small update on Natalie

Natalie had the ultrasound on her kidney done. She still has Hydronephrosis of the right kidney and will need more testing and possibly some treatment. The doctors are starting her on an adult dose of antibiotics and will continue this for a minimum of 31 days. She may need to be on antibiotics for up to a year depending on what future testing shows. We go back to the doctor on 1/5/09 to talk about what to do next.

We will also talk to the doctor about reflux. Natalie definitely has it, although she's not nearly as colicky as Ally and Tommy were (at least not yet. lol) She is good when she's comfortable. She wants to be held all the time, which i'm sure is as a result of not feeling all that great. She clears her throat and coughs, hiccups, arches her back, etc., just like ally and tommy did. I'm sure she's just as reflux-y as they were, but she's just a more laid back personality. As long as we're holding/rocking her, she's happy, whereas ally needed constant jostling. I am sure you remember me talking about having to walk around the house from 10:30pm-4:30am every night. And both ally and tommy needed the white noise as a distraction. Natalie doesn't really care about white noise and as long as she's got a warm body near her, she's content. I'm sure we're handling it better also just because we've been here, done that.

We also think she has a milk allergy. She had diarrhea non-stop since my milk came in. It was like a faucet. We called the doctor b/c we were worried about dehydration and they asked about some other milk allergy symptoms they knew of and we answered yes to almost all of them. If you all remember, Ally had constipation as her milk allergy symptom (of which only 5% of kids with a milk allergy have) so we had nothing to compare it to. Natalie has diarrhea and a red bottom that no medication clears up (it's different than a regular diaper rash, it's actually a reaction to the milk). So, they advised us to try soy. Since starting the soy, she has had no diarrhea or soreness.

So, that's the latest news.