I had a pretty cruisy pregnancy as far as pregnancies go, I had a little bit of morning sickness for the first 14 weeks, then everything went really well from then on. Our son was born in September 2005 and it was the most amazing feeling I have ever felt (apart from the extreme pain...) to carry your child in you and then give birth and hold them in your arms for the very first time. Nothing matches this and any mum will know how this feels. It is the best feeling in the whole world if you ask me. Whenever anyone asks me to think of a happy thought, this is the first thought that comes to my mind, holding my firstborn in my arms for the very first time, its amazing.
My son, however, was not the textbook baby. He generally screamed constantly unless he was held, so in the hospital, I had to hold him most of the time. I tried breastfeeding, but I found this difficult to do, but tried to perservere as I knew this was the best for my baby. After 4 days in hospital, the midwives were not even sure how I was going to cope at home as my son seemed quite distressed most of the time and I was functioning on very little sleep. My idea of motherhood was not quite this, but I figured my son would settle down once at home. Unfortunately this didnt happen and I would end up carrying him pretty much constantly. In the first few weeks, I took him to various pediatricians to see if they could find a solution. He was quite happy to be carried, but I couldnt put him in a pram of lie him on his back, he would just scream. Needless to say he was sleeping in his cot on his stomach as thats the only way I could get him to sleep off me. After seeing a couple of different pediatricians, he was diagnosed with silent reflux and given some medication. I was not happy about medicating my baby, but I was desperate for something. The hardest thing for me was knowing that my baby wasnt happy and he wasnt, he would just scream and I couldnt do a damn thing sometimes to stop it. It was heartbreaking and it was tearing me up inside. How could I not know how to settle my own child!
I remember one day, when my son was about 2 months old and a friend happen to come around to the house. I was on the phone to my husband crying while my son lay on my lap screaming. My husband couldnt hear a word I was saying because I was crying and my baby was screaming, so when my friend walked in the back door, I literally threw my son at him and told him to take him away. My friend walked into another room with my son and I settled myself down on the phone with my husband. After I had settled down, I walked into my lounge room to find my son wrapped in my friends arms fast asleep. I didnt know whether to feel glad or mad as hell. I think I just fell on the couch and told my friend he couldnt move for the next hour.
It wasnt until our son was about 4 months old that a friend suggested I take him to see a chiropractor. By this stage I was exhausted and very disillusioned about motherhood. This is NOT what I had signed up for. I was ready to try anything. The medication for reflux didnt really do anything to alleviate his crying, so I had chosen to take him off it, rather than put chemicals in his body for the sake of it. I still couldnt take him for a walk in the pram as he would just scream most of the way and I would be a complete mess by the end of it, so I figured what the hell, I'll try a chiropractor. I managed to find one that dealt with children in my area, so I made an appointment. It wasnt until I got there that I found out other mums had similar issues with their children and they were getting great results.
I probably started seeing results after the first few adjustments. My son was able to lie on his back without screaming and I could put him in the pram and go for walks after the first week. My chiropractor mentioned that his neck and back were all out and this would be causing him a lot of pain and he had a very tight stomach which he massaged to move things through. I felt sad that my son was in pain and it had taken me 4 months to find him some relief. Over the next few months I started seeing my son getting happier. He could now play on the floor and smile and be more settled. I could enjoy him more, but I was still having trouble breastfeeding and topping up with bottles, so at about 5 months I ditched the breastfeeding altogether and put him on formula, but not without a fight. I had exhausted all avenues to breastfeed. I went to the breastfeeding clinic and was monitored using ultrasound while trying to breastfeed my son to see how much he was getting and how he was attaching to the breast. Imagine being hooked up to 3 machines and having about 4 people standing around and under you with an ultrasound device under your breast while trying to breastfeed, yeah, fun....NOT. They suggested that I test exactly how much he gets in a day by monitoring, which involved, over 48 hours, for every feed weighing him before and after each feed on each breast and taking a sample of milk for each feed on each breast and then totalling the weights for before and after to see how much he had taken. It was a nightmare, trying to do this twice during the night as he would normally fall asleep after the feed, but instead, I had to put in on a set of cold scales to weigh him. It was crazy and in the end it showed that he took in about 700 mls per day which was sufficient. When he was on the bottle full-time, he was drinking over 1000mls and was thriving. So although 700 mls might be sufficient, for him, it wasnt enough, so he was often crying from hunger as well. So much to learn with very little help. Thankfully, I had worked most of it out by about 8 months and he had settled down was doing really well. I however, was a wreck. The stress and exhaustion of it all was taking its toll.
My husband and I have no family around us, so we were on our own and I was on my own during the day while my husband worked. I was struggling, but hiding it well.
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