By the way, before I begin the story, everyone is fine now!! Don used to say that I tortured him by plunging into an elaborate story, stringing him along for an indefinite amount of time, without so much as a don't-worry-we're-OK-now. So, just so you know, we are OK. In fact, here is a picture of Caleb post-traumatic experience. He is sitting behind me as I type, watching Baby Einstein.
And I would like to say that Luke's PJ's being on the floor is atypical, but it's not.So here goes. Last night, Caleb woke up around midnight for his usual first feeding of the night. When I picked him up, he screamed a few times, and when I tried to feed him, he gagged, resisted nursing, and then fell back asleep almost instantly in my arms. He felt limp almost. WEIRD! I thought. Especially the gagging. I mean, the kid LOVES to eat normally. This was my first red flag. I thought oh well, maybe he is just not quite awake. Tried putting him back in bed. Nope. High pitched screams again, limp again, asleep again, no interest in boob. Don woke up. Caleb woke up again, screamed some more. Same song, second verse. Don finally settled him down and got him back in bed--without feeding. But we were pretty disturbed. Don got on the internet, and I got out my famous sleep book, reading the paragraph about night terrors, strange sleep intervals, etc... Anyway, he stayed asleep, so around 1:30 or so, Don and I went back to bed, too. At 5:20 A.M. He wakes up again. Ok, first of all, his last real feeding was probably around 6:30 P.M. I think he nursed some before going to sleep around 8:00, but not much. So by now it had almost been 10 to 12 hours since his last feeding. The longest this baby has EVER gone w/o food previously was probably 6 or 7 hours. So at this particular awakening, I thought: it's going to be normal, he will eat, all will be fine, and maybe he is stretching his sleeping and feeding times. Wrong. Same thing. In fact, this time he gags several times. For those of you who know me pretty well, you know how much I hate vomit of any sort, and the stomach bug is just, well, something to be avoided at almost any cost. But I'm actually thinking he needs to throw up or something. I wake up Don. And by the way, Caleb falls back asleep. This is getting too strange. Don suggests that we actually should try to wake him up. So he slowly wakes up, looks around very calmly, lethargically... Were we scared? You better believe it. I felt sick. I was BEGGING God to heal him, to let him be OK. Just let him be OK, God, I kept saying over and over again. As Don held him, and we watched, he looked so pale, almost green. He would look at us, but had very little expression on his face. I called the pediatrician, hoping to get a beeper number. Got a number for a triage nurse instead. She was no help. I was getting ready to drive him to the ER, but the almost lifeless expression on his face scared me out of my wits. Caleb finally threw up the tinyest amount, and it was a strange yellow color. By the way, the order of all this is already running together in my head. So that's when we made the call: 9-1-1... Don told them what was going on. We waited for five dreadfully long minutes. I kept begging God to let Caleb be OK. Well, 5 whole minutes later... still no ambulance! We call again. They were a couple of minutes away. I hop in with Caleb, and we are in route to Central Baptist hospital. I felt nauseous the whole way. My mouth was dry. I answered all of the questions as best I could. The EMT was very nice, and reassuring. I was thankful for that. Ironically, I had given in and watched "Scrubs" with Don last night. I felt like I was on any number of medical TV shows as I walked in the automatic double doors, with about eight faces watching us, sitting on go. I was impressed. The doctor walked right in the room with us and examined Caleb immediately. Quick backtrack. Right before we got in the ambulance, Caleb smiled at us a little. He was calm the whole way there. Thank God! He smiled at the doctor, and I was beginning to think that he was about to make me look like a total and complete idiot!! Which I would not have minded.... at all!!! But everyone was great to say it's better to be safe than sorry. They were nice, reassuring, and just great all around. By the time 10 minutes went by, I had been seen by a doctor looking person, another nurse or doctor person had followed up, and two or three other people had taken all of my other information. Wow. I guess that's what you get when you take the ambulance. They took an X-ray of his abdomen. Well, everything looked great, except that their was a GINORMOUS amount of poop in his colon. One doc asked if he had pooped since July!... Poor little guy. How ironic that I typed up the second half of this post yesterday. No joke! As much as he pooped yesterday, and he also pooped two days ago, he is STILL backed up in there. Amazing. Well, he has a bad case of constipation. We have noticed that he tends to go about 6 or 7 days between poops. The ped said it was Ok at his 4 mo check up. Well, it's not Ok for him, I guess. Oh, and Caleb ended up eating hungrily shortly after our arrival at the hospital, and has been eating normally ever since. So they realeased us, sending us on to see the pediatrician. Don had taken JD to school, and with Luke in tow, came to pick us up. We arrived back home, and Don helped me get Luke and Caleb out of the Jeep and into the van. Don went to class, and the two kids and I went to the pediatrician to get more advice on how to help Caleb release the hounds. The doctor had told me he would need to get on a laxative. My nurse practitioner explained that there is a nerve wrapped around the stomach and heart, which could make Caleb feel faint when he strains so much--which he has definitely been doing when he poops --possibly explaining the limpness and faintness during the night, from pain?... :( . She also said that the yellow bit of spit up could just be curdled milk. Afterall, it doesn't seem as if that milk had any place to go! So after hearing more about how and what can happen with constipation, and being reassured about all of the bizarre symptoms, I went to the pharmacy to get some suppository laxatives and then back home. Ugh!!! Not exactly what I had in mind to start off the day, but whatever.
