Orla Borla!

This is the story of a remarkable little girl and her parents who raised  money for Momentum in lieu of gifts for their wedding in 2009. A huge thank you to them and all the friends and family for such a fantastic contribution. We wish them every happiness for the future. 

Orla was born on 2nd Dec 2008 at a healthy 8lbs, after a fairly horrific 24 hours of labour. But she was so perfect and gorgeous and seemed fine, so the pain was quickly forgotten. However, we had no idea what a terrible year lay ahead of us. 

I struggled to feed Orla from day one, she didn't seem to feed for long, would fight against latching on and just cried and cried and hardly slept. She got her nickname Orla Borla very early on as she just 'balled' all the time. When we got her weighed after the first 3 weeks she had lost over a pound in weight and had started being sick at lot. We ended up in A&E just after New Year's Eve as she was taking such little milk and being sick constantly. This was our first stay on Sunshine Ward at Kingston Hospital and she was closely monitored, weighed everyday and diagnosed with severe reflux and started on various meds. 

She didn't improve and after 2 weeks and more weight loss she had an NG tube inserted and we went home. The next 8 months were a total blur of sleeplessness, worry about lack of weight gain, crying (all of us) trying to get as much milk down her as possible and puking. Orla puked for Britain - sometimes up to 40 times a day, all over the carpet, sofa, the walls, the car, our bed, into the fruit and veg in waitrose - it was horrific and I could hardly keep on top of the washing. 

We spent a lot of time at Kingston hospital having various tests, xrays, MRI scans, genetic blood tests, PH probes and other investigations often staying for up to 10 days at a time when she was really ill. The nurses, doctors, dieticians, PONT team and feeding specialists at Kingston were amazing and became my total lifeline in times of total despair and worry. I spent a lot of time in the parents room heating up yet another microwave meal and staring out of the window thinking "why me?". 

Orla is now 15 months old and you can see from the 2 pictures that she is a different baby. She has since been diagnosed with a gastric condition called Eosinophillic Duodenitis and is on various anti-histamine medication and has recently had a gastrostomy at GOSH. She is still sick about twice a day but is now gaining weight and walking. She still won't eat anything but with the help of the dieticians and feeding specialist we will get there one day. 

She's now a delightful little girl who is extremely vocal and loves nothing better than to pull daddies nose and empty out the cupboards like any other baby. We still have a long way to go but I am now back at work and sometimes she even sleeps through the night! 

I am sure that there will still be many more visits and appointments at Kingston Hospital and it's good to know that we are in such good hands. 

Dinesh and Katie were getting married on the 20th March 2009 and wanted to raise money for Momentum to help other families. Katie said:  It's a frightening experience to have to spend so much time in hospital with a new baby and anything that can be done to make it vaguely pleasant is a good thing.