It's not always as easy as it seems...

At 29 I gave birth to my 3rd and final child (now 2). I had a 3rd c-section and devoted those beautiful moments in the hospital to gazing at this gorgeous new creation. He was delivered at 37 weeks and was 7lb 8oz. He was bottle fed from birth due to previous complications with my other two children. He was beautiful.

We get home and of course, this baby is upset. He is new to this big scary world, his older siblings are in his face and there is so much new noise happening. He cluster feeds and never devourers the bottle. He is gassy, screaming and vomiting constantly. We decide to put him on a soy formula only to have the same intense screaming and vomiting. We see a doctor who says he has reflux and to put him on a reflux formula. Again we try that and he comes out in a rash and projectile vomits. I put him on a lactose-free formula and once again there is no change.

We finally get a referral to a top Paediatrician who advised me that my son is dairy protein and soy intolerant. He is put o Alfare formula and losec medication for reflux. Ok there seems to be an answer, at least I thought, He still screamed, he still vomited. We went to have an ultrasound done to see if there was an issue inside. All came back normal. He still screamed. He still vomited.

One afternoon he started choking. I took him to the emergency department as he was only 8 weeks old. We were admitted to the hospital for 3 days while they worked out why he was chocking. Turns out the medication (Losec) wasn’t working due to my little guy having severe reflux. Also, this new formula was still upsetting him. We ended up giving him Losec twice a day and changing him to neocate formula.

The weeks turned into months, no one could hold this baby as he vomited everywhere. No one could snuggle the baby because he would scream in pain and no one knew the pressure I was under. I slept on the couch holding this baby upright on my chest so he wasn’t in pain. I continued this while I had a 6 and 4-year-old at home who also needed my attention.

Solids had to be introduced at 12 weeks to help thicken the food and keep it down, the colic disappeared at 4 months and his reflux started to settle by 9 months. He started to improve. He finally started to crawl and by 18 months, was walking. He started to talk more at 2 years of age. He is on rice milk now and still reacts badly to dairy but not so bad with soy.

Now through all this, I still had another two children at home. My husband had to help the older children more but their behaviour and attitudes proved to me that I wasn’t doing enough for them as all my energy and time was on the new baby. Even now he is still extremely demanding.

We bring this baby home and expect them to be like the others where in fact every single child is different. As a mum, I struggled daily with guilt (and still do). I wish my older two understood or someone other than my husband understood how hard it can be. Yes I didn’t have it as rough as some but the night I cried with my baby, the days I couldn’t get my kids to school on time and the moments when all hell was breaking loose in my house were the worst. But my children are amazing, resilient and caring. My husband is supportive, loving and an amazing father and my toddler is headstrong, determined but gives the best cuddles.

I felt as though my world was crumbling, I didn’t know why I had brought another child into the family and felt I had destroyed our perfect family where in fact, I am stronger, I love harder and I am more patent (which I never thought would happen). Us mums go through hell and back, we make ourselves feel like we are failing but we love hard, we show strength we never knew we had and we show our children that you can do anything, Just put your mind to it! You will get through it and you will be stronger because you were tested!

Posted by mom198881, 28th October 2018