I Guess It's Time

So... Long time, no see, eh?

I guess I should start with an introduction, although many of you have already been introduced.

So, this is Jack.

He remained breech, and arrived via scheduled c-section at exactly 8 AM on October 25th, weighing in at 7 lbs, 15 oz, and was 19.5 inches long. 

He's amazing, amazing, amazing. 

While I'd love to give a detailed rundown of the entire last ten weeks, I'll try to be brief. 

He's amazing, but this shit is hard. 

He lost almost an entire pound in his first few days alive, and it took him over three weeks to get back up to his birth weight. He didn't sleep well, breastfeeding was difficult and painful and we spent a lot of our first few weeks visiting the lactation consultants and the pediatrician for weight checks, and learning how to breastfeed (although, to be fair, any time we actually saw a lactation consultant, he did fine. It was only at home that things were really rough). 

I look at the older pictures, like this one, and I can't believe how tiny and skinny he was. But, he did start gaining weight, little by little. Things got easier for, oh, maybe two weeks? 

And then, the week of Thanksgiving (he was four weeks at that point), things went into a tailspin. He was miserable basically all the time. He was bloated, gassy, and tense every waking moment. BoyWonder and I were at our wit's end. We tried everything. Baby massage, warm baths, gas drops, gripe water.. You name it. And then, he broke out in this horrible rash. It started off looking like baby acne, and rapidly turned into a head-to-toe rash, except that parts of his skin were hard and scaly. On his chin, where my milk touched him, the skin was actually really hard, almost like a shell. 

Now, when the gas and colicky behavior first started, I had kind of wondered if maybe I needed to give up dairy. After all, my mom has a full-blown milk protein allergy, and my brothers and I don't tolerate dairy very well. The rash and misery basically confirmed my suspicions. 

So, I did what I always do when I'm struggling: research. I started off with just cutting obvious dairy, and while I saw a slight improvement in his mood and the gas, it wasn't enough. I kept reading, and learned a ton. Milk proteins, for instance, can take up to two weeks to completely leave your system, and another two to three weeks to leave the baby's system. And obvious dairy isn't enough. I had to cut out all dairy, which means reading labels on every food item I buy. 

Also? Up to 60% of babies with a milk protein intolerance also have a soy intolerance. Now, I could have just gone with eliminating dairy, but since soy takes just as long to clear out of our systems, I decided to cut it out as well. 

Again, I'll say it. This shit is hard. Cutting out dairy alone is a struggle. It's in tons of things that I wouldn't ever have imagined until I started reading labels. Chili seasoning? Beef jerky? Spaghetti sauce? Cutting out soy is ridiculously hard. It's in ev.ry.thing. Basically, it's forced me to go on a beefed-up version of how I was eating before I got pregnant: super clean, almost no processed foods, cooking all my meals basically from scratch, every single day. Christmas was really, really hard, because I could barely eat anything at any of the family functions (all five of them). Even at my mom's, where I thought I was safe because she has the same sensitivities as Jack (and then some), my stepdad still put butter on all the vegetables and didn't mention it until after I'd eaten them. And I really hate the fact that I can't just walk into my kitchen and grab a granola bar or a bowl of cereal or even just a sandwich (because most breads have either dairy or soy, or both, and most lunchmeat has soy in it as well). 

I suppose it's not such a bad thing, though, when I really look at it. I'm being forced to eat healthy, which is something I might have put off until I adjusted to this whole parenting thing (does that even happen?), and the change I've seen in this kid is incredible. Within the first week he was a completely different baby. Everything about him is just so much more... calm. Relaxed, even. Now, don't get me wrong, he's still a baby. He still fusses and he hates napping, which makes life difficult sometimes, but he's not constantly in pain and miserable. All that lingers are some really wicked not-normal poops and the last bit of a rash that I suspect might be another food allergy I haven't figured out yet. 

So, for now, we're hanging in there. I go back to work (apparently BoyWonder is concerned I may become a complete recluse if I don't work at least a few hours a week) in two weeks. I'm kind of torn about it. I hate my job, but it'll be nice to leave the house for a few hours at a time every once in a while. And while I normally wouldn't recommend working in a grocery store to anyone, ever, it's actually going to be kind of nice while I'm working out this whole MSPI thing. I'll at least be able to find some go-to items and get my pantry stocked up--so far, I've been relying on BoyWonder to do the shopping. It's fine about half the time, and then he stops reading labels or forgets that you have to read every single label to make sure it's safe. So far, I've only had a few crying breakdowns, and the vast majority of them have been because he refuses to even try to avoid dairy in my presence. I mean, really, the smell of a grilled cheese sandwich is some sick kind of torture to me. Or garlic bread? Waaaaant. 

So basically, I need to regroup and spend more time and energy finding and making food. 

sigh. 

On the up-side, though... Jack is happy. And he's turning into a super-chunk. I noticed today that he's even got little fat rolls on his fingers, and I need to get pictures of them. 

So, for now, it's late, and I'm wasting valuable sleep-hours writing, and I think I hear a tiny human squeaking from his bed.