Hi ladies - welcome back Ash. Great to hear that Blake is doing so well. Izzy is doing amazingly well - not talking really (just a few sounds and the odd word), has 13 teeth and her comprehension is amazing. She builds blocks and towers out of things higher than she is, uses rational thought to solve problems (like building a tower out of books so she can stand on it to reach something higher up!) and just generally keeping us on our toes. Like Lis' Elena, lucky to still be getting two sleeps a day from her.
Tan - my goodness you're almost there. It seems like only last month I fell pregnant again, let alone you!! How's the great name search going?
Ok. Elena. Went to the paed on Thursday morning - he is a "paediatric allergist", so specialises in Elena's problems. He suggested expressing off 5 minutes or so first to get rid of the higher lactose concentration of BM. Also suggested giving her mylanta before feeds 3 times a day. If that didn't work his solution for getting her on the bottle given her past stubborness was to put her into hospital and tube feed her for 48 hours. Sounded awfully drastic but given what else has gone on, really the only solution. Called Friday to tell him the expressing and mylanta hadn't helped so we were booked in for hospital for this morning - they were going to watch what happened while I fed her and then the after effects. Then we'd go down the tubing road and just make sure the formula did suit her better before we completely gave breastfeeding away. She and I would stay in until tomorrow evening. Got home late yesterday afternoon to find that we have forgotten to add Ellie to our private health cover so would have to pay ourselves (minimum of $2,000), or wait the two month waiting period for the cover to kick in, or wait until we could get in as a public patient (who knew when - would have to speak to the paed about this but told it could be months). I completely lost it, telling DH I just couldn't cope anymore so we would have to go in anyway and pay - I think I was planning on selling one of Ellie's kidneys while we were in hospital to pay for it ;-) Elena was hungry so I went to feed her when DH said he'd just give the bottle one more try. And the stubborn little girl took it. And the next one. And the next one! I went out for breakfast and book club this morning, during which DH spoke to the paed who said we should wait to see what happens over the weekend to see if she still takes bottles with soy formula in them and to see what effect they have on her, but if we didn't have any luck then he would do whatever he had to do to get her in as a public patient Monday afternoon or Tuesday. Such an amazing man, and the furtherest thing you expect when you deal with specialists. He seems genuinely interested in finding a solution to our problems, which is such a relief.
So, Ellie has now taken four bottles from DH since last night (without us having to resort to starving her again) and we will persevere over the course of the weekend and hope she will take them more readily and regularly. Then take things from there on Monday.
So, all in all some good news at last. She seems so much more settled on the soy, and in fact when I gave her a breastfeed this afternoon (paed suggested I alternate bottle and breast so she doesn't get constipated with the sudden change), she got really upset and vomitted lots (and lots and lots). Everything is pointing to us being right and her having exactly the same issues as Izzy, so hopefully it will be as simple a solution as her being on the soy.
Sorry for the selfish post but have to get the girls to bed, dinner for us and then try to get some sleep somewhere. I was actually looking forward to going to hospital for the weekend to get some much needed sleep. Still, will sacrifice sleep happily if it means Elena gets cured without having to have any invasive action being taken.
Hope mums and tots everywhere are happy and healthy this weekend.
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