Happily Married, With Medicine: October 2012

Our third child was born less than two weeks after graduation. She was two weeks early and had to have emergency surgery at three days old for jejunal atresia. We had no idea there was any problem during the pregnancy. The fifteen days that followed were the longest of my life. Our tiny girl stayed in the NICU, unable to eat until she had a bowel movement. Parents were not allowed to sleep overnight there. Leaving her each night was gut wrenching. I felt guilty. When she finally pooped we were thrilled and she progressed without hitch. She was discharged on one temporary medication and was breast feeding perfectly.
Things were moving along with our family getting used to being resident status instead of student and having three children. I was balancing taking my oldest to preschool twice a week and the new baby. She didn't sleep well and I always had to bounce her upright on a yoga ball after feedings to get her to burp without spitting up. I was about to give her a bath one afternoon when she was five and a half months old and she threw up a large amount of what looked like poop. yellow, seedy, frothy emesis. I freaked out and called the hubs who reassured me that if she did in fact throw up poop, she would be looking near death. I made an appointment with her pediatrician.
Over the next month we ran many tests looking for celiac disease, allergies, cystic fibrosis, etc. All of these came up negative. My baby girl started throwing up much more frequently. It was violent. Heave after heave every time emptying the entire contents of her stomach. If she coughed I ran her quickly to the sink or toilet so she could vomit. I watched my now six month old grow a large distended abdomen and fall off the growth chart. I felt helpless, and I felt like nobody knew how to help her. It wasn't until I was on a plane ride that I saw a man reading a paper a couple rows ahead of me. At the top was a picture of a starving infant from Africa. I gasped as I recognized that my sweet girl looked exactly like that picture. I made an appointment with the surgeon and pediatric gastroenterology doctor. February 15, 2012, my now eight month old who weighed 11 pounds was admitted to the hospital to start total parenteral nutrition (TPN) in order to gain enough weight to be able to survive surgery.
We didn't know what the surgeon would find. There were many times over those months that I thought I would lose my daughter. My parents and in-laws took turns staying with my other children while we spent 18 days in the hospital. Praise the Lord, the surgery was a success. Her intestine had been so dilated that it was kinking itself off causing her to throw up everything she would eat. They tapered the intestine that had stretched out down to the same size as the rest of it so it wouldn't continue to kink. We were discharged on March 3, 2012 in the evening with a PICC line in her tiny arm, and she threw up again. I was devastated. All I could think was that maybe the surgery hadn't fixed her and that she would have to struggle for as long as she could survive. How was this happening? We prayed. Many people prayed. She didn't throw up the next day, or the next day, or the next. Thank you God! I hooked my baby's PICC up to TPN every day for six weeks. She gained nine pounds and had no complications. Today she is happy and healthy and I thank God every day for her.
I have to say that now we are three months into second year of residency and it is a BREEZE compared to last year! Mark works long hours. I take care of the kids and the home by myself quite often. BUT, my child is healthy. We are all together.

Distended belly