My Little Easter Buddy

On April 10, 1998 we brought Jason home. It was Good Friday, what an appropriate day. All the kids fell in love as fast as I did. Steve was a little stand offish, just kinda looked from a distance. That was until I was standing in the kitchen with the baby on my shoulder and Steve started to walk past. Jason caught Steve's glance and they stared at each other, then the little man smiled. Well needless to say Steve turned into a big mush ball. From that day on Jason was his baby, during the day of course.
I thought I knew everything there was about babies and I did, just not abused ones. When I changed his diaper he screamed, when he was sound asleep he screamed, when I tried to lay him down he screamed. So I called an expert, Donna, my good friend and nurse, who actually took care of the baby in the pediatric intensive care unit. I flooded her with questions, she answered each and everyone of them without making me feel as if I were a complete idiot. Yes he probably had pain in his head, he has skull fractures. The constant crying was a neuro cry from the brain trauma. It probably causes pain in his head to lift his butt up to change his diaper, that put pressure on the back of his head. So I needed to fix that. When he needed to be changed, it took 2 . One to take off the old diaper and gently lift him up, the other to place the diaper down so he could be laid on it. One problem solved. When I could lay him down to sleep(which wasn't often), He slept on a feather pillow placed in the bassinet. Most of the time I just held him and slept in the recliner all night. The next was to change his formula, he puked all the time and passed a lot of gas. So we tried soy, no good, then we tried 3 more all with the same results. So the pediatrician recommended Alimentum. Liquid not powder, it worked but boy did it stink, going in and coming out. Now to figure out why he screamed all the time, not a painful scream a scared scream. So I was given the name of an infant mental health specialist. Who even knew there was such a person. Well my friend Nancy W. did. That was on my to do list for the week after Easter. Wow I forgot how much laundry you have to do with a baby. But it was o.k., he needed us.