Just to See Her Smile!

So, within the last couple of months, since my last blog, Lila developed a pretty severe case of colic.  It's really kind of a blur.  I would say for a good month and a half, she had to be held about 90% of the day, even when she was sleeping.  If we got her to sleep in our arms, and attempted to lay her down, she would instantly wake up.  If we would lay her on her back, she would last about 2 minutes if we were lucky, and then she would cry.  If we layed her on her stomach, she lasted even less.  Fortunately, the doctor told us that she get's tummy time plenty of other ways, like when we hold her facing us, or when she lays on our chest.  Even when we held her, we couldn't just hold her.  We had to most of the time, be up with her, walking, jossling, dancing.  Whatever it took!  She told us to hold her as much, stand up as much, rock her as much, as it took to keep her comfortable through the colicky months, which could be anywhere from 3 months to a year!  What??? I about freaked out when i heard it could be a year.

For the first several weeks, she was fussy during the day and then had her major screaming episodes of colic in the evening.  When the episodes first started at about a month old, we didn't know what the heck to do.  She would scream bloody murder and nothing would console her.  She was obviously in pain.  She showed all the symptoms listed for colic.  Screaming, writhing, scrunching her stomach and then flayling back.  It was obvious she was in significant pain.  One article I read said that colic is definitely the worst pain your child has experienced thus far in life.  Thank you author, that makes me feel much better!

She also never slept soundly during the day.  Fortunately, she's always slept very well at night.  At a month, she was waking up about every 3 hours, but would eat and go back to sleep, something we had trouble getting Ben to do.  At 2 months, she was making it 4-6 hours, eating and then going back to sleep.  Now at 3 months, she's sleeping anywhere from 7-9 ours, eating, and then going back to sleep.  I am very fortunately, because if I were dealing with the screaming during the day and then no sleep at night, I would have needed to be institutionalized! 

We were giving her Mylocon around the clock, and it wasn't helping at all.  The fact that she is the noisiest eater on the face of the earth doesn't help her gas issues.  The doctor recommended gripe water, something I had never heard of before.  It was a miracle worker!  It didn't do it every time, but often times, Lila would be in the middle of one of her episodes, we would give her gripe water, and she would instantly ease. 

A few weeks ago, she started having episodes all day long.  So, instead of dealing with 2 or 3 a night, we would deal with 5 or 6 a day.  Several nights, I just stayed over at Mom and Dad's to get extra help, especially when Hector went back to school.  We were both completely worn out.  So was the rest of the family.  It truly took a group effort.  We would have to take shifts, and by the end of your shift, you were totally worn out.  Bc even when she wasn't screaming, she wasn't happy either.  We would get one or two smiles a day and be thrilled!  We appreciated them so much more, bc they were so few.  Lately, Lila has become a major mama's girl.  So other people would have to hold her in between episodes bc i was the only one who could calm her down during episodes.  One day was so bad that I just stayed in the shower for about 45 minutes b/c it was the one place I couldn't hear her scream.  If she was just screaming just to scream, that would have been one thing.  But knowing she was in pain, made it so much harder.

This picture is of one precious and rare smile we caught at about 2 months.  What a treasure!

Depressing blog so far, huh?  Well, here's the good news.  Lila turns 3 months old this week, and it appears that the colic is fading.  She still has occasional episodes, but they are fewer and she can be calmed easier.  She will now sometimes lay in her swing awake and happy!  That is huge!  The other day, she layed in my lap for over 30 minutes, just looking up at me completely content.  No fussing.  I didn't know what to do with myself!  The entire time, we have been counting our blessings, completely aware of how minor colic is compared to other challenges we could be facing.  But we are so incredibly thankful that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  It is very obvious that Lila is in less pain, Praise God!  I can't wait to see the personality that emerges now that she's more herself.  We've already seen more content and happy moment in the past week that we've seen in the previous two month combined.  We'll take it!