Everlyn was born a month early, weighing only 5 lbs 1 oz. Luckily, she was healthy and we were able to go home the day after she was born. When we got home she developed jaundice. We had to take her to the doctors every day that first week. They pricked her foot every single time, poor baby. As a mother I was miserable. I hated seeing my teeny-tiny helpless baby girl sick. Eventually, they put her on a bili-blanket, which is like a hard light pad that has to be kept on her at all times. Along with the blili-blanket we took her outside and I tried breastfeeding her as much as I could. The jaundice went away but it soon got worse.
When Everlyn turned a few weeks old she began to spit up everything and scream after eating like she was in excruciating pain. At first the doctors told me spit-up was normal and maybe she was just tired or still hungry after she ate. Well, it progressively got worse and worse. She would throw up almost everything she ate. I initially tried breastfeeding her, but my milk wasn’t coming in properly and I could not supply enough for her so doctors had me supplement with formula. But soon I had begun to realize that both my milk and the formula were making her sick. She was miserable and so was I.
The doctors told me it was acid reflux and prescribed her Zantac and Prevacid to help and told me to keep her head elevated when she slept, when she ate, and 30 minutes after she ate. It seemed to help a little bit with the pain, but she still threw up far more often than normal. I ended up switching formulas about a thousand times trying to find something that she could keep down without any help from doctors. They would just tell me, “find what works” and not even recommend anything or give me some insight on why she can’t keep anything down.
After weeks and weeks of trying different brands, soy formulas, organic formulas, homemade formulas and lactose-free formulas, I found that the only formula she could keep down was the hypoallergenic formula. There are two hypoallergenic formulas that worked for her. Similac Alimentum and Enfamil Nutramigen. However, she hated the Nutramigen, she refused to drink it, so we settled with the Alimentum. I wanted her to be on an organic formula since I couldn’t breastfeed, I thought it would be the second best option, but there are no organic, hypoallergenic formulas out there. I looked. So from the fact that she couldn’t keep down lactose-free formula but could keep down hypoallergenic formula, I figured out that it was casein, the milk protein, she was sensitive to, which is still in lactose-free formulas. Thanks doctors for nothing.
Now, I may have written that like it was no big deal, but unless you’ve been in that situation you can’t imagine how awful it is. To have a screaming baby, in pain, not keeping anything down. Everyone is telling you what to try, what to do, but nothing works. Weeks and weeks of seeing your baby miserable. Not sleeping. Not even thinking about taking care of yourself because you’re so worried about your baby. It was awful. Finding something that worked for her was a miracle. But then it got worse again.
Colic. You don’t know how bad it is unless you have ever had a colic child. My Everlyn had colic to the extreme. I can’t even put into words how bad it was so that you might understand. You had to be with her to fully grasp it. She would scream and scream and scream uncontrollably, for no reason. There was no consoling her. We tried everything. EVERYTHING. Some days some things would work, sometimes other things would work. But basically she just screamed all day, every day and all night, every night. To hear doctors say its colic and there is nothing they can do, and that you just have to give it time and it will go away, kills you as a parent. Your little one is clearly upset and there is nothing you can do but try to keep your own sanity.
Everlyn would scream when she was tired, she would scream because she didn’t want to sleep, she would scream when she saw strangers, she would scream when I set her down, she would scream when I held her, she would scream when it was too quite, she would scream when there was too much noise, she would scream at everything. There was no leaving her with a babysitter to get some time away. The times I tried they would call within 30 minutes saying she wouldn’t stop screaming and I needed to come get her.
Cade and I were losing our sanity. I’ll admit that there were times I had to leave her screaming in her crib only to go into the bathroom and bawl my eyes out. There were times when I would scream and scream out of frustration. I threw things across the room and cried A LOT. They say colic goes away at around 4 months. Well, it only started getting any better when she turned about 9 months. She got better with people once she began recognizing them and better with falling asleep. But still she is fussy, fussy, fussy.
Everlyn is very particular. If you didn’t do things her way, the way she liked them, exactly, it would be a scream fest. She knows what she wants, what she likes and what she doesn’t. Part of me thinks good, she will be strong in her beliefs and stuff when she’s older, but the other part is like oh crap, I have a stubborn little monster on my hands.
Everyone says enjoy it while they are young, you’ll miss it when they get older. but those first months were absolute hell. Now that she is getting older and can crawl she is very independent and active and it seems to help with the fussiness. She is so much more fun now that she’s getting older. we can do more things, go out, see people, I still can’t leave her with anyone unless they know her routine to her exact specifications, but hey, it’s getting better.
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