Update & Peanut Butter, Belly Button

Today we had our appointment with the GI doctor. Adelyn was such a little trooper as always. We woke her up at 6:30 to head out the door. She had just fallen back asleep from crying at 5:00 but she still woke up kind of happy which is always good!

Our appointment was at 7:45 which was good because we did not have to wait at all; we were the first patient of the day. The doctor (Robin) said so many things that I hope I remember to write it all down. First off she said that we needed to have the swallow test done because it sounds to her like Adelyn is aspirating. I asked what they would do to treat this problem and they said the first thing they would do would be to try to thicken her bottle. From there we discussed the fact that Adelyn does not tolerate rice cereal well at all, in fact, we think she might have some sort of allergy towards rice because she has gotten a rash every time I give it to her. So, we cannot use rice to thicken the bottle we need to try oatmeal and see if she has a reaction to it and then we will know if we can use it to thcken her bottles and if we can't use that they have this (for lack of a better word) stuff that is called "Thicken" that they can use to thicken (hence the name :) ) babies bottles who have reactions or are allergic to all the other things.

The swallow test and to try oatmeal at home to see if she has a reaction to it are the first steps. Robin also put her on zantac at night and she said we could try a little bit of malox when she is screaming in the night and cannot be comforted. The Malox should coat her throat but she said to use it only at night and in that situation. I told her we would probably use it every night since she cries out in pain every night and she said that was fine. So Adleyn is taking Prevacid, Zantac, and some Malox and she is 5 months old. I realize this is a TON of meds but if we can get her doing better than she will most likely stop aspirating which is good and then maybe she will even grow out of her reflux! Oh, I also asked Robin what the long term damage of aspirating is and she said that it causes pnemonia and can scar the lungs and so needless to say she wants Adleyn to get the swallow test done very soon. Next, Robin gave us further instruction on what to do with Adleyn at night. For instance, we have been giving her bottles in the night a lot because we did not know what to do but she said we really need to work on cutting those out because it is most likely making the reflux worse at night. Adam and I are going to work really hard at this and pray hard that we all can do it!

After our appointment, Robin sent us to have some blood work done to see if Adelyn was anemic from having blood in her stools. This would also mean she has a severe allergy to something, most likely rice cereal. Even if she wasn't anemic, it wouldn't rule out an allergy. Adleyn had to be poked in the arm this time to draw blood. Daddy held her (because I HATE needles and blood) and she only cried for a second. I have a feeling she has a high pain tolerance from all of this. We did not get a call back today and so I am going to call them in the morning and see what the results were.

If the swallow test comes back negative, then she wants us to switch to neocate formula and see if that doesn't help with some of Adelyn's in tolerances. This formula is soooo expensive, even worse than allimenton and so we pray we don't have to do this, but anything to get sweet Adleyn better.

So, we have some steps to go to find out what is causing Adleyn's pain and sleeping/eating problems but I feel like we are on the right track. Please continue to pray. Oh and thank you so much for your encouraging calls, texts, e-mails, and comments! They are appreciate more than you know for sure!!!!!!

We still know God is in control and that he formed Adleyn's body and knew all of this was going to happen. I have to chose to trust Him daily with her life.

Also, I found out today that a girl that was in my sorority that was 6 months pregnant lost her baby today. Please pray for her; they had tried LOTS of things to get pregnant and they finally were pregnant. I won't mention her name right now but please please pray, I cannot imagine how hard that would be. I know it makes me extrememly grateful for my two precious ones.

I want to end this post with something happy; it needs it! Here is a video of Annabelle and her crazy hair saying Peanut Butter and Bellybotton. Love that little girl; she is getting so smart!