Silent Ref(l)ucks

Remember I said I would be writing more, and then I didn’t. And then I did…..but inevitably I didn’t. Well here I am again hoping I’ll write more. I have missed the cathartic nature of writing, I have needed it more than ever the last few months but the reason I’ve needed to write is the reason I haven’t been able to.

Finley is almost 7 months old, seven whole months. Jesus. The last time I wrote things were tough and I told you about crying in my yoga class. Well turns out that was the beginning of the end of my sanity! As I suspected our poor bub had silent reflux which is probably a symptom of his cows milk protein intolerance. Basically it means he (and we) spent at least 16 weeks dealing with acid travelling up and down his oesophagus (it’s silent because he swallows it back down rather than vomiting). Medication helped and stopped the nights of non stop crying however many more tears were to follow, evenly divided between me and my boy.

So straight up silent reflux is a temporary issue which babies grow out of. It’s not life challenging or life limiting, it didn’t require hospital stays for us and therefore it is minor, almost insignificant, compared to what other people face. I absolutely accept that and it was my mantra every day. What it did do though was send me to a place of exhaustion and stomp on my fingers every time I tried to climb out. All new parents are exhausted, you know that – we say it all the time. We say it so much it’s boring, what did we expect? We tell expecting parents with glee – oh just wait for the exhaustion, you think you’re tired now? We scoff. Well reflux tired is different. Reflux tired is being kept up all night by your tormenter and then tending to their needs every day.

Wait, stop. Finley is not a tormenter, I know that. Finley spends all day smiling and laughing. He holds my face in his tiny hands and kisses me constantly. Everything I do makes him laugh, he’s the most rewarding audience I’ve ever had. He is literally a standing ovation (well maybe not literally since he can’t stand, but you know what I mean). He takes his medicine laughing, he changed to bottles laughing, we should have named him Joy and just have let him deal with the consequences. However the first hour of the morning I've had to accept another new day and the last hour of night we have had to ready ourselves for the lack of sleep to come. I have had to remind myself that he is not a tormenter, he is my gift, an accumulation of every good we had done in our lives given back to us in a beautiful package. This is the greatest test of reflux, to separate the baby from the circumstance.

What has made it so hard though? Sometimes I don’t know. Tiredness is a tricky beast, it takes over everything even your memory. I know that every day I was exceptionally happy, I know that Finley never got the brunt of my tiredness but I know that Brian did. I know that the three of us danced in the kitchen together every night, I know that every day Brian got a picture of Finley being adorable, and I know that almost every morning he had to see me have one little cry to help me get it out of my system. We have been hellbent on not letting it take over our experience of Finley and it hasn’t. Day to day has been glorious still, but somewhere amongst it all I developed a slight anxiety of night times. The anxiety probably made them worse than they actually were because I started to fear the night and what it would bring, even the times when it ended up not being so bad. It also made me slightly unreasonable when it came to letting go of control and allowing Brian to help more.

Thankfully I think (please god let it be true) we have finally got Finley settled on the right formula, his medication has the reflux under control and so we moved him into his own room to see if it would help with his wakenings. I very quietly whisper this but it has. Due to a foot injury and being unable to rock him asleep I’ve also inadvertently started sleep training and the last two nights he has woken only once. Immediately things are better for me, which is where we are blessed that it was only reflux we have had to deal with. And that brings me back here, to write it all down and document another new part of parenting that I hadn’t expected. Parenting has been a struggle at times, thankfully though Finley, our baby, has not.

And you Reflux, you can go f(l)uck yourself.....see what I did there?

PS: my next blog is going to be such a happy one. It's going to be a giant brag about my life, so much bragging you'll need a vomit bag just to get through it.