Our Little Preemie and Please Vote!

I promised myself that I would not sugar coat things when posting on this blog. I would post the good and the bad no matter what. Today that is what I am doing. I know some of you have know some of our struggles with Jalyn, but for those of you that don't I will explain some of that today.

Unfortunately, we have always struggled with getting weight on Jalyn. That is normal for a baby born at 35weeks. However, according to our pedestrian she should have caught up to similar weight gain patterns of a full term baby. Jalyn is at 19 pounds currently. I know most of you are probably gasping right now.

I don't want to bore everyone with all the details because it would mean that this post would turn into a four or five chapter book. So, cliff notes.

• Don't freak out but at 2 weeks I stopped trying to force her to sleep on her back because she would wake up in less than twenty minutes. Many nights she wouldn't sleep unless she was laying flat on my chest.
• At two months they put her on zantac for acid reflux. We thought the problem would then be solved. It caught better but didn't stop the problem.
• At 3months, I quit breastfeeding and she went on soy formula with the zantac. That helped so much she started sleeping through the night almost instantly.
• At 4mons we went for her check up and she had only gained 2 pounds. So, they put her on a special preemie formula. However, the doctor said they didn't have a soy based formula in that. We tried it by itself but she started spitting up again, crying, not sleeping and just being cranky in general. We mixed it with the soy formula and that seemed to work much better.
• At 6mons we tried to go off of the zantac. That was a big mistake. Symptoms all over again. We also slowly started introducing solids. But, again at her check up she wasn't gaining a lot of weight. She was staying on the charts so that was good.
• Right before we left for Thanksgiving she was taking jar food like crazy. We thought for sure she would start gaining weight.
• All through Thanksgiving she would refuse to eat. I just chalked it up to being in new environments. When we returned the eating did not get any better it actually got worse.
• Fast forward a little. In, April Jalyn got pneumonia which I posted about earlier. In a follow up visit after that. John and I talked to the doctor about her weight and eating. She was very concerned because Jalyn had not gained weight since before Christmas. She wanted us to go see a GI specialist.

So, we set up an appointment for the GI specialist a couple weeks later with Phoenix Children's Hospital. A friend recommended him to us. During our appointment, we relayed our story to him. We told him we think she has a milk allergy. He proceeds tells us we were right that we have all the evidence to prove it. We left his office with an action plan!

The first thing we were to do was cut out anything that has any form of diary in it. That means no milk, no eggs, no cheese, no yogurt, no eggos, no bread made with milk. We can't even give her anything with the nice little label on the side that says no dairy used in this product but it is made in a factory that uses milk and eggs in other products. We have to be psyco parents. She can't have anything that we can't have a label to read what is in it. The second thing we had to do was start on a nutritional supplement. It is called Bright Beginnings. It is similar to Pedisure but all soy and a lot more expensive.

A week later I was back on the phone because now she was refusing her bottle. Therefor, that led to the next step. She has to have a scope and flex colonoscopy which is on Monday!  We also have an appointment the following Monday to have her evaluated for food aversion.  If she has that then we will start food therapy to reteach her that it is ok to eat and it won't hurt her.

So believe it or not that is the short version of our story!  I am hoping we find out some more information soon! 

One last thing! Pepsi is offering grant money to people to establish non-profit organizations. A website that I am addicated to called Reflux Rebels is trying to win the money to establish a new group to educate parents about acid refluex, MSPI and many other items, provide support, money for parents that can't afford the some of the speciality formulas and meds. I feel this is a great idea and I am in support of it fully. Therefor, I'm asking you to vote for it. You can once a day everyday until June 30th! Please help me support this great cause by voting here!

I will post some new pictures soon!  We have been so busy and have a lot to catch everyone up on!

Thanks for reading!