Infantreflux.org | Do you feel the same?

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July 4, 2007 at 10:16 pm #38580

Anonymous
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There are moments when I feel that reflux robbed us of a happy mother-child bonding experience. Don’t get me wrong, we still bonded and we love each other tremendously but when I see mothers who are “enjoying” their newborns, all I do is shrug when I remember the hell we went through before Ariella was put on Prevacid. I feel terrible when new mothers ask me “isn’t this the best?” I feel like telling them “no, in fact it was terrible for us”. I feel so upset about it. Do you feel the same?

July 5, 2007 at 12:40 am #38589

Anonymous
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Oh Marianna, I know what you are saying. We are almost 2 years into this and we have several bad days a week along with several good days. I also see little ones who are so happy, healthy and chubby and wonder why we couldn’t have had that. When I get really down I have to turn to God and remember that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Then I think that WE are stronger than most mothers I know. Maybe those mothers with perfect babies couldn’t handle this. It really takes a special person to love a baby who is screaming, barfing, not sleeping, not eating – FOR WEEKS AND MONTHS. I am sure those mothers could handle it – because we all love our children, but that is what gets me through. I just think that God specially picked me to be the mother of these boys and they have problems now but the reward will be much greater than the trouble we had to go through to get there.

When I was at the park, a mom was gushing about her little one playing on the slide and how wonderful it was and – I did tell her how it wasn’t wonderful for us. I probably needed an extra 4 hours of sleep that night and just told her as it was. She didn’t gush any more after hearing my story. I don’t think it upset her but it sure made me feel better!!!

Marianna, you are just so much smarter and have been through more than most mothers at this point. I think the rest of the road will be easier for us because we have already crossed many bridges.

I think, just as the pain of childbirth leaves our minds, this, in time, will also.

Is Ariella doing better now?

July 5, 2007 at 7:30 am #38594

Anonymous
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We recently went back and watched all of the short video we had taken of Sarah over the past year. I can tell you that watching it did NOT give me “baby fever” because it brought back all of the hard times we went through. Thankfully DH even briefly recorded one of her screaming fits and I’m glad he did because I heard that distinct cry and thought “oh my gosh I remember how horrible that was!”. What I CAN say is that having Sarah NOW makes me SO SO SO proud to be her mommy and her personality is adorable and just awesome. I DO really feel like we missed out on SO much and I never got to experience a happy new born…but I wouldn’t trade it now for the world. I get to meet my 3 month old nephew for the first time today and I am EXCITED to hold a baby that doesn’t scream all the time! So, yes, I do totally feel robbed but in the end it doesn’t matter to me because I see how happy and wonderful she is today. I know how you feel though!

July 5, 2007 at 7:33 am #38595

Anonymous
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Marianna,

I know exactly how you feel! In fact, I was just looking at my older dd’s baby book last night and thinking that I missed out on a lot with Hailey. I remember posting a similar thread quite a while back. At that time, someone reminded me that even though I may have missed out on a lot of the fun little things, that it always could have been worse. I know that doesn’t change things, but I do try to remind myself of that sometimes. People who didn’t go through it can’t understand it. The first year of Hailey’s life was one of the most challenging and darkest times for me. So much so that I often want another baby b/c I feel like I missed part of her life. I remember being at the mall, watching a mom take out a bottle and pop it into her child’s open gaping mouth as if it was nothing, all the while knowing the feeding hell that we were going through, and I realized what an abnormal situation we were dealing with. It made me feel sad at the time. But now I look at the beautiful child I have and I think she’s so amazing and special and strong. But it WAS hard. I hope that if you choose to have another child, you get to enjoy an easy experience. Either way though, in the end, you remember what you want to remember, and years from now, it won’t matter either way.

July 5, 2007 at 8:58 am #38599

Anonymous
Inactive

I totally know how how you feel too. I’ve felt that way so many times with Kate thinking of my thoughts while I was pregnant about how amazing it would be. You know, with the clouds parting and angels singing as she nursed sweetly and then softly drifted to sleep in my arms Not so much. It took awhile for me to let go of those images b/c it just wasn’t our reality. I had to sort of mourn the loss of the first time mommy experience I had dreamed of having. But(big sigh), you know what? Now that she is better and even on our toughest days I am in such awe of my little baby who is so strong and who has been so brave through all that she has gone through still able to laugh and smile through it all. I know we are all so much stronger then we realize and MUCH wiser having been through this trauma This has been such a spiritual journey for me personally really having to rely on God for strength and so much patience which I didn’t have on my own. It’s been excruciating but strengthened my faith so much. I also think Kate and I have been through SO much over the last four months that we’re stronger together for it too as mama and daughter. Marianna, you are an incrediblle mother and so strong. Your bond with your baby is so much stronger then you might think! You’re not alone in those feelings though. I’m with you. But think how incredibly blessed we are to have babies period even though it’s been so hard!!!

July 5, 2007 at 9:09 am #38602

Anonymous
Inactive

I think most moms of refluxers probably feel the same way. You get pregnant and then all you can think about is how much fun you are going to have cuddling this perfect baby when it finally arrives. But much to your surprise, the baby isn’t happy, they maybe perfect in every other sense of the word, but happy isn’t there. I was a nanny many years ago and I remember how much fun we had together. Now that Cooper is on the right meds/formula we have fun, but there were those critical first weeks where we didn’t have any fun and all we did together was cry… My family thought I had the baby blues, which I probably did to some extent, but I cried more b/c it was all I could do with him at least he knew I was trying…. But the only thing I have to look forward to is the fact that one day hopefully we will look back on this and have plenty of stories to share and memories to relish.

