Because baby beaker (DS2) clearly had not yet been through enough problems in his short life, we're going through the ringer again. Thursday early morning he was extremely fussy, which progressed to blood in his stool by early afternoon. I had emailed his normal pediatrician who didn't seem overly alarmed so I was ok with a 3pm appt instead of rushing to the ER. Once at the appointment they said he was way too sick (by this time he had developed some bruising over his hips and his belly became distended) and so we were sent via ambulance to a pediatric ER, and when we got there they immediately called to helicopter him over to the children's hospital for a surgery consult. He had surgery Friday morning to remove a section of his intestines which had died as a result of necrotizing enterocolitis. Apparently its basically unheard of for a baby to develop it as late as he did (nearly 3 months old, 1 month adjusted) even though its more prevalent in preemies, they normally get it while still initially hospitalized.

So now he gets to stay in the NICU for 4-6 weeks until they can do surgery to reconnect his intestines, which currently are coming out through a hole in his tummy. And then who knows how long after that he can come home. He's drugged up on morphine.

I know I have a lot to be thankful for (we caught it reasonably early although it gets critical very quickly, we live close to one of the best children's hospitals on the US, we have family to help with DS1, etc), to be very honest DH and I are just so upset. I thought we had our share of terrible things to deal with but apparently we haven't yet. DS2 had been home for just under a month and had been doing so great. I felt like I finally saw the light at the end of a tunnel and now I'm in a totally different tunnel that's way scarier. I'm also having trouble with feeling guilty that I didn't initially take him to the ER, although his symptoms progressed so quickly its not clear how much earlier they would have taken me seriously.

Just needed to vent. And maybe some HB hugs.