Hydrochloric Acid

Thanks to Connie, Mallorie's mommy, we discovered that sure enough, Lily does have reflux. The doctor prescribed Zantac, and Lily got better. A little. It seems to work very well for her during the day, but come night, and she's struggling a little. I can hear it as she lies in her crib--something comes up, and she swallows it down. Her discomfort unsettled me, so I called the doctor and told him that something wasn't right. Others had suggested Prevacid, and said it worked wonders, so I hoped that maybe a prescription change would make things better. Instead, the doctor upped her dosage a tenth of a milliliter. I can't say I saw a huge difference, but I figured it would take a little time.
Apparently, this stomach acid is some pretty heavy duty stuff. The other morning, I forgot to give Lily her Zantac. When Kristen, the speech therapist, was here, Lily threw up a dab. It got on her lavender pair of pants, and I'm not kidding you, changed the color of the pants in the area where it landed from lavender to pink. I thought that maybe it was just discoloration because it was a liquid, but some breast milk got on her and didn't have that effect. The poor little girl. I can only imagine the pain she's been going through. Luckily, she had an appointment to get an RSV vaccination, so I brought up the issue of the reflux and told the doctor what had happened with the spit up. This time, the doctor prescribed Prevacid to go along with the Zantac. We'll begin that today. I'm hoping that we'll have 100% relief. I hate to think of Lily in that much pain.
But speaking of her doctor's appointment, Lily is a whopping 9 pounds, something ounces (6, 7, 8, or 9--I can't remember). She's growing so big and getting to be so playful. She'll almost laugh when we tickle her, and today she began following the fish that spin above her in her swing. I don't look at Lily's developments as I did with Rani, Autumn, and Gabriel. With them, there was this expectation that they would smile or laugh or sit up or walk by a certain age. I know with Lily's condition comes developmental delays. That's reality. But in my heart, I believe, given her own sweet time, she will do these things. She may not do them when "healthy" babies do. That's ok. That also makes it that much sweeter when she does accomplish something. Seeing her follow those fish today warmed my heart. She accomplished something today.

If you look closely in the middle of the pants, you can see what the spit up did. I took this picture about 10 hours after the fact, so it had dried.

Lily's so happy because she loves that her mommy is now staying at home with her.

Lily looks so chunky in this picture. Look at those arms!

I love her quirky little smile in this picture.