Come si de rien n'etait....Mr. poopopotamus -- as Don calls him when he has one of his famous blowouts.
I had actually typed up the following yesterday, so as not to forget it:
Don has been taking Hebrew in January, and so he has been saying Calev (pronounced Kahlev) because this is his Hebrew name. I kinda like it.
Caleb rolled over for the first time at Grandma and Grandaddy's house over Christmas. I think it was on December 29th. He rolled from back to front, and then from front to back again, a few times. Yay, Kahlev! ;)
He is HEALTHY! Praise God. In fact, we all are. Hurray!
He enjoys watching baby Einstein from time to time. Here is our four month old:
He sits in his exersaucer and jolly-jumper some. Below is a picture of us after church. I love these little corduroy pants, and white sweater. They were given to me by a friend here at the seminary. What a blessing to get hand-me-downs.
He has gotten to be a great car-seat baby. He falls asleep sometimes when I take Luke to school. It is so wonderful. It has been really cold here. We have had quite a bit of snow, and temps stayed below freezing for several days. So I have to bundle everyone up. Again, thanks so much to my friend from seminary passing this warm footed and hooded coat for him!!
He also LOVES taking a bath now. It is so cute to watch him kick his little legs as hard as he can, and splash himself. He has a satisfied, happy look.
But by far his favorite toys are Jon David, Luke, Mommy, and Daddy. :)
Caleb is also discovering his voice. We are still trying to capture his adorable laugh on video, but here is another new trick he has learned: the squeak!
Caleb loves to eat. He has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, green beans, and most recently... prunes. Yea, sweet boy is constipated! Big frowny face. :( Today I could tell that he was trying to push while in the high chair. His entire face turned red in the effort... He finally got it out, though... Luke said "Mommy, something stinks..." Yea, OH YEA!!!... Carried him to the changing table, and well, I could see that the back of his shirt was a little brown. Incidentally, Julie, he was wearing the adorable outfit that you gave him! (Thankfully, it washed out just fine). You know it's extra bad then you take off the pants, toss them on the ground, and notice something brown tumble softly on your foot. I'm not kidding. I felt like I had to bloomin' perform surgery to get the poop off this kid. I opened it up, and Oh, Nelly! It was in the diaper, allright, and on his foot now, and so then also on the alarm clock (which sits at the foot of the changing table), the top of the wipes, and the changing table pad, of course. I had to peel his shirt up, folding it inward as I went so as to envelop the poop, and spare his back from getting smeared--let alone his face, because wouldn't you know it, this would be the day that I choose to put a onesie on him instead of his usual snap up the front footed sleep-n-play. Ah, the life. Well anyway, with a cloth underneath him, I moved him gingerly to the bath tub. Like I said earlier, he enjoys his bath. Spray the clothes. Wash. It's all good. ;)
Here are a few pics Pre Poop:
At his four month check up on January 11th, he was 90th percentile for height, and 75th %tile for weight. So he is doing great!
Now if we could please just stop these freakishly disturbing runs to the hospital!
Well, God is good. He answered my prayer. Caleb is healthy and once again, peace has been restored to our little house in Wilmore, KY.
That's the story, and that's all for now. Thank goodness.
