Emergency Room

We had an eventful week here last week... Last Monday I just had a rough time with Emory. She woke up really fussy and then throughout the morning and afternoon it got to a point where she was inconsolable - just hysterically screaming. I spent several hours trying ALL of the tricks in my "mom repertoire" to get her to settle and I ended up just putting Landon down in his crib so he could relax, because I could tell even he was getting rattled, while I troubleshooted. I changed Emory's diaper right around this point and was alarmed to find that she had quite a bit of blood in her stool. I texted Joe and luckily his cases wrapped up within a couple hours and he came home. Our pediatrician's office was closing but Joe talked to the nurse and also the staff at the urgent care facility and everyone recommended we head to the Emergency Room with her. By this time she also hadn't nursed in about eight hours and was running a fever. I just knew something wasn't right.

We made it to the ER at the hospital Joe works at and they quickly triaged the situation and started running some tests and X-rays to rule out major problems like a bowel obstruction, a urinary tract infection or bacterial colitis. At this point I called my mom really upset and she jumped right in the car and headed from Kansas City to Arkansas! (she ended up staying a few days and helping me with Landon and I was so thankful!!!)

After several hours of tests and running through scenarios with us, we finally got her to take a feeding and then settle down. They ruled out major things and told us that the best case scenario was that we were looking at some kind of allergic reaction in her GI and decided not to admit her. I was so thankful we didn't have to stay the night at the hospital!

The next day we saw our pediatrician and she decided to set me up on an elimination diet of soy and dairy to rule out or identify an allergy problem. She also set us up with an appointment with a pediatric GI specialist. So that's the current update. Emory has been doing much better these last few days! I've been working diligently on eliminating soy and dairy from my diet which has been a struggle - I'm just being honest. It's hard to come up with meals that Joe (a meat and potatoes guy!) and Landon would eat that fits within my diet. I've also been struggling with keeping my calorie intake up enough given all the restrictions to maintain my milk supply.

I have had so much weighing on my mind this week. I have so much guilt that my diet has caused this, but also so much sympathy for the parents who have babies in the hospital for much, much worse diagnoses!