Aisley growing?!

Finally ...
6 months!

It's sad to say "Finally 6 months..."

The reason I say "Finally..." takes some explanation: she is a wonderful happy baby with only minor tummy issues "Now"...but it has been a long road up to this point. She was born with several food allergies. I started out nursing her right from the get go, but after about two weeks learned...and from past experience was thinking she might be...allergic to Dairy. She was! Not only to dairy though...we would soon Finally...find out that eggs bothered her, and green veggies, chocolate, and acidic fruits like strawberries, pineapple, lemons, limes, watermelon, cantaloupe and every other fruit I tried. She would scream, arch her back & cry and cry for at least an hour straight until she would vomit everything she just drank, back up. I say vomit, because we are not talking about just a little bit of spit-up here. It was full projectile, she could launch it a whole bench in front of us at church and soak the entire row. Ready, Aim, Fire! You had to be quick once you heard the little bubbles starting to come up and have that huge burpcloth ready; ready to make a little pool in the cloth to keep it from going all over you and everything else! She was constantly spitting up, constantly squirming like her belly hurt and would even get rashes under her chin from spitting up so much in her carseat on trips that she'd have a soaked bib or shirt the entire day, even when I'd put a fresh shirt on her it would be soaked instantly.
I tried drinking soy milk to replace in my cooking or in my cereal...and I just couldn't do it for very long, after about a month I hated the taste of soymilk so much that I would just put water in my cereal. So then when she was 2 months old I tried Lactaid milk, doesn't have any lactose in it, tasted so much better, like real milk! Aisley started getting fussy again Problem was most babies that can't do dairy have an allergy to the milk protein whey, not lactose, and sure enough she became super fussy again, crying for hours and hours and not sleeping at all at night.
She eats every three hours and then pukes half of it up and then is hungry again. It became very tiresome and hard for me to keep anything in her, and at 3 months old in January I Finally gave up trying to nurse her. It was very hard for me to avoid things with dairy and eggs in them; Everything is made with Dairy or Eggs!!! I couldn't have bread, any boxed mixes, desserts cookies cakes...you name it, no breakfast stuff - cereal, yogurt, pancakes, french toast or eggs, or fruit, even granola has dairy, it pretty much canceled everything out of my diet besides plain meat or veggies not green....and I just couldn't deal day to day on that! The doctors say she will grow out of her food allergies by 12-24months.

Finally I was able to eat "Real" food again! Plus with the sleeping issue of no solid sleep at night... because she has been waking up every three hours to eat ever since she was born, in turn means I don't sleep. I know I could have let her cry herself back to sleep when she would wake during the night, but with her being such a lightweight ~ only 5th percentile for weight ~ I needed her to drink a bottle every time she'd wake at night! So even now up until this week she has been waking up every 3 hrs at night to have a bottle. She wakes, I make a bottle, she has to be burped then drinks again, then spits up, then diaper change, and then rocked back to sleep, so in all total time takes an hour each time she wakes so she sleeps for 2 hours before she wakes and is hungry again. And That's Tough! It's been really tough for both Mark and I to go on little to no sleep each and every day. She is now not even on the charts for weight for a 6 month old
~ she weighs 12 lbs 3oz.

We have had several doctor's appts. We used to have to take her in to the doctors every 10 days to check her weight up until the end of March when she turned 5 months old. We have had blood tests, heel sticks, Ultrasounds, and a Boise trip to a Gastroenteroligist specialist to examine her. She has been through the ringer! They determined that she has no esophageal valve and so everything she eats comes right back up. So Finally we have some explanation as to why this is happening to her.
We have been through every type of formula possible that is available on the retail shelf ...tried regular, tried added rice for thickness, tried GentleEase, tried Soy, tried Nutramigen, and... Finally, have found one that is at least Tolerable, not Perfect, but Tolerable. She spits up less with Allimentum formula. It is suppose to curdle in her stomach before she has time to spit much of it back up...but she still does spit up...mostly just stomach acid though. So now she is on a medication that we mix and give to her weekly that is helping with the Acid Reflux problem she has. She is Finally to the point where we are figuring things out and are starting to see some improvement..., Finally!
She started sleeping through the night just this week! She goes to sleep at 9:30pm and then wakes at 7am for a bottle and goes back to sleep til 10! Finally!
Despite all of her tummy troubles, food allergies, and Acid reflux problems... she is the happiest baby I have ever seen. She gives her smiles away for free, even at someone just passing through the room smiling at her ~ she smiles back, someone laughs ~ she laughs, and even the kids laughing at cartoons on the t.v. she laughs at them laughing! I've never had or seen a baby so smiley, she truly is a joy between feedings...

...And it shows!

So Finally, the reason I say it's sad to say "Finally 6 months" is because it's sad wishing "your baby" would grow up faster. Wishing she was bigger so that her problems would go away. So she would finally be out of pain and free from spitting up and from food allergies and have her digestive system fix itself as she grows(that's what the Dr's have told us). Babies should stay babies as long as possible, you should be wishing to have your baby stay small so you can rock her and cuddle her, you should be wishing your baby would never grow-up.... and in my case it is the exact opposite.
So "Finally" is so hard to say,
yet so great at the same time!
I love you Aisley and feel blessed to be your mother. I am humbled to know that it could always be worse and that we have the least of many problems that other children have been dealt in this life. I truly am grateful to have such a sweet and strong loving baby girl, and I can't wait until you are Finally grown out of all these troubles!
Finally