Jameson - TWO MONTHS

Jameson turned 2 months old on June 15th.  Where has my little infant baby gone to?  He is so alert, laughing & cooing, & so active, but yet so content & an incredible sleeper.  He is absolutely the most perfect baby.

As any mom knows, the 2 month birthday brings a dreaded round of shots.  You may think it would be easier since I've already been through this once.. it never gets any easier.  He did so good though.  As soon as she took the last needle out, he immediately stopped crying, even before my arms reached him.

I tend to worry about what's sharing too much, but yet I promised that this would detail our life.. not just the good in our life.  My mom once told me when I was wary about public knowledge of something that to go ahead & tell who you want, that means more people praying for you.  I think about that a lot.  I know I'll always have the gossipers out there who are not going anywhere, but true Christians will pray for us.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this.

Jameson weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces at birth.  Before we left the hospital he weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce (that is completely normal & actually the exact amount Olivia lost after birth).  At his 2 week check-up, he weighed in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces.. above his birth weight & gaining good weight.  No reason to worry, right?  So we didn't need to come back until our 2 month check-up.

Here we are, Monday morning, at our 2 month check-up.  Drum roll please... height 21 1/2, weight 7 pounds, 12 ounces.  WHAT?  The nurse didn't pay much attention at first & wrote it down.  I took Jameson back to the room explaining to Brandon how the nurse made a mistake, she must have read the scale wrong.  A minute later, the nurse comes in asking to weigh him again, that his weight was low.  I was relieved, we were going to get the right measurement down.  This time I made sure to pay attention to the scale.  Today's weight:  7 pounds, 12 ounces.  I saw it with my own eyes & my heart stopped.  We went back to the room, I explained to Brandon his weight & thoughts were just flooding my head as to why we weren't gaining like we should.  I knew I was breastfeeding, but when I pumped, I was pumping a good amount.  I had talked to Dr. Begley about his spitting up before (this kid couldn't keep anything down no matter what we tried), but since he was on good pace gaining weight early on, it didn't cause a problem.  Until now... now it was a problem.

It could have been several things which Dr. Begley listed a few.  But Jameson was so scarily off the growth chart (around 9 pounds, 0oz. is on the low end of the chart), we needed to know NOW.  We were sent for an ultrasound that afternoon.. that came back normal.  The next morning we had an upper GI test done (where you drink the dye & they take a series of xray/4D xrays as it goes through you).  Jameson LOVED the dye, no one could believe it (I think he was just starving & would have ate my right arm if need be, which probably would have tasted better).  This was one of Jameson's bad days & of course he soaked the entire radiology floors, sheets & equipment (at least someone knew I wasn't exaggerating).  The test showed a "rare severity of reflux".  Now a large portion of babies have reflux, and all do to some degree causing the normal "spit-up", but it usually never affects the weight of babies like Jameson's.  He was referred to a specialist, & a few days later put on adult medication (we have to split the pills for him).

We met with the specialist this past Friday & she asked a million questions & then gave us some information to what the tests showed & a game plan to fix it.  He had actually shown progress with his weight, so we are holding off until our next visit for bloodwork to search in detail for more answers.  We go back for weekly weight checks & monitoring his calorie intake, etc.

I was really hard on myself at first.  How would a mother not notice, why didn't I push harder about his spit up.  To me, he looked to be gaining weight, he was right on track for eating.. I mean a baby lets you know when they're hungry, right?  & what baby who is hungry doesn't normally sleep all night (9/10 hours).  He showed signs of not being huge, but he showed all the signs to "I'm ok, Mom," or at least I thought he was.

But here's the good news.  We know about it, we're fixing it, & everything is going to be okay.  That's what is great about the God we serve.  He never said this life would be perfect, he never said there wouldn't be hardships, but he promised not to leave us & promised not to put more on us than we can handle.  So yes, my child is smaller than most, yes he does have a problem that he takes medication for, but I'm still thankful to my Heavenly Father that he is "perfect" in his eyes, and mine.