We headed to Istanbul two weeks ago to get a second opinion on our son's health. To bring you up to date: At 10 days old, Abram was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. He spent 3 days in the hospital getting IV antibiotics. Our original reason for taking him to the doctor was because he was having so much trouble eating. So after this diagnosis, we thought that maybe somehow his infection was causing him to not want to eat. Well, after antibiotics his eating did not improve. He was in so much pain every feeding, arching his back, screaming, and lots of gas. We went back two weeks later and he was diagnosed with a second urinary tract infection. Praise the Lord for a good friend of ours who is a doctor in the states. He recommended redoing the urine sample test again, questioning the validity of the test. The second sample we tried to catch his urine in a cup, so we didn't have to use a bag sample. This test came out clean, proving that he had been misdiagnosed and the bag test was possibly contaminated. It makes us wonder now if he ever had an urinary tract infection to begin with. We may never know. But the other strange thing was that his blood work indicated a possible infection of some sort. We couldn't figure out what any of this had to do with his pain when eating and if he was really sick or not.
We ended up deciding that we needed to go to Istanbul and get to the bottom of this. We had lots of tests run and an endoscopy done and we discovered he has acid reflux. His sphincter in his esophagus doesn't close all the way. This will get better as he grows. Currently, his feeding has gotten way better as I have had to really watch what I eat, subsequently less acid reflux issues. His blood work all came back normal. We were so thankful! We will never fully know if Abram had a real infection or not and what was up with his blood work being so strange, but we trust that God knows and had it all in His hands.
All this to say, it has been a challenging and confusing few months concerning what was going on with Abram, but we are so thankful that we know he really is a healthy boy.
We tried to make our Istanbul time fun for the boys and not all doctor's appointments.
Here are the boys excited to go on a sudden trip!
We visited an aquarium. The boys loved the sharks and sting rays the best. Gotta love the photo-shopped picture!
Asher pretends to be a sting ray around the house now. He was enamored by them.
We took many modes of transportation. Asher and Urban loved the ferry boat.
The boys enjoyed playing outside.
We took the boys to a play place that had a large ship in it. They are still talking about it!
Playing in the ball pit.
And here is Abram. Almost 2 months old!
We were very thankful for the good care we received at the hospital in Istanbul, but are also glad to be back home!
