Zoe's Health Issues--Why we've been gone!

Ok, so here is the Pollei update:

For some of you that haven't heard, there has been mayhem in the Pollei household over the last few weeks. It all started about 2 1/2 weeks ago, when I thought something wasn't quite right with Zoe. I know babies spit up, but this wasn't what I thought a normal amount of spit up should look like and it didn't help that she was displaying other peculiar behaviors. (i.e- Turning blue and choking on my milk while nursing, gasping for air in the middle of the night and not breathing, and jerking uncontrollably while sleeping)

I called my doctor to ask if these things were "normal baby behaviors" for a 3 week old .... My doctor thought... not normal and we need to do some investigating.

Here's what happened.... We were told to put her on an at home apnea monitor, to watch her heart and lungs 24/7. When she would stop breathing or her heart rate was too high or too low, the monitor would sound. It went off ALL the time. You can imagine how much sleep we were getting, and how crazy worried I was becoming.

After this, it was time for further diagnostic observations requested by my doctor, thus we were admitted to the hospital for a variety of tests.

After 30 hours, and a horrible night in the hospital, here is what was concluded:

To rule out seizures, we had to do an overnight video surveillance with an EKG and EGG on her. Her slightly violent jerking was concluded to be a benign diagnosis called Baby Myoclonis and not "true" seizures, and although these jerks mimicked seizures, most babies grow out of these episodes in a few months.

Her turning blue while nursing and choking on my milk was concluded to be due to her inability to nurse rhythmically. She had to have an x-ray to figure out if her feeding tube and breathing tube (aka esophagus and trachea to Taylor) were connected in her throat, thus causing all of her choking...but thankfully they are not connected. So since,I've had to teach her that breathing is a very necessary thing while she is eating, pacing her and pulling her off every few seconds. She still is trying to figure out the "Suck, Suck, Swallow, Breathe" thing, but is doing better and not turning blue anymore.

And, the apnea monitor data recorded at home, after being read by a pulmonologist, was concluded to be not true apnea, but rather a lack of breathing due to her intense acid reflux. (Basically choking on her spit up in the middle of the night)

So all good news... she is not seizing and she doesn't have true apnea. However, dealing with a baby with acid reflux and teaching my baby to nurse rhythmically has been a challenge. However, I welcome the challenge after all of this knowing that she doesn't have any more serious health problems.

Zoe and I are doing better and are recovering from all of the testing and craziness over the last few weeks. We continue to survive and do well. Zoe is a thriving baby and gaining weight even due to her reflux. She is almost nine pounds now.