When I first dreamed of ToyBlock, I knew that I wanted to donate part of the proceeds to charity. When I became a mom, I found the charity that I wanted to support…

In August of 2008, my daughter was born big, happy and seemingly healthy. But, right from the beginning, if anyone had known what to look for, there were signs. My beautiful baby cried anytime she wasn’t eating, she arched away from me, she gurgled and spit up. Doctors, nurses and a lactation consultant at one of the best hospitals in Chicago assured me she was fine, and once my milk came in everything would be ok. But my baby didn’t sleep very much, and she cried and cried. The pediatrician and nurses said we had to supplement, because I wasn’t producing enough milk for her. That wasn’t enough either. I pumped, I breastfed, and we supplemented with formula. She still didn’t sleep very well, and she still cried and cried.
For three months we played the waiting games… “Oh, she’ll grow out of it.” “It’s a growth spurt.” “She’ll learn to sleep.” “At six weeks a big change happens.” “When she is three months old, she’ll just surprise you and figure it out.” But she didn’t “figure it out” and it didn’t “just” get better. In fact, it got worse. She started throwing up – a lot! And she still didn’t sleep very well.

After many sleepless nights, many loads of laundry, seven specialists, and so many tears, we found some answers. We found www.infantrefluxdisease.org and www.reflux.org . From there we finally found a doctor who could help us. My daughter had infant Gastro Esophogeal Reflux Disease. We tried Prevacid, we tried Mylanta, we tried Zantac, we tried elevating her crib, we fed her in small amounts… and some of it worked. We finally had resources, and most importantly we had support. We had found a community that knew what we were going through; we found a community that lived GERD like we did.

Infant and childhood GERD is not like having “a little heartburn”. It is 5 hour screaming fits, the inability to eat, lifetime food aversions, sleepless nights, and so much pain. As bad as things were, my family was lucky – GERD did not destroy my marriage, it did not cost me my job, and my daughter got help without surgery. Many families are not so lucky.

So, why did I choose PAGER? Because I hope that with more awareness of infant and childhood GERD, another family will find support and help earlier than we did. I want doctors and nurses, and parents to know about this horrible disease, and be able to help our sweet little ones.

I choose PAGER as the charity for ToyBlock Music, because PAGER helped my daughter.

-Joanna QL