GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)

Rory has GERD. Children with GERD are not your "typical" refluxers. They are thought to have reflux with complications, including but not limited to failure to thrive (poor weight gain), feeding difficulties, pain, poor sleep, and vomiting. These children usually require medication to protect the esophagus from the acid in their stomach. The acid comes up because of an immature LES, the sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach. Most children outgrow their reflux between 6 months to a year....oh, how many times were we told that in the early days???? Rory might have stopped projectile vomiting across the room multiple times a day at 6 months, but now she has what is called "silent reflux". She learned how to swallow it. That is not to say she didn't vomit anymore. Occassionally she would vomit on her Prevacid or her Zantac (that stuff is nasty). Or she would stick her hands down her throat like a baby anorexic and up it would come....then there are the colds and coughing.....the inexplicable reason as to why she vomits after eating eggs? Nope, she's always good for a surprise vomit once and a while.

That's where I'll start I guess. The vomit days :). Those horrible days that are so vivid in my mind still. I will honestly admit we were traumatized. Me, Mike and Rory. Two fools in love who made a baby that came out spewing like Niagara falls. We knew very little about babies, but we were pretty sure, as we studied the vomit sprayed on the wall and the floor and the baby and us, that this was NOT cool!!! 6 months of puke....some days 4 times a day, some days 6, some days once, though these days were few. We fed her constantly.....feed, puke, clean, repeat. She never drank more than a few ounces, but it ALL came out every time. Doctors would say, "oh it looks like more than it is".....When she's turning red in the face from retching, she's dry dude!!! Oh, and they said, "only feed her every 3 hours no matter what she takes"....well, had we done that, she'd have been dehydrated and on a tube.....I know it!

Failure to thrive, that was her diagnosis in the hospital at 2 months old. How could this baby, who we've been slaving over trying to feed and keep still and elevate not be thriving. It was a huge slap in the face. No one got it. Hospital for reflux??? What the hell is that woman doing to that baby? Doesn't she know how to feed it??? It's just reflux........UGH!!!!

But the puking eventually waned, and our struggles to feed her continued. "Reflux gets better with solids" the doctors told us. What they forgot to tell us was that some GERD children can have major feeding aversions.....something we soon found out for ourselves.

While I'd love to chronicle every moment of her past, been there done that.....so, on to today....this is our struggle with feeding Rory.......Oh, and I'll add some fun stuff too....Cause she is such a fun, happy, social baby. Smart as a whip, despite her reflux.