Remembering.......

This time last year - my poor little sleepy head!

It was a year ago this week that things started to go so terribly wrong with Peter. I took a long trip down memory lane yesterday with a dear friend and recalled everything I could about Peter's journey from last year. It began with feeding issues. I remembered with Alana, that she made a big jump in how much food she took in somewhere between four and six weeks old. With the big intake of food, she also started being much more awake and alert. We kept waiting for Peter to make this same jump, but he never did. At two months old, he was still eating pretty much the same as a newborn. Because of this, he was also still sleeping A LOT - like a newborn. I remember thinking that maybe I was just comparing my two kids too much (something I knew no mom should ever do). Peter wasn't Alana. He would pick up his food intake in his own good time, not when Alana did it.

After a while of this train of thought, I knew something was still not right. I called the pediatrician's office and they suggested a gentler formula. So, Tom and I went to the store and bought new formula #1. The nurse told me that it would possibly take a good few days for Peter to adjust and for us to see an increase in his appetite. She said if that didn't work to try the soy-based formula. We tried the new stuff for a few days and there were no results. After talking with a few different people, Tom and I decided to go ahead and try the soy-based formula to see if that did the trick (new formula #2). Again, we gave it a few days and no improvement. I can specifically remember two different conversations - one with my mom and one with my good friend Denise. Both of them highly encouraged me to go ahead and make the decision to try Enfamil-Nutramigen (new formula #3). My mom said that I had needed that when I was a baby because I had had some of the same feeding issues. Denise told me that both of her boys had to be on Nutramigen and she could tell big improvements with their very first bottle of it. So, again off we go to the store and buy ANOTHER can of formula. I thought Peter seemed to do a wee tiny bit better on the Nutramigen and I thought maybe it would just take a few days for his feeding to really pick up.

Ever since all the events of a year ago, I've kept these three cans of formula that I bought over those two weeks before Peter was diagnosed. They've been sitting on the top shelf of my pantry and I've not been able to bring myself to throw them away. Silly, I know. But for some reason, they are such a visible reminder of those last few weeks of a little bit of "normal" before the bottom dropped out. It's almost as if they represent the end of our innocence. Anyway, I know I need to throw them away (they're probably starting to go bad), so I've decided to post a picture of them here and maybe that will bring me the closure I need:) Life was never and never will be the same as it was those first two weeks of February 2009.