July 22 = Acid Reflux Day

When Liam was a few days/weeks old, he started having these episodes that looked like seizures.  Everyone in my family on my mom's side had seizures as a baby- I remember my brother having them in the hospital- we were about to take him home when it happened and a really nice nurse took me to a different room and we colored and talked about being a big sister- I was six but I remember it pretty clearly.  Because of our strong family history, I was expecting Liam to have seizures.  So when he had these episodes, I figured that's what they were.  We took a video and showed it to his pediatrician.  They referred us to neurology but we couldn't get an appointment until two months later.  Every doctor we showed, though, said they weren't seizures- it was severe acid reflux.  We put him on Zantac and by the time we had his neurology appointment, the episodes had stopped.  Fast Forward.  When Malia was born, we were on the lookout for seizures but were hoping for the best since Liam didn't have any until he was 5 months old- maybe Malia won't have any at all!  Well on the 22nd, she started doing the same thing Liam did.  They're a little different- they aren't quite as bad for as they were for him and we are hoping it stays that way.  I called the pediatrician to make her 1 week appointment and mentioned the episodes.  A nurse called me back within 5 minutes of making the appointment and recommended we take her to the ER to make sure they weren't seizures and that she didn't have a fever or anything that was obviously wrong going on.  So Mo and I took Malia to the ER.  Her temperature was 97.8 and she didn't have any episodes while we were there.  Zachary was on his way home from class so I was calling him periodically to update him.  At one point, the doctor had consulted a pediatric neurologist at another hospital and came back with their plan of action which was to do a 24 hour EEG.  I would have been okay with that but then she explained that Anne Arundel doesn't have the resources to complete this test so we would have to be transferred to a hospital in Washington, DC.  She also wanted to do blood work which they would do through the IV they would have to insert anyway for the transport.  I immediately started crying because I had flashbacks to tiny little Liam with an IV in his head and I just couldn't imagine having to watch Malia go through the same thing.  When the doctor left Mo asked me if I was okay with what she said.  At the time I wasn't remembering that as a parent, I have the option of disagreeing with the doctor.  This is dangerous because I do not have a medical degree but from my experience with Liam going through very similar symptoms, I really didn't think they were seizures.  If we went through this whole ordeal and she didn't have another episode in the following 24 hours (which she didn't), it would have all been for nothing.  I called Zachary to tell them the plan and he said he didn't want to do this- he was more aware of his parental choice than I was.  So he came to the hospital and talked to the doctor and explained where we were coming from.  She wasn't super understanding- you could tell she really thought we should go but she arranged for the discharge anyway.  My dad has a theory that each time one of us in this family has a seizure, the doctor in charge wants to be the one to figure out why these seizures have been happening to every baby for generations.  We just didn't want Malia to be their guinea pig and I'm glad we stood our ground because the EEG wouldn't have caught anything as she didn't have any episodes during the time she would have been monitored.  She's had more since and they are looking more and more like the ones Liam had.  They're also consistently after feeding which supports the acid reflux theory.

We took her to the pediatrician the next day and explained everything that happened.  He said that as a doctor, he sees where the ER doctor was coming from wanting to rule out seizures but that as a parent, he agreed with our decision.  He pointed out that he has the advantage of knowing us as parents (he's Liam's pediatrician as well) and knows that if we refused to follow the doctor's recommendation we had a valid reason and that our parental instinct is valuable.  He told us what to look for and strongly recommended that if she had another episode that lasted more than 3 minutes we take her back and we do whatever the doctor said but that we shouldn't worry too much about these 10-20 second episodes.  

So we are anxious about these episodes and we hate to see her go through the pain Liam went through.  I'm adjusting my diet, we're trying to burp her more and have her spend a lot of time upright vs. lying down and she has another appointment with the pediatrician on Monday.  We got a video of an episode so we can get his opinion.  Hopefully we can resolve this before too long.  And on a lighter note- here's a picture of both of the kiddos in the rock 'n' play.