Dear Crying Babies

I've got your number.

Nathan and I know a little about upset babies. By that, I mean we are experts.

When Eliza was born, her stomach issues and colic began immediately. I remember Nathan rushing to Walgreens for Mylicon drops at 3 AM the first night we had her home because she was screaming and obviously in pain. We didn't realize we were at the beginning of nearly 7 months of sleepless days and nights. Poor baby. Poor parents.

We spent weeks trying to help our daughter. I did an elimination diet, I expressed milk before nursing thinking she could have a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, we gave her Zantac, and then tried formula that contained no milk or soy. We even took her to an infant chiropractor, which provided some relief and a partial diagnosis of a hiatal hernia.

After working for months with a lactation consultant and our pediatrician, we finally concluded she had an inability to break down the protein in human breast milk and all forms of milk in formula. Crazy, right? The lactation consultant said she had only seen one other case of this in 15 years and it very rarely occurred in premature babies with immature digestive systems. The solution for Eliza ended up being goat's milk. Two of Nathan's brothers had colic as babies and Cheryl recommended it as an alternative. It was our miracle milk. As soon as she had the goat's milk, she was a normal and happy baby. It may sound weird to some, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

During these dark days (I seriously associate that time with darkness because it was the middle of winter and I often sat in the dark, hoping it would help Eliza sleep), Nathan would jokingly say, "Twins would be easy compared to this!"

What prophetic words. And you know what? He was absolutely right.

Ezra and Elliott have had stomach issues for the last couple of weeks, but the situation has been entirely different. While they do not scream for hours every day, they do whimper and need constant patting and bouncing in order to sleep. I was feeling a bit depressed to have fussy babies again (although appreciative they weren't crying nonstop) and tried to remember when their discomfort began.

If I could find a correlation to something, then I would have my answer. The obviously correlation was to mastitis and thrush. I am still battling thrush, so I just assumed yeast was the culprit. However, the boys no longer have any obvious symptoms, and I remembered Eliza and how her stomach pain caused her to want to nurse ALL DAY LONG. The boys' ravenous appetites started a week before the thrush, and I just attributed everything to that one problem. Wrong.

Cheryl was able to make the correlation. This was the same time that I told myself: Formula won't hurt the babies--especially if they only have one scoop at night. That is less than half of a feeding. Less than HALF! Nathan had given the babies the hospital samples of formula a few nights when he didn't want to wake me up to nurse. And although he had good intentions, I was very upset with him for a couple of reasons: I felt like a failure for not being able to nurse my babies fully, and I thought the formula would mess with their digestive systems.

Well, I got over my "I'm a failure if I give my baby ANY formula" thinking after mastitis landed me in the emergency room. I also realized I needed to sleep and if that meant that the babies needed a scoop of formula, so be it. We assured ourselves it would be okay when we did the math and realized the boys drink nearly 30 ounces a day, so 2 ounces of formula wouldn't affect them too much. Right?

Wrong again. Apparently, our children have very sensitive digestive systems. On Friday, the day after things fell apart and everyone was miserable with sleep deprivation, we decided to withhold the formula. Even though Ezra and Elliott only received it some nights (when I had not pumped enough before sleeping my 3-4 hours),  we thought it could still be the culprit. I received a maximum of 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep and nursed and pumped constantly despite pain.

Nathan and I were exhausted (still are exhausted), but apparently our efforts were not in vain. Four days later, they are completely different babies. Starting yesterday, they began sleeping 2-3 hours at a time and eating dramatically less. Because they are eating less, I don't have to worry as much about not having enough milk pumped at night. Babies with upset stomachs often overeat in an effort to feel better, so obviously, things are improving.

I feel relieved and a tad overwhelmed at the same time. While I am happy that my children are feeling better, I again feel the pressure that I have to breastfeed or else! (Or else my children are miserable and we never sleep and things are no fun at all).  I have been battling some health problems (in addition to the continuing cases of thrush, blood clots, and fatigue, and vertigo this morning), so it would be nice to know Ezra and Elliott would be okay if I missed one night feeding. I'm crossing my fingers that they start sleeping at least 4 hours in the evening, as that would solve most of the problem!

In the meantime, I am happy to see these peaceful faces again.

 p.s. Any and all suggestions are welcome!
p.p.s. Because my blog is my journal, some posts are ridiculously long. Hurray if you made it through this! And sorry!