July 5, 2007 at 9:25 am #38607

Anonymous
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Hi guys,

i won’t post any reply about this b/c you have already spoken my heart out. I told my hubby i wanted another child sometime, just b/c i missed out so much with kendra and he was like “are you crazy”

Brenda amen! to your post.

July 5, 2007 at 10:44 am #38616

Anonymous
Inactive

Thank you everyone for your uplifting words. A few of my co-workers, friends, relatives had babies within a few months of us. They all seem to be so happy with their little ones and I feel so terrible for feeling like I won’t miss a thing from our first few months together. Another thing that upsets me A LOT is when people go “oh, you give your baby medicine? wow, so early in age? tsk, tsk, tsk, it can’t be good for her”. I feel like telling them “SHUT UP” but instead I smile and say “well, it’s better than having ulcers from the acid all over the esophagus”. One day two of co-workers and I were talking about reflux (b/c one of them suspects her daughter has it), and I started talking about different things to look for, that can be done to relieve it, etc, etc. She asked me “is that ALL you do with your time, read about reflux?” I told her that you have no choice but to educate yourself on the subject in order to help your child” both of them go “well, your baby’s on medication” with such a face as if she was an invalid. WHAT THE HECK?? I guess I’m just venting. I can’t stand it when people treat her condition as though she’s handicapped.

mariannardh2007-07-05 10:47:37

July 5, 2007 at 10:45 am #38617

Anonymous
Inactive

Oh, and Brenda, Ariella’s definitely better on meds. She’s teething now so we’re back to sleepless nights but everyone goes through that.

July 5, 2007 at 11:20 am #38621

Anonymous
Inactive

I’ve learned to ignore it. My mil and sil used to say the same thing to me about the meds. My mil recently had an episode of chest pain, and the ER doc put her on prilosec saying it was probably GER. She said that she was thinking about Hailey and wondering if that was what she suffered with for so long. I told her that Hailey has GERD- a whole different class then what my mil experienced. She seemed surprised. I think that people just can’t understand unless they’ve been there. My sister’s neighbour had a child with GERD who needed a feeding tube before I had Hailey when Sarah was a baby. My sister used to tell me that her neighbour’s child was a bad eater, and needed to be fed through a tube. We used to think it was strange because our kids were also “bad eaters” but didn’t need tubes. Well, HA HA HA to me!!! Along came Hailey, and I gained a whole new perspective on the situation. My point is that I didn’t mean to sound ignorant, I just didn’t know what that other parent was going through. People think that reflux is spit up, unless they’re unfortunate enough to deal with a severe case first hand, and then they learn the hard way. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about doing the right thing for your daughter.

July 5, 2007 at 11:31 am #38623

Anonymous
Inactive

Yep – don’t feel bad. I think that is true of any parents dealing with an infant who has an illness of any kind. We especially felt this way with our first. I was SO disappointed and remember telling my husband on several occasions, “This is just NOT what I thought it was going to be like”. With our second and subsequent kids we were prepared for the nightmare infancy period since we were used to it. Not fun, I know, and I wish we could have enjoyed our infants too. However, once that period is over, you have MANY great years with your kids, so now I see that although it was rough and I regret not being able to enjoy those precious infant moments more, we really are enjoying our kids now!

July 5, 2007 at 1:57 pm #38632

hellbennt
Keymaster

I’ll chime in…it is SO HARD to deal with a shrieking howling baby. I do not know how me & dh got through it. I do not know how we ever decided to have another baby after Jonah…To be honest, I still am sad about missing a sweet infancy with him. What makes it harder (sounds strange) is having been blessed by Ari, who is a true joy & blessing & whose infancy I tried to savor/am savoring every. single. moment.

I don’t know how to make you feel better…it’s hard. it’s sad. it’s a pain in the rear! but now I have Jonah who is a strong-willed, sweet and very sensitive little boy. I am convinced he was shaped from his GERD, but all in positive ways.

July 5, 2007 at 2:22 pm #38633

Anonymous
Inactive

Wow! It’s so hard to be strong when everyone around you doesn’t seem to understand! Everyone I work with has been overly supportive and I think they have watched me cry more tears than I remember! My family has been supportive, DH’s family has been supportive, just don’t know a lot about medical stuff and in the beginning I really struggled with educating them along with taking care of a sick baby! BUT when they saw a feeding tube and hospitalization, they realized I was for real!

It was excruciating and that is a light term to describe how hard this has been on me, dh, ds #1 and especially our marriage. I think that’s why I am here almost everyday b/c it validates everything I’m going through!

Griffin was by far the easiest baby ever and when we had Owen, there were times I would think, if I only had just one child again! I felt horrible for having those feelings, and I loved Owen to death, but it was JUST THAT HARD!

Hugs to you and know that you are not the only one to feel this way! The strangers who tell you it’s not that hard b/c your child is on meds or scoffs at the idea of having a child on meds so young, they probably mean well but they are just that, a STRANGER to the horrible life of a baby with reflux!

July 5, 2007 at 2:40 pm #38635

Anonymous
Inactive

Well said, Erica!

July 5, 2007 at 3:47 pm #38642

Anonymous
Inactive

I feel exactly the same way as you all do. I feel I was robbed of a couple years of my life and robbed of enjoying Brodie as an infant/toodler. I was constantly worried, chained to the house because it was the only place he “might” take a bottle, I lost a lot of weight and was probably depressed. My marriage suffered tremendously, and looking back now I don’t know how I survived. And to think, I am thinking about this again?! I get jealous when I see these chunky babies, who seem so happy and easy, who eat everything and anything and sleep well!!! It doesn’t seem fair, but like others have said, it could always be worse… Hang in there!!!!!
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