Life Is Hard

Well let's just say our beginnings of daycare have been anything but easy.  We should have had 8 days down at this point.  Paige has been there 6 days and Andrew 4.5.

Andrew began having horrible nights at the beginning of last week.  Horrible as in one night sleeping less than 2 hours....TOTAL.  He was exhausted and miserable. He seemed to clearly be in pain and unable to sleep.  So I stayed home from work last Wednesday (supposed to be day 2) to let him rest and get him to the pediatrician.  We saw Dr. Arnold and I talked with our Georgetown Neonatal Clinic over the phone.  The thought was that it may be a reflux flair up but I was sick of treating his "reflux" when we've never actually shown that he has it or that that's what's bothering him.  So Thursday, instead of daycare, we headed to a gastroenterologist at Children's.  He was helpful and we laid out a plan.  First, we increased meds to help him stool easily, relieve some of his constipation, and get things moving through his system better.  This has resulted in huge, loose stools...I could give you more details, but then you may never read our blog again:)  So far, this has not seemed to help much in the sleep department.  He still wakes at night crying with his eyes still closed, thrashes around and can't get comfortable in his bed, our bed or being held.  It breaks our hearts...and makes us all exhausted!  We are going to get him through this first process though and then move on to the next step - upper GI (to ensure his anatomy is normal) and pH impedence study (to document whether or not he has reflux and what type).  This first test requires sedation and the second may require a hospital admission.  Obviously, we would like to try everything else before we do this.  So we are dealing with looser stools and are moving him to his own room this weekend to push him a little and make 100% sure there doesn't seem to be a behavioral component before we schedule these next tests...

On top of all this, Paige and I came down with a horrible stomach bug on Sunday night, which kept us all home Monday...and then Jack and Paige on Tuesday since she had to be a full day free of symptoms before returning to daycare.  So Jack and I have already burned through a whole lot of sick/vacation time.  I'm just hoping we have a healthier rest of the winter!

Despite all the stress over the past week, we are all so excited to see each other at the end of the day.  Their smiles just make you happy:)

Great timing for a long weekend - we need it and have some fun planned:)