We have battled excessive spit-up with Kinsley from the start. Even in her days in NICU, she just loved eating so much, that she would "bring it back up" for us to "see" again. :) No matter if it was formula, even the mildest of formulas, breastmilk, with rice cereal mixed-in or without, Zantac or Nizatidine, nothing seemed to work. And the worst part is, we don't know when it's coming...sometimes (rarely) not coming back up at all...and sometimes it's right after a feeding with force as a projectile, and other times it's 2 hours later for no reason, usually catching whoever is holding her completely off guard. I feel like she should wear a t-shirt with the saying from the sign that I remembered seeing at Splash Mtn. when we used to go to Six Flags..."You Will Get Wet, You Might Get Soaked."
So last Thursday, after spitting back up a majority of what I had just fed her (and to me, pumped breastmilk is like gold), I decided to call our pediatrician to see if there was anything else we could try going into the weekend. Her next ped appt was not until June 11th. I contemplated just waiting it out until then and discussing new options at her next appt...I mean, "all babies spit up" right? I have heard this countless times. But something just didn't feel right. Something wasn't right. I felt like there was a problem. I now am fully aware that I had experienced my first dose of "mother's intuition"...and it didn't let me down.
After talking through the symptoms with the ped nurse, we were asked to come into Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's radiology center for an ultrasound on Friday to see if they could rule out signs of pyloric stenosis (see previous blog posting from last week). Good news...it was clear. So one procedure down, and one scary condition ruled out. Check.
Yesterday (Monday) morning, we were headed back to CHOA for a Barium Swallow (the nastiest white chalky looking stuff I have ever seen...like thick, white primer paint) and chest/tummy x-ray. We were supposed to be going to "confirm" what we all thought the problem was...acid reflux. Something that I knew all too well from pregnancy, and know how uncomfortable it is. I just thought that if they could diagnose it, and we could move onto a different method of feeding, medicine, etc to help ease her discomfort. That's what I thought, anyway. The news we got was much different. I got a call from Kinsley's ped himself yesterday afternoon, not his nurse...my first sign that something might not be right. He explained that while we could rule out acid reflux, something else had popped up on the x-ray...an impression on the wall of her esophagus, something pressing against it that shouldn't be there. "She has an aberrant artery"......
Artery? What? Heart? I thought it was just acid reflux? Now I start hearing words like cardiologist, EKG, etc...what? It was something so rarely caught in babies that our ped, who's been practicing for over 30 years, didn't have much information to give us. So, an aberrant artery...she has a major artery that's "not where it should be." We prepared ourselves for the worst...surgery...and prayed for the best...nothing.
Today, our prayers were answered, and we got some further information on Kinsley's condition. She has an aberrant right subclavian artery, which technically means that she has a congenital heart defect, but a benign one...thank goodness. It occurs in 1 out of 200 people. So, it's not common, but not uncommon either. Essentially, where most normal hearts have 3 main arteries leading from the aorta to the rest of the body, and one of those 3 arteries splits off into 2 (for a total of 4), Kinsley's 3rd artery never "branches off"...instead, she has a separate 4th artery coming directly from her aorta and it is wrapping around the back of her esophagus. Confused? The image below should help...image #1 on the left is Kinsley's heart..image #2 on the right is a normal heart.
So, no surgery (yay!), and she goes back at 6 months for another EKG and Echocardiogram. Then, she'll most likely be "monitored" throughout childhood for any issues, but should go on to just be a normal, happy, healthy little girl. What a blessing! As a friend told me today: "she's just got more heart to love with." So, so true.
And as for the spitting up? We have an appt in June with a GI specialist to get to the bottom of that. But were it not for the spit-up in the first place, we would have never discovered the bigger issue. And I have learned a lesson in all this: babies can't talk, they can't tell you what hurts or what's wrong, so we as mommies and daddies are their only voice. A parent's intuition. I will always go with my gut moving forward.
Our Kinsley is such a trooper...with everything she has had gone through in her first 10 1/2 weeks on this earth...my placental abruption, a c-section 5 weeks early, 14 days in NICU, C-Pap's, IV's, feeding tubes, heart monitors, countless pricks with needles, jaundice, ultrasounds, x-rays, EKG's, Echocardiograms...and still her newly-discovered ability to smile and coo lights up the room and makes being her mommy the best thing I have ever experienced.
