Is this happy little baby mine? :-)

The Baby has been good this week. Real good. I wonder what he’s up to?

I hate to be cynical, but for as long as I can remember there’s been something the matter! The first thing was a possible heart condition. The day after The Baby was born, we were told that his heart rate was low. It was suppose to be about 130 bpm and it was about 80. This is a sign of Long QT Syndrome, which undetected results in cardiac failure. When you hear about high school athletes collapsing, undiagnosed Long QT is often the cause. There is nothing as mind-bending as being delivered this kind of news on what are suppose to be the happiest days of your life. I’m so glad that it was a fluke. My heart goes out to those families who aren’t as lucky. His low heart rate was temporary (went away after about a half week) and was most likely caused by a traumatic birth. I was probably as close as they got to a C-section without actually doing one — the entire C-section team was in the room for The Baby’s birth. In fact, one of the guys held my leg (hubby held the other). The Baby had his last cardiology appointment last Thursday and has a clean bill of heart health. Yea!

Next in the line of ailments was acid reflux. What a horrible thing this was. I am naïve sometimes. I admit it. When I was pregnant people would joke with me about how I’d never sleep again and how babies are always crying and whatnot. When our kiddo only slept about 5-7 hours (and not at once) daily and cried 80% (at least) of the time, I thought it was par for the course. At about two and half weeks I started to suspect something was wrong. He wouldn’t sleep, cried no matter how he was held, cried on the boob or bottle, gagged when he was laying down, wouldn’t tolerate sleeping on his back and would spit up in large quantities. I use to sit on the sofa with my feet on the coffee table and The Baby resting on my lap against my knees so he was propped up. He could spit up and nail me in the chest, but not get a drop on himself! That’s projectile puking, for you! Thank goodness for Prevacid. That coupled with no dairy in my diet and supplementing with non-dairy formula seemed to fix everything but the puking. We were able to take him off Prevacid at six months and he’s been fine since.

Two things happened during the end of the summer and the beginning of the fall. 1) The Baby grew a bunch of teeth in the span of about 1.5 months and 2) We discovered he’s hypersensitive to mosquito bites. Since I talked about the teeth yesterday, I won’t rehash it. The mosquito bite thing was scary. His whole foot swelled and he was just miserable. He needed special cream and Claritin and OFF. Then came the colds. He had one from October until last week (it seemed). Of course, The Baby can’t just get a cold he gets bronchiolitis too, which means we had to purchase a nebulizer. It’s not so bad, but dammit, the poor kid. He can’t just get the sniffles?

I remember crying on many occasions those first weeks. My son seemed so vulnerable and, well, a little miserable in the outside world. I felt somehow responsible, like I should have been able to keep him safe in my womb, away from complicated things like eating EKGs and acid reflux.

So, Merry Christmas, Baby. It seems as though he’s hitting a period where he’s HAPPY. I think being a baby suits him much better than being an infant, and he is starting to shine. This makes Mamma glad.