Abigail did start having problems from the start. She would not eat for quite some time. Finally, when I got some food in her she started spitting everything up. Not a big deal, her body is new, it's just figuring everything out. She also was not maintaining her body temperature well at all. This however, self corrected itself within the first 24 hours of her life. As for her tummy problems, I told the hospital nurses and doctors everytime I fed her, how much, and how much she was spitting up. She also never passed her meconium (sorry if that's TMI). They were obviously not in the least bit concerned, because they discharged us and we eagerly went home.
Once we got home, (of course she waited), her spit-up turned green. Of course, I was even more concerned, so I made an appointment with a pediatric urgent care. They called us back within a hour and told us to go straight to the ER. We went to Davis Hospital's ER, they did a chest x-ray, told us that her stomach was distended, and transferred us via ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. Their immediate thought was that Abigail's small intestines were twisted and causing a blockage. If that were the case, she'd need emergency surgery. This part may be TMI....they then did a contrast test. They injected dye through her nose to inspect her small intestines and they did the same through her bottom to inspect her large intestine. They also stuck a tube down her nose to pump her stomach of all the ickiness.
The Radiology doctor let us know that he could not find anything wrong with her small intestine. This was good, all of the problems that could happen with her small intestine were the hardest to fix, so we were very pleased. He also could not find any blockages in her large intestine. This left us with 2 "most likely" options. She's either one of the 2% of babies who's colon and instestines do not wake up within the first 48 hours, (Extremely rare, and is seen primarily in a baby who's Mommy had diabetes), or most likely she has short segment Hirschsprung's Disease.
Hirschsprung's (HERSH-sproongz) disease is a condition that affects the large intestine (colon) and causes problems with passing stool. Hirschsprung's disease is present when a baby is born (congenital) and results from missing nerve cells in the muscles of a portion of the baby's colon.
Basically, the nerves in her large intestine do not work correctly. Today the surgical team came up to do a biopsy of her large intestine and we should know in 24 hours if she has the disease. If she doesn't, she's either in the 2% or we're back to the drawing board. If it is Hirschsprung's, she'll need 2 surgeries, one to put in a bag in the meantime, and another to cut the damaged intestine out and reconnect the good parts.
Luckily she's been pumped of everything that was making her sick and drained of her meconium and everything else backed up in there, so her tummy is feeling a little bit better. She has been such a little trooper through this whole ordeal. She's doing an awesome job. I think Ian and I have cried more than she has, and it's not us getting an iv in our head, tubes down our throat, things stuck up in places that they shouldn't be, etc. We're so proud of her :)
We're just hoping that we get some good news and obviously we would love to not see her go through surgery. But if so, we just want to get everything over and done with so she's not in pain anymore. I just feel so blessed that so far we've only been presented with fixable problems!
