Sunday, October 26, 2014

Long time no see.

long time no see.

life has been busy and filled with all sorts of "life" events.

Bennett will be one year old in two weeks (as of yesterday).  Wow.

As he approaches his first birthday, it has really forced me to reflect on the past year.  My first year in motherhood.  It has been nothing like I expected.  I could even go as far as to say it has been the opposite as I expected.

but it has been so beautiful. HARD and beautiful.  kinda like all the good things in life?

I have realized that my "twenties" are just for learning.  making mistakes (sometimes BIG ones) and learning from them.  We are so lucky to have tomorrow, to move forward and to make our next day better.

So, I have a little catching up to do.

I left this lil blog when Bennett was just 6 months old...
What a cutie!  
Actually, in july life was pretty easy.  We had a good grip on his allergies.  I avoided the milk, eggs and peanuts and Benentt was happy as a clam- sleeping through the night!  Two long naps during the day!

Not long after his 6 month birthday we started introducing solid foods... yay!  more foods = less boob time.  I was thrilled.  Bennett's body not so much.  

Our first trial with food was avocado... big fat fail.  he had a FPIEs reaction.  Pretty much his body could not tolerate the protein in avocado and it caused profuse vomiting until his stomach was completely emptied and then lethargy and a long hard 3 hour nap.  actually, we were really lucky.  most FPIE kiddos end up in the hospital.  

A few weeks later we tried a few more foods... fail fail fail.  This time no vomiting but instead he was full of gas, constipated, refusing naps and up all night in pain.  And he had a ton of mucous.  Snot in his nose, in his throat, in his poop... everywhere.  So, we backed off solids for a couple more months. The moment we took the solids out and he was just on breastmilk for a few days he was back to his happy self.  

fast forward to about september (bennett is about 9 months old).  he is finally starting to eat more foods!  for breakfast he would have some cheerios or rice puffs with some fruit.  then i would send some veggies with him to daycare and he would have some veggies at night too.  we noticed he would get reflux-y if he had bananas or carrots so we just avoided those.  And he got hives to cantaloup and garlic mashed potatoes so we avoided those.  and he was getting colds all the time, but hey he's at daycare... what did i expect?    

but we had another problem.  our friend constipation crept back into the picture.  and he came back with a vengeance!!! Our boy would not poop.  like for a week a time!  he would grunt and grunt for days but produce nothing.  We tried prunes and pears with no such luck.  jeret's co worker had a daughter that had to be on mirilax for her first six years of her life.  i said there was no way i was giving my son a laxative.  

well he went from being constipated to full on crying every time he had to go.  it would be so large and dry that it hurt so bad that he would scream (and I think he even held it in because he knew it was going to hurt).

so, jeret took bennett to the pediatrician to see about this mirilax stuff.  she assured him that so many babies need a little extra something.  she said they call it "vitamin m" at the office because so many kids take it.  she said give him a little every day.  no harm done! she says.  she says it goes through the intestine and brings water to the bowels and doesn't get ingested at all by the baby.

so i agreed.  

three days into the mirilax we have A BIG PROBLEM.  my son is acting odd.  he will not sleep at night.  he will not take a nap (he was a really good two-a-day napper up until this point).  in the middle of the night he would bang his head on his crib (not hard but bang none the less).  he had "tasmanian devil" behavior.   something was wrong.  and it was really wrong.  

i say it has to be the mirilax.  we must stop it immediately!  i call the pediatrician and she agrees to stop the treatment.  i take to google searching everything i can find.  apparently some babies DO REACT TO MIRILAX WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS! good lord.  i could have died then and there.  it was like someone stuck a knife in my heart.  what had i done to my son?  Apparently, the drug was absorbed through his intestine, entered his blood stream and was causing psychological symptoms.  i have never felt so petrified and guilty in my life.  

BUT it left me wondering... why did this drug get in my son's blood system when all the other kids on "vitamin m" have no harm?  There was something missing.  i just knew that i was about to get some answers to the questions i have had for a long time: why does my exclusively breastfed son have food allergies?  why so many intolerances/sensitivities to foods?  eczema?  breathing problems?  What does all this mean? BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY HOW DO I FIX IT?  


Us moms.  We'll do just about anything to make sure our babies are healthy and happy.  It is the best job in the world.  

Next post is all about solving those problems.  I'm on it!  And we are already seeing so much healing...