After Rylee was born she had a hard time staying awake. She never wanted to eat. She couldn’t suck very well on anything and definitely did not want a bottle. She screamed anytime we would try to give her one.
When she would eat, she would projectile vomit everything back up. It would come out of her nose and mouth and would be everywhere. We went to several doctors and they could not figure out what was wrong with her. They finally just gave her the diagnosis of failure to thrive. Later we would find out she should have had a feeding tube. But with a lot of prayer and inspiration we kept Rylee alive.
Rylee was essentially starving to death, wasn’t gaining actually losing weight and very small for her age. During this time when I would try to explain what was going on, the comments we would get were oh she will eat before she would starve. Um she was already starving…I got a lot of eye rolls and a lot of, you are a bad parent. Oh and that I was lazy.
I was overwhelmed from Connor screaming all the time and trying to get Rylee to eat. And Spencer was never home. So it was up to me all alone to take care of it all. And since I am human and not a super mom that can do all sorts of things and not break down, I was exhausted, needing a break and it was all wearing me down.
I was also gaining a lot of weight after her birth because of the trauma of Connor’s birth activated a mitochondrial syndrome (a defect in my DNA sequencing). So I had no energy, now I was hurting all the time and miserable. I wasn’t myself. But I pushed through everyday! I just did what needed to be done even if it was basic survival stuff somedays. Let’s just say I had a lot of divine intervention in my life during these early years of raising kids.
*the picture below of Rylee in green she was 6 months but not much bigger than a new born. She was born at almost 8lbs.
To Be Continued
Adventures in Carrolling 