Shake It Up

We've had a little bit of a shake up this week. Something new to question and to check into. Since Tuesday late, late night, Josephine has been really complaining of a tummy ache. She squeals like we've never heard her squeal before, and she was vomiting all of her food occasionally. We were thinking a possible bowel obstruction, possibly the malrotation that she had once before, but that was quickly ruled out due to the fact that she has been having regular bowel movements. At one point, she was squealling about three-quarters of the way through her feedings. She was also squealling when she was trying to have a bowel movement.

Cheryl came on Wednesday and we relayed all of this information to her. She went to visit with our pediatrician, Dr. Russell and shared the information with him. The doctor told us to alternate milk feedings with Pedialyte feedings for the next 48 hours. That has seemed to help a little. She's not having as many squealling moments. Squeals seem to be limited to a really gassy tummy and also to right after coming out of an apnea episode.

We also spoke with one of the resident physicians up in the NICU in Columbia today. The original reason for our phone call and conversation was to have them send a copy of the geneticist's report. We'll have all the details to share soon, but in the meantime, they did relay to us that Josephine is what they call a complete, or full, trisomy. There is no mosaicism. You can check out the links in my sidebar to find out the differences between them.

While on the phone with her, we asked her about Josephine's latest "tricks." She told us that the green bowels are probably not due to a virus this time around, but to her nutrition. Green stools are common for babies who are getting mostly the foremilk and not enough of the hind milk when they eat. This also means the foremilk is travelling quicker through her intestines than the hind milk and it isn't giving the bile a chance to be reabsorbed into the intestines. We were quickly able to see how this could be happening. The hind milk is very fatty and will rise and separate if left alone. We were shaking the milk container before we drew it up into the syringe, but doing the gravity feed gave it a chance to separate again. Then most of the fat was left clinging to the sides of the syringe, and not put into Josephine's tummy. We think we may have solved that problem by pushing the milk through the tube with the syringe so the fat can't collect on the side and we are sure that we are giving her all of it.

We're thinking that with this quick movement of food, some of her squeals are just squeals of hunger. She so very rarely fusses that we were at a loss as to what she was complaining about and what to do about it. There have been so many times when she does something and I have to try to figure out whether it is a normal newborn thing or if it is something we need to watch and be aware of. It's amazing how many of those normal little things that you forget about until there's a newborn in the house again.

Finally, a big thank you to each of you who participated in the online benefit auction. It was very humbling to watch all of those items slowly make their ways off the screen. Hope you all enjoy your goodies! Blessings for each of you!