Birth: Isaiah was born 5 weeks early due to pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. I was induced with pitocin and after 10 hrs the most beautiful baby I have ever seen was born. Isaiah weighed 5 pounds even and even scored 9-9 on the apgar. About 15 mins later though they observed he needed some breathing assistance and sent him to the NICU, where he went on CPAP. He stayed in the NICU 1 week, due to the breathing, jaundice and feeding difficulties. I remember going into the NICU every 3 hrs to try to feed him, he would be so sleepy he just wouldn't want to eat. I tried breastfeeding, but the only way he would eat was from the bottle, I would be ecstatic when I could get him to eat 15cc's at first (which is only a 1/2oz.) He came home after 6 days weighing 4lbs 9 oz.

Reflux: Well I thought feeding difficulties would subside. But they didn't....only the reason's changed. Isaiah now started to arch his back and fight feedings. He also started vomiting, not just spit up like I was used to seeing, but vomiting the entire contents of his bottle with full force out mouth and nose. I switched formula 4 times, and kept bugging our pediatrician. Something didn't seem right. I began doing my own research and came across the babycenter reflux board and the wonderful people there gave me great information. After speaking with our dr some more and talking with a ped GI specialist they confirmed he had reflux from our discussions (no tests).
He begin taking Zantac, and I saw an improvement right away with his fussiness and arching. Although it didn't stop the spitting up or vomiting, that still happened often. Oh, how I hated when he vomited, he would get this look on his face (I can't describe it, but can spot it instantly), he would puke up sooo much and it would even come out of his nose. Soon he developed an aversion from the bottle and practically refused to eat. We tried upping the dose a few times, but that didn't cure the aversion. The dr's believed the Zantac was doing it's job with the reflux, but they also thought he has a slow-emptying stomach (which was why sometimes he could vomit what looked to be an entire bottle, even after 3 hrs of eating). They believed he associated eating with negative experiences like the pain from reflux and the pain of puking so much.
So we went many months of trying different distraction methods and feeding him while he was asleep. He was and stayed barely on the charts for weight. We even went to see a speech therapist. Isaiah was so bad that he could look and see the bottle and start to gag and vomit. These were very difficult and trying months for both my husband and I.
At about 10 months we took him to see a pastor of the church and they formed a prayer circle and prayed for Isaiah. It was very powerful. He was starting to drink his bottles with no fights...he was even starting to cry and want them! I was so happy to see this day. Things didn't get perfect, but he began to drink his bottles, which he fought so hard against before.
We saw a second pediatric GI specialist around 18 months when he still was not eating solid food and FTT because he was taking bottles, but not enough calories to gain adequate weight. (even though we were using a calorie additive). Isaiah was prescribed Prevacid to help with the acid reflux pain and an endoscopy was preformed (we debated about a feeding tube, which was recommended, but we held off and gave more time for the meds to start to heal the esophagus). We also started seeing a more knowledgable SLP, who specializes in feeding. We started back at square one with solid food and went back to purees - syringing 1cc at a time while he was distracted with a favorite video.
Isaiah has since gained 3lbs in the past 3 months (he is currently 22 months). And he is up to eating 6-8oz of purees by spoon (yogurt is his favorite). He is finally starting to get back onto the weight charts (3%), for soo long he has been below them by a substantial amount. I can finally say Isaiah is on the road to improvement and I know God is holding our hands all the way.