost never did before. We have some hard choices to make. Some will be made for us and we'll have to swallow some bitter pills. But Max's issues are improving little by little and he remains one of the best people we know. So life is good.