we've turned the corner

Seems Britton's gas problems were masking her acid reflux issues and it became quite obvious yesterday morning. She hadn't slept well the night before, and we chalked it up to regular baby stuff. But in the morning she gagged, coughed, wheezed, and had pain only milk was going to stop. The only problem is, it becomes a vicious circle where the milk calms her stomach, but digesting a new meal brings on more acid. I called the doctor and they phoned in a prescription. The hub picked it up on the way home, and she's been better ever since.

We've encountered a problem with swaddling too. As long as she keeps flailing her arms, she has to be swaddled to sleep. But she has grown so much in length that the blanket wasn't holding together anymore! I had even resorted to holding it together with duct tape, and that started to fail. So the hub stopped by Babies 'R Us and picked up a swaddle sleep sack and a regular swaddle blanket with velcro to try out. We had already been using the sleep sack before having to swaddle, and it is quite the marketing scheme on their part to sell the swaddle for the sleep sack separately.

Not to be a downer, but these last few weeks have been very trying on me concerning Britton's gas and reflux issues. I was starting to believe that we wouldn't have interaction, save for feeding and comforting. I wanted her to be able to just lay on the couch with me and smile at me and make all those beautiful baby expressions and noises. But for the last few weeks she wasn't able to just be. She was either crying or eating or being soothed, and it felt like what I thought it was going to be was slipping further and further away. I started longing for her first month, where she slept and ate, and didn't scream in pain. And I didn't want to be angry anymore that what I thought it would be and what it was were so far apart. This is the part nobody tells you about because in all honesty you don't really want to hear it. Reading baby books for answers is pretty hard when you haven't put a baby down in hours. And searching the internet will drive you crazy, if you can even find information you trust. We don't talk about it because when it happens, there's no right answer of how to fix it. The only one who can tell me what's wrong can't talk.

Don't get me wrong - it wasn't bad all the time. And I'm sure that it affected me more because this is my first time at being a mom, and I'm really shooting from the hip, trying all different ways to help her. But this morning, after six straight hours of glorious sleep, I stood over her hammock, watching her smile and laugh in her sleep, and I knew we had turned a corner. And I let out a breath I had been holding for a long while.