And to make this all less depressing...

Here's a picture of our gorgeous boy from a few nights ago. Note the thumb in mouth!

Update

Graham is doing very well, and we're actually back home. The surger(ies) went very well, and he hasn't puked at all really since. We're increasing his feeds slowly, and he's tolerating everything with a tremendous amount of calm. Joe and he are now snuggling on the couch, and I am off to bed, since I took hospital duty last night. So, we managed the second hospital homecoming of Graham's short life, and we are exhausted but thrilled that he is okay, and will soon be even better than that.

Hypochloremic hypokalemic metabolic alkalosis

So. Joe and I are currently in the pediatric surgical suite waiting room at Strong, and Graham is in surgery. He's okay, he'll be absolutely fine, but we're just dazed and overwhelmed. The back story is that Graham was spitting up a lot more yesterday than usual, and then started really projectile vomiting everything we tried to give him. We talked to the pediatrician on call, and he suggested small amounts of Pedialyte at a time, hoping that this was just some stomach bug and we wouldn't have to go to the emergency room for IV fluids. That lasted about 45 minutes before Graham tossed all that up as well. So off to the emergency room we went. We tried some Pedialyte there as well, and no dice. So IV fluids got started. And in the interim, the attendings decided it would be worth getting an upper GI (my poor baby had to take a barium bottle) to make sure he didn't have an obstruction of some kind that was causing the vomiting. And lo, he has pyloric stenosis, the very thing we were all secretly worried about. The only real solution to pyloric stenosis is surgery, as you can't very well leave the sad little babies to their projectile vomiting. So he is now in surgery. And he also got diagnosed with a hernia earlier in the week, so he is having a pyloromyotomy, inguinal hernia repair, and repair of his bilateral hydroceles. All at once. Lord, hasn't this baby been through enough?

The good aspects to this are as follows: I know the surgeon, and have actually seen him perform these very surgeries multiple times (we're Druginating, for those in the know). I absolutely trust that the outcome will be good. Secondly, I know Graham will be a lot more comfortable after the surgery. I've seen babies go from absolutely miserable to miraculously thriving within a day after this. All this stuff that we thought was reflux - the choking on his saliva at night, the spitting up, the pain that seemed to come with his increasing feeds - will be resolved. And because they are doing all the surgeries at once, he won't have to go through the risks of anesthesia multiple times. And lastly, this is all happening while he is way too small to imprint pain and suffering. It'll just be us who remember how ridiculous this time in his life was, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We would gladly throw ourselves under the knife if we could spare him some of this.

So right now, we're just waiting. He should be out of surgery around 6 pm. We'll update more later. And we'll very happily take any good wishes you might want to send our baby boy's way.

Love to all,
Sarah, Joe and Graham

Making progress!

So we think Graham turned a funny little corner in his development this weekend - it was weird how it happened just all at once. Saturday he had a strange morning - cranky for now reason, and slept like crazy, and then bam! Saturday night he decided he wanted to eat another 2 ounces on top of what he had been eating, and was unbelievably alert and happy, and Sunday morning we got our first real smiles. It was like overnight he decided to start acting more like a one-and-a-half month old rather than a newborn. So we think he's in a bit of a growth spurt. Which does make for a little crankiness now and then, but he's doing so much better with the Zantac, and is just growing and changing every day. When I think back to the fragile little guy he was at birth, it's hard to remember how scared we were to even hold him. I think I just realized yesterday what a long road these past two and a half months have been. It's like I've been in a fog, and I am just now understanding how enormous and terrifying being at the hospital was.

Now if only the stupid snow would stop falling here, I'd be a new woman!

This part of being a mom is exactly what I expected

Joe put Graham in his first little official footie pajamas - a great hand-me-down from Nate and Sadie. While he's certainly had other little outfits with feet, these are the classic fleece pj's with the tab across the top. And early this morning, I was holding him in my arms and smelling his head and he was making his little sleepy noises - and I felt like a Hallmark card of motherhood. And it was good.

Keep on truckin'

So, slowly but surely I feel like we are headed towards a routine. Maybe. Graham's baby Zantac has definitely made a difference, so now he's not screaming in the middle of the night. Graham and I have gotten into a good pattern during the day - not that there's much ability for me to do work or really sleep in this pattern (I do a half-way job on both counts), but he's breastfeeding well and is pretty chill. Night is the big hurdle we still have to overcome. I got to the point last night where I honestly questioned how any breastfeeding mom does it. I mean, on one hand, we're told under no circumstances to feed him in bed (because you could fall asleep! and smother the baby!), and certainly under no circumstances to feed him in bed lying down or sleep with him in the bed. But on the other, because of his reflux, he has to be held for 20 minutes upright after eating. And he's turned into a spitty baby as well, so if we don't hold him upright he'll spit when he's asleep, and that makes him really angry and us terrified. So I have to wake up, get up, change his diaper, go downstairs, NOT turn on the TV because he's not supposed to have any stimulation during nighttime feeds, keep myself awake somehow during the 30-60 minutes he decides to eat, burp him, hold him for the 20 minutes (also not falling asleep because THERE ONCE WAS A TEENAGE DAD WHO FELL ASLEEP WITH THE BABY ON THE COUCH AND THE BABY FELL BETWEEN THE CUSHIONS AND DIED, according to one of our nurses), go back upstairs, put him down and re-settle him, come back downstairs to get pumping supplies, go back upstairs and pump off what he didn't eat, put that in the refrigerator, and finally go back to bed. And since he is a normal baby at this point, he'll want to breastfeed every 2-2.5 hours. Which leaves me with about 45 minutes of sleep between rounds. And makes me want to die.

Of course, I have slacked on some aspects of this sometimes. I don't always pump, and yes, I have fallen asleep on the couch a time or two. And Joe to this point has been doing a bottle or two during the night, and we are still crashing and burning. Any suggestions from other past or present breastfeeding moms are entirely welcome, and indeed solicited. Now I must go see if I can sleep.

Graham's First Spanking!!! (kidding)

People,

So this is my first post to the Graham blog and I have to be honest with you - things are going to change here during the times when I'm in charge.

You see, Sarah is your prototypical great and protective mom. She's always been the best foot forward in our relationship and is now the absolute best foot forward of our family. So when she posts you can expect really cute photos, a good synopsis of young Graham's progress and all the family news that's fit to print.

I, on the other hand, take no small amount of pleasure in doing things the wrong way just to see what happens.

So, while you may get a cute picture of Graham smiling for the first time from Sarah, with me you get this -

A picture of my son's ass in a pair of pants that make him look like a bear.

To further clarify my point, Sarah might tell you that the grandparents came to visit or that Graham learned to make eye contact, while I may be more inclined to do something like this:

Essentially, she says "to-may-to", I say "the boy has taken up smoking".

Different strokes.