Exhausting Day

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of fun and adventure. It turned out to be this and much much more.
Austin and I went to see John at work for the first time. This was also the first time I had driven more than 5 miles by myself with Austin in the car. He did great! He was a delight at John's office as well. He really is such a good baby. We got to John's office around 12:30, this is because Austin slept for 2 hours for his morning nap. I thought this was so weird, he never sleeps that long. Luckily he did! When we got in the car to go home he slept for 20 minutes and then we ended up in bumper to bumper traffic so he couldn't sleep.
When we got home it was 3:30, I wanted to give him a bottle and then get him to go to sleep for a good nap before bed. I'm down to pumping once a day and have been meaning to give him formula since Saturday (he was officially 6 months old). I didn't have any milk out when we got home so I opened a new can of Enfamil formula. The same stuff he had used when he was a week old, but hasn't since then. I made him a 5 oz bottle and we went back to his room. He was downing it! I was so happy. All I could think was this transition to formula is going to be so easy. Before I could even finish this thought something weird happened. He had only drank 2 oz. but he started making this really weird noise...like he had flem in his throat. Then he stated to gag and was throwing up mucus. He was also crying REALLY WEIRD. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to give him more formula and he didn't want it, so I threw out the formula, got a new bottle and made him some breast milk. At this point I was thinking he just didn't like the formula.
I give him the bottle of breast milk and he won't drink. Now I'm really starting to wonder and he's still doing this weird cry and gagging. He almost sounds like hes crying under water. I tried to use the aspirator to suck out the mucus in the back of his throat but it wasn't working. By this time he had snot everywhere so I changed his clothes. He was going in and out of sleep so I tried to get him to go to sleep. I laid him in his crib and walked out of his room. About 10 minutes later I go back in his room because he still hasn't gone to sleep. I pick him up and he is covered in hives! OMG I freaked out. My neighbor, Olivia, is working on her pediatric nursing degree. Thankfully she is home on Tuesdays. By this time its been about an hour to an hour and a half since he had the formula. I take him to Olivia's and she said he was having an allergic reaction. That never even crossed my mind. I called our doctor, and its 4:45 by this point so the office is closed so I left a message with the answering service. A nurse called me back and said we needed to take Austin to the ER! WHAT! After I hung up we took his clothes off him and Austin was as red as a lobster, I am not exaggerating. He was red EVERYWHERE. Olivia was holding him and he finally puked a lot of the formula up. I called the doctor back to make sure that since he threw it up did we still need to go to the ER and they said yes.
I got Austin in the car and we went to the ER (even though everyone else I talked to said I shouldn't take him but I felt in my gut I needed to). We get to the ER, let me make a side note here. Having never been to the ER I didn't know if they would park my car for me so I parked the car my self in the parking garage. When I went to enter the ER the only way was through a long drive way where you are supposed to DRIVE. I had the stroller and we are running down the drive in the stroller. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person. Anyway back to the story... We got in line at Triage. Thankfully the line wasn't long and within 5 minutes of getting there we were being seen.
At triage they hooked Austin up to all kinds of machines, took his weight, bp, oxygen levels, ... I don't even know what all they did. There were tons of people waiting in the waiting room and I was starting to think we would be there all night. After the triage nurse finished she said we need to get him into a room hes having anaphylaxis. OMG again. So now we are in the room and hes still hooked up to all these machines and he is crying. So I picked him up but it was hard because he had all these wires everywhere. By the time we got to this point his entire body is red, even the whites of his eyes. They gave him an epipen, benadryl, and some mouth steroids. John is still not home from work yet. I have no idea how long we are going to have to stay. The nurse comes back and she said that when someone is having anaphylaxis there is an initial reaction and then there can be a more severe reaction 6-8 hours after the initial reaction. We were going to have to stay until after the 6 hour mark just to make sure he didn't have another reaction. Also now they wanted to monitor him closely because they want to make sure he doesn't have a reaction to the epipen.
He started looking better within 10 minutes of having the epipen and by the time we were released around 9:30 pm he looked almost back to normal. It was so scary, but I learned that I should definitely trust my gut instinct and that I was right to take him to the ER.
We have 2 epipens at home now that I need to take with me wherever we go. We are going to see an allergist to see what else he might be allergic to. We assume it was the milk protein in the formula but we don't know for sure. Also I want to see an allergist because we just started giving him baby food and I need to know what else he might be allergic to because I don't want to go through this again. They said we need to give him a formula that is neither milk nor soy based. So now I have to decide it we should do this or if I should continue pumping for the next 6 months. For now we are in limbo. I'm still pumping and he will get only the 5-6 fruits and veggies that I know he can eat. Unfortunately our battle with food allergies is not over but we are on our way to being educated so we know what to avoid in the future.