Rivera Family in Need

My name is Leigh and my husband's name is Milton; we are a blended family. I have a almost 15 yr old son from a previous and he has two girls 7 and 9 from a previous marriage. We have together an almost 3 year old daughter and our newest little girl who just turned 3 months. Over the past 7 weeks our 13 week old daughter Mia has had difficulty with eating. She never really took a bottle and started to have latching to the breast issues starting at around 6 weeks. I tried countless attempts to figure out how to help her. Went to a lactation consultant, speech therapist, had tongue clipped by an ENT since she was tongue and lipped tied, had consultations at the hospital and was working with her pediatric drs before returning back to work from maternity leave. Unfortunately, all of this started 2 weeks before returning, which gave me no real time to get the situation under control before coming back. Before I knew it, everything had gotten so bad we were trying to feed her with a dropper and she pushed most of it out. She was arching her back, flaring her arms and legs and crying with just the motion of going down to the breast or a bottle in her mouth. Eventually, that would result in having to use a dropper which is not a sustainable way to thrive. Mia ended up totally refusing to nurse nor take a bottle and was only getting about 3oz for the entire day. Needless to say, we ended up at Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital. She was initially put on an IV to get her hydrated, they started running every test under the sun to rule out any major issues that might be preventing her to eat. She had an upper GI to make sure she hadn't asperated or blockage and they noticed the little fluid we got in her she was already coming back up "refluxing", she had a brain ultrasound, a heart echo, an MRI, an endoscopy down esophagus and up rectum. By the 3rd day in hospital, still not taking a bottle and only getting small amount of milk from a dropper, they decided to place an NG "feeding tube" in her to push milk when needed until she learns to take a bottle. All signs showed a severe case of reflux which caused her to have an aversion to food as in her smart little mind, food causes pain. To add to it, her allergy test came back that she had a significant food allergy to milk and soy protein and I automatically had to stop providing breast milk as it had dairy in it and was in all frozen supply too.

Overall, we were in hospital for 6 days and were sent home with feeding tube still in. On a very positive note, Mia has finally taken a bottle, we always try first with bottle then push pump after and we are working on not having to use pump at all so that we can eventually have tube removed and move on to a "normal" life again. While trying to get back to normal, I have to work with her every 3 hours to take a bottle and or finish feeding with a pump. I am unable to go back to work at this time and the bills are getting behind and the medical bills are stacking up. Also, with her serious food allergy to dairy and soy, she is now on a very expensive formula "Alimentum" that my current insurance will not cover.

If anyone is able to donate towards these finances and the cause it would be greatly appreciated!!!