Here’s the thing- acid reflux sucks..
Our son, Shane was born October 27, 2009 via nightmare emergency c-section. To sum up that trauma and get to some other points-I will make a long and painful story shorter- but of course, not too short.
When I was pregnant, I started asking for some sort of an advance epidural around the time I was 6 (ok, 9) months pregnant. This is how scared I was of not being able to get one once I went into labor. I was forever hearing some crazy story about the woman whose epidural wouldn’t work or how they ran out of time or how the anesthesiologist was busy in surgery and she ended up having to give birth to a nearly 10 lb baby NATURALLY..
This is really not for me.
I know this in advance- therefore, I was panicky and at every visit to the ob/gyn dr. – I asked about how soon they would give me the epidural. I also asked about other drugs-tranquilizers- to be clear. They said I wouldn’t need them.
They were WRONG.
In fact, here it is 6 months after the ordeal and I still think I need them.
When I finally went into labor and got to the hospital, it was many (8 to be exact) hours of hard labor before I was able to get them to give me an epidural. When the anesthesiologist arrived, I thought I dying yet in some weird way going to heaven at the same time. Does that make sense? Ok, whatever.
So they start prepping me for this giant needle that’s going to play around your spinal cord while they tell you it’s going to be fine and that you can just lean forward and clutch onto the nurse and DON’T MOVE. Easier said than done. How is this even possible!? I guess the threat of the disclaimer they make you sign saying that if you should become paralyzed due to this procedure, it’s not their fault and it’s basically a calculated risk that’s involved and it’s on you, blah, blah, blahhh..
When you are having labor contractions every 3 minutes that have been going on for 8 hours, you will sign that shit immediately without reading anything because all you want to do is have the pain go away. So that is what I did because, OBVIOUSLY..
Well I ended up having to have the procedure done about 6 times because the anesthesiologist said I have something strange wrong with my back and that the needle was getting stuck between my vertebrae. I’m not kidding. I’m not going to tell you how painful this was, or about how I was vomiting violently in between needle attempts into a small bag and clutching onto a nurse who should now be earning twice her pay..Just a quick mental picture for you: imagine needle insertion, vomit, contraction, REPEAT.
For about 30 minutes.
When the epidural finally started to work, I thought it was going to be all downhill from there.
Wrong again.
After many hours of no “progression” and emergence of any baby parts, I was told the baby was going to have come out via C-Section. WONDERFUL. Every woman’s dream.
When they’re prepping you for the C-Section, they make your partner stand outside for like 15 minutes. I always assumed this was to spare them the gory parts or maybe even cover up any mistakes, avoid lawsuits, etc without witnesses. You know, stuff like that. I know this people because I watch tv. And on tv, this is what they do. Except it’s really actually nothing like what they show you on tv- it’s all very unglamorous.
So when they march DC into the room, they don’t bother to cover anything up< they don’t take him the “long way around” as to avoid him seeing what’s going on behind the giant sheet. NOoooooo.. they bring him right past me, cut wide open, body parts piled up on me, blood everywhere, crime scene competition style. I still don’t understand why they did this. Was that really necessary?
So right before that happened, they gave me a courtesy (but not really) “can you feel this scalpel cutting into your skin?” question.. These are the kind of doctors that ask questions they really don’t want to hear the answers to. Yeah, THOSE KIND. So, I’m telling them YES, I CAN FEEL THAT like three separate times.. Then the questions stopped coming..and the cutting just began.. I’d say 10 minutes into this procedure I started feeling some pain. Pain that very rapidly increased to an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. I am at this point screaming out loud, “I CAN FEEL THAT, YOU HAAAVVVE TO STOP!” DC looks at the anesthesiologist, like basically WTF!? The next thing I know, I wake up in some room, alone, no baby, no DC. I guess the anesthesiologist injected me with something he later told me was to “make me forget. Whaaaat? Who does that? They don’t do this on tv! And btw, It didn’t make me forget, it just made me unconscious.
It only got worse, I didn’t see my baby for 4 hours..I was all jacked up with pain killers and confused about what had just happened. I ended up with what’s called a “spinal headache” from some lining in my spinal cord area being punctured. This supposedly causes spinal fluid to leak out and changes the pressure in your head, creating a headache from hell that lasted for 10 days..
I won’t go any further into the trauma because, well, it’s causing my PTSD to re emerge, it’s really actually boring to read about and not very funny. So let’s just say that I went home from the hospital already knowing Shane would be an only child.
After I emerged from my spinal headache and percocet daze 10 days later, my angel baby who I brought home from the hospital turned into well- not so much of an angel baby.
We discovered that our son had Silent GERD- gastrointestinal acid reflux disease. This means that basically, he throws up in his mouth 150 times a day and swallows it back down..that’s why they call it silent reflux. and BONUS! he gets twice the acid burn because his burns on the way up and then again on the way back down. There is a whole other host of problems that are related complications from this disease. Basically, my son has to be held upright at all times to allow gravity to assist him in keeping liquids down. And that rarely even works.. He’s been on every medication in the book, been to specialists, had invasive testing- all to be told, “he will just have to grow out of it”. (Just so you know, being told this felt suicide worthy).
He cannot eat or sleep like a normal baby. He still eats about 3.5 ozs every 2 hours. He is awoken constantly by the acid coming up his throat. therefore, he is constantly overtired and fights the little sleep that he does get even more. It's nearly impossible to take him anywhere because it is just such a hassle. He cant be in a car seat for long periods of time. DC and I have literally been sleeping in shifts for 6 months so that Shane can be held upright in a recliner while he sleeps-AND WE, DO NOT.
NO. SLEEP. TIL BROOKLYYNNNN!
One of the most super freaking annoying things about this is that other people do not understand this. It’s like you’re not talking. But it’s really that they are not listening. They think you are over reacting, it’s not that serious, they just do not get it. So we stopped trying to explain it. People will still ask us to go places, to come visit all the time, wonder why we don’t take him out, etc.. And even if I just finished telling them why, the next day, they're like, oh, is Shane all better now? Whaat? THIS IS NOT A COMMON COLD PEOPLE. It is ****in serious. We are not sleeping. We are not eating. We feel like roommates who play pass the baby. We have no life anymore. We can’t go places, eat in peace, have a conversation because we live in Shane's world..it’s his party and he vomits because he wants to.
It will likely be a year before he “grows out of it” as the doctors say. At night, we have to walk him around while we endure episodes of back arching, vomiting, nails digging into ______ (fill in the blank with any body part, ours and his)..bumping into walls in a half asleep stupor-in the dark. Good times.
For those of you who still don’t understand what I’m saying, I plead with you to read this:
http://infantrefluxdisease.com/infant_acid_reflux/whatdidIsay.php
So, now you know why we have been MIA, why I’m almost an alcoholic and why even Gandhi would have lost his shit by now..
Thank GOD he is soooo freaking cute! That’s why I, like Gandhi- haven’t lost my shit .. well, not totally.
Sorry for the rant.. Next post will definitely be more upbeat. Maybe…
