Marching on

B was admitted around 2 pm on New Years Eve, a bad time for an admission. We had no idea what was going to happen, no real understanding of failure to thrive. We’d been told he would be there till he regained to his 9 pounds 8.5 oz birth weight. When a child is admitted to the hospital under failure to thrive, the parents cannot feed the child. I’d been warned, and it was explained that the doctors did not suspect me, but it was policy. I don’t remember if it was hospital policy or state law. The nurses said that normally, a parent is asked to leave the room, but the doctor had said I could stay close, and stroke his arm or head.


He had an IV attached to his head with many apologies to me for not putting it elsewhere. I tried to assure the IV nurse that I was familiar with babies on IV’s and understood that as bad as it looks, it’s a safer place.

Between the allowances and his size, they were a bit confused on failure to thrive. Almost 8 pound babies aren’t normally failure to thrive. As the nurse finished the first feeing, she was removing the bottle from his mouth and he proceeded to projectile vomit before the nipple was gone. Like the plug had been removed and the gusher flowed. The nurse, a bit annoyed (um, I’d told her that was what happened!) handed him back to me and went and changed.

When it came time for the next feeding, another nurse came in, with a few towels. She’d been warned. She fed him, we talked, I stroked. As she removed the bottle, she was covered, the towels were not sufficient.

A nurse came in the middle of the night, and the same thing happened.

The next morning a nurse brought me the bottle to feed him. I was still too weak to pick him up, so it required her helping me to get settled. I fed him and a nurse came in to help get him settled off the bottle, and knowing what would happen, she came prepared. B was scheduled for tests that day.

There was a distinct difference in the way the nurses were treating me. I can remember thinking how odd it was, when they thought I was doing something to my child, they were rude. When they knew I was doing none of it, they were kind, compassionate, even a bit sad.

I can’t help but wonder, doesn’t the mother who *is* doing something need that compassion for someone to reach beyond their pain to get to the reason why they are in pain so they don’t inflict pain on their child?

I don’t remember the order the tests were done, or even all the tests, what I do remember was a constant stream of technicians coming to get my newborn. Sometimes they’d let me come, other times not.

EEG, Upper GI, Barium Swallow, Swallowing study, and who knows what else.

Eight days later we left with a referral to an orthopedist (his legs were, in the doctor’s words, “wonky”) and a Pediatric Gastroenterologist and dermatologist for the rash that was everywhere. The next day we went to Dr. D’s. The GI doctor. He’d only gotten up to 8 pounds 14 oz, but the family doctor felt he was moving in the right direction.

B decided to baptize him as well. It helped, the doctor said he didn’t need my description of what was going on. What bothered me was that it was the first time he’d done that when feeding had been just at a random time. It would not be the last.

Dr. D changed his formula to a ‘pre digested’ soy formula (smelt like burnt broccoli) and added reglan.

Several days later he called to find out how things were going. When he called, D was cleaning up from one of his projectile vomiting episodes.

I was beside myself. This beautiful baby had already been through so much! What was really getting to me was his lack of cry. “eh eh eh eh” was as much as we got. His eyes had still not opened beyond slits and I was angry. Children don’t have eyes opening issues like dogs! My baby couldn’t open his eyes! He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t keep food down.

The eyes were such a big issue that on the rare event he did get them slightly open, my toddler would declare “Hiz eyez open Hiz eyez open!”

We went to see the pediatric orthopedist as the family doctor had wanted. He became annoyed with me saying “there is nothing wrong with this child but an over reactive mother! Stop fussing over him. His legs are fine, he’s perfectly healthy. Live your life!”

B responded to the doctors anger by throwing up on him.

We called the GI doctor to say nothing had changed. He changed the formula again.

By now, he was 6 weeks old. We got up the morning he turned 6 weeks and his eyes were WIDE open. Looking around at this world he’d not seen before he awarded us with more projectile vomiting.

We had a follow up with both the family doc and the GI doc that day. Neither were happy with his lack of development. The GI doc changed his formula ..again.

Two weeks later, B finished feeding, threw up, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp as a wet noodle. There he was, in my arms, with zero tone and not really ‘there’. We called the GI doc (because it happened while throwing up) and the GI doc said in the morning he’d make a referral to the pediatric neurologist. What had just happened was a seizure.