Emmett's Insides, Part II

Remember two years ago when I wrote about our adventures with the pediatrician and Rolin's cow's milk protein allergy?

It's Emmett this time. He has it too.

His is worse, though. Rolin's didn't show up until he was about four months old (that and we didn't know any better).

Almost one month to the day after Emmett was born, his beautiful, seedy, mustard yellow, perfect-looking breast-fed-baby poop turned dark green.

I hoped and prayed it was simply an imbalance in foremilk/hindmilk, though I knew that wasn't going to be the case. He was a champion eater.

He pooped frequently and most of them were mucusy. As predicted, a stool sample left at the doctor's office came back positive for blood.

So I cut dairy out of my diet.

Green, blood and mucus continued so we tried eliminating dairy and soy. I told the doctor that eggs upset my stomach sometimes, so she suggested taking it easy on eggs. I also told her I ate peanut butter every day, so she suggested trying almond butter instead. She also mentioned corn is becoming more of an issue with babies.

After two weeks of no dairy, soy, eggs, corn, peanuts or coconut (my own hunch), diapers started turning yellow again. Hallelujah!

The celebration was short-lived. I introduced some of those items, all except dairy and soy, back to my diet, and the nasty green poo returned.

So I cut them all again. It didn't work this time. Except for three random days after Thanksgiving when he had beautiful, seedy, mustard yellow, perfect-looking breast-fed-baby poop again. The only thing I had done differently leading up to that time was I had no wine or beer.

I also started being suspicious of strawberries, tomatoes, grapes...

Dairy and soy are in a lot of food (there is soy in the gum brand we chew), but corn is in everything, guys. Corn syrup, cornstarch, corn oil...did you realize baking powder is cornstarch?

All this nonsense was driving me insane. Not only was I hungry all the time, my physical and mental health were starting to take a turn. Crazy diets can mess with your flora, man!

Changing Emmett's diapers filled me with dread. Sometimes I would tell myself the poop looked yellow, only to have my balloon of hope popped when I'd ask Rolin what color it was and he'd say, "green!"

Two-year-olds don't lie when it comes to color-coding poop.

Some days were filled with tears which welled up out of frustration, confusion, obsession, terror, anger, doubt, feelings of failure/poor parenting, empty hope...

Overall, Emmett is a growing, thriving baby. His reactions could be worse (Google image search it, if ye doubt the claim). He only had a couple eczema spots (Rolin had many) and he was generally happy (but boy, can he scream). His spit up was never projectile, though there was quite a bit of it.

We made several trips to the doctor, who had a child of her own with cow's milk, soy and corn allergies, so I trust her assessment in this situation. She said she would support me continuing to breast feed or to move to formula. That may make a sane person feel better, but it was around Christmas time my mama heart could take no more of the nasty poops. I was fearful, nervous, obsessive, getting more gray hair and, most of all, joyless.

This situation was robbing me of my ability to experience and appreciate the joy surrounding me: my two beautiful, smart, growing, curious, amazing boys. I would have to almost daily look in the mirror and tell myself to snap out of the funk I was in; to put on a smile and go be silly with my 2-year-old; to believe Emmett was going to be ok and go scoop him up and kiss him all over because he is mine and I can, and should, do that instead of being afraid to love him wholeheartedly because I was terrified I was slowly killing him. I've been in a bad place. The past five months had flown by and all I can really remember about them is green poop. That's no way to live life.

Two weeks ago, after he had about nine water-like green poos in one day, followed by a day of bloody poo, I knew it was time to do formula.

Another reason I was dreading formula was because the transition with Rolin was awful. Rolin thought we were trying to kill him. Joe and Brianna were visiting that weekend and can attest to the terribleness of it. We tried sippy cups, spoons, syringes, real cups, several different brands of bottles...he simply would not drink it, not to mention I became super engorged and uncomfortable for about two weeks. But, in the end, Rolin drank it and my boobs recovered. All was fine; Rolin was even allergy-free by 15-months-old.

Emmett is now on Alimentum, the liquid kind because that's the only corn-free formula. His poops look a lot better now, which is the overall goal. He fussed a little at the first bottle and denied the second bottle until it was mixed with breast milk. By the forth bottle he was flapping his arms in hungry excitement at the sight of a bottle of straight formula; he hasn't given breast milk a second thought since. Whaaaat??

Yep, he hardly batted an eye. Weaning has been a lot easier on me this time too, which is a huge relief. Now I just need to come up with $11 extra a day for the next six months to feed the kid (insurance denied our request because Emmett is gaining weight. Another story for another time).

I could go on about this -- it was for five months, after all -- but I'll stop here. Many of my acquaintances and relations are tired of hearing about this, I'm sure, but I thank them for their listening, patience and support!!

From November -- already two months ago! 

Embracing the moment. Picture taken at post time.