Mommy melt down

Hello,

I am new to the boards, though I have been lurking for about a week. I have a 7 week old daughter who has been diagnosed with reflux. She was a c-section baby who choked twice while she was in the hospital and stopped breathing. We were told that it’s common for c-section babies and not to worry about it.

Yeah right!

My husband and I proceeded to stay up around the clock and watch her until she was two and a half weeks old. Our pediatrician then told us we needed to put her down to sleep. We did, and that night she choked, threw up and stopped breathing. We took her back to the ped. the next day and she was diagnosed with reflux. Since I’m breastfeeding, she had us try an elimination diet before any medication. We tried that for several weeks and she did better for a little bit. But, this weekend was the worst she’d ever been. We went back to the ped. today and finally started Prevacid.

I thought this would be a magical solution…until I found out we were given a pill. I tried to disolve it in water, but quickly realized that there are little beads in the pill that won’t disolve. So, I tried to give it to my DD in a siringe, but the beads were lighter than the water, so they wouldn’t all come out and I have no idea how much of the medication she actually got down. I did have another mom at the pharmacy overhear my situation and tell me I needed to go to an apothacary to have the medication made in to a suspension. I just can’t believe that the dr. would give us a pill for a 7 week old and not tell us to have it suspended. (Sigh)

I’m at the end of my rope…the ped. won’t put our daughter on an apnea monitor, so my hubby and I are taken turns staying up all day/night to watch her and make sure she doesn’t have any issues. I’m so exhausted and heartbroken. My baby girl looks at me and cries the most painful, heartbreaking cries and I can’t do anything to help her. She hardly sleeps and when she does, she wakes up crying in pain and then falls back asleep. Even when I lay her down to change her diaper, she screams in pain until we pick her up. I feel like a complete and total failure as a parent and the thought of waiting another two weeks for the medication to kick in just slays me. And, now she has to go to children’s hospital for an upper GI…just one more miserable thing that I can’t explain to her.

I feel like laying in a corner and crying…or sleeping!

On top of everything, I’m so concerned – or dillusional – that I thought she was having an allergic reaction to the medication. I thought she had a couple hives on her face, so now I’ve been watching every breath that she takes in just to make sure she’s ok. Plus, now I’m totally freaked out to give her any more medication. Maybe I’m hallucinating??

Anyway, sorry to ramble here but I needed to get it out and hope maybe I can find a kindred spirit out there who might know what I’m going through and has lived to tell about it.

Andrea