Our First Christmas Miracle

    This is a short story about mine and my husbands first Christmas as parents to a newborn baby boy born on November 13, 1996.  Our first Christmas was in a hospital when our son was 8 weeks old. 

    Hello my name is Jennifer, my husbands name is Frederick, 4 weeks ago we were blessed with a healthy baby boy named Johnathon.  Lately he hasn't been so healthy he is not holding down his formula.  He is constantly crying and what little formula he holds down does not fill him up.  The Dr's do not know what is the matter with him, the hospital's do not know what is the matter with him either.  Neither does family on my side or family on my husbands side know what is the matter with our son.  At this rate he will not survive to see this Christmas, we are very scared he will not live.  It seems like we can't feed him fast enough let alone enough.  He is up to 8 ozs. of formula with rice every 4 hours.  It became so bad he became colicky, and no one would sleep that night unless we went for a car ride. 

    The hospital visits at first were every week, but when he was 6 weeks old the hospital visits increased to every night.  Every other day we were at the pediatricians office trying to get help there too.  The pediatricians suggested we try changing his formula to a soy formula in case of a milk based formula allergy.  Johnathon seemed to be holding down the soy based formula, but he was still eating 8ozs. but instead of every 4 hours it was happening every two hours.  So we continued to mix rice with his formula, in hopes that some of it would stay in his system.  He was doing projectile vomiting of anything and everything he would eat or drink. 

    By the time Johnathon was 7 weeks old we were spending more time in the emergency room and the pediatricians office than at home.  He was still not holding down anything, he was getting severely dehydrated he was barely peeing and was not having any bowel movements.  His soft spot on his head was sunk in and his eyes were sunk in the eye sockets.  It was safe to say Johnathon was starving to death and no one knew what was the matter with him still.  A friend of the family who was a psychic, her name was Silk, guessed that Johnathon was sick and no one told her, and no one told her his symptoms, and she guessed all of the symptoms to a tee.  She told us to have him checked for a genetic disorder called Pyloric Steno sis. The next day we were at the Pediatricians office and we talked to a Dr. John Millionis.  We told him that my mom was a nurse and she said to have him checked for Pyloric Steno sis.  Sure enough that is exactly what was the matter with Johnathon.  So he scheduled Johnathon for surgery that Monday which was Christmas week. 

    The week that Johnathon was to have his surgery he was getting ready to turn 8 weeks old.  So Christmas week we reported to Phoenix Children's Hospital for him to be prepared for his surgery.  When we checked into the hospital for his surgery Johnathon was severely dehydrated.  He looked like he had one foot in the grave.  The hospital immediately got him hooked up to feeding tubes and IV tubes to get some sort of substantiated food and liquid in his body to re-hydrate him.  It was a critical 24 hours, so that the next day he can have the surgery.  The next day Johnathon went in for the surgery early in the morning.  The Dr's at the hospital told us if we would have waited much longer he would have died from starvation and thirst.

    It was a grimace sight seeing tubes sticking out of everywhere on our son.  It was heartbreaking for us as parents to see all those tubes sticking out of our son.  When I told my mom Johnathon was sick, she said to me, "I was a poor excuse for a mother, I didn't deserve to have him, and she was going to take him away from me."  Than  when we finally figured out that Johnathon had a genetic disease and it wasn't do to poor parenting, as inappropriate and in poor taste, it was fun rubbing it in my mom's face that it was not poor parenting on our part, but a genetic disorder it was all on her than for not giving me the information I asked for about my dad.  I was the carrier of the Pyloric Steno-sis disease an that is what was making him sick. 

    Johnathon survived the surgery, the next day was Christmas Eve.  Johnathon still had the IV tubes in him but they pulled the feeding tube out.  We started him on 2 ozs. of formula and 2 ozs. of water every two hours which gradually increased to every four hours.  Johnathon finally had enough a full belly to where he could actually sleep between feedings, which meant Frederick and I had time to go eat dinner our self at the hospital cafeteria.  When we got back Santa had paid a visit to us while we stepped out for dinner.  Johnathon had woken up for his feeding for dinner and he actually held it down.  Johnathon actually looked healthy for once instead of two inches from death.  Johnathon was finally peeing on a regular bases, but he hadn't had a bowel movement yet.

    Christmas day came and Johnathon just kept getting better and better everyday.  In the afternoon he finally had a bowel movement.  So that night we were able to go home and enjoy Christmas dinner with our family.  So for our first Christmas as new parents we were blessed with our own Christmas miracle thanks to Silk, because if she hadn't told us what was the matter Johnathon wouldn't be here today.  Today Johnathon is a healthy 16 year old young man with a healthy appetite for food.  So in the end my family was blessed with a Christmas miracle of our own.  If we didn't have a divine intervention from Silk Johnathon would have died from Pyloric Steno-sis and we wouldn't have known any different.

                                                                                                          The End

                                                                                God Bless you and your family from mine.