The post I desperately want to be writing

I sort of knew I might not get to all those other "future posts" I mentioned last time. Baby A. takes a lot of work. More than we knew. Until recently we just sort of hunkered down and bore it, wondering how all our friends had gotten through this.

Crying during and after feedings, pushing away from breast feeding after 2 minutes and needing to be physically pushed back to start again, lots and lots of intestinal gas after every feeding, keeping her up and not letting her get her sleep. Hours of colic.

And then our midwife got to the "end of her Latin." She had no more ideas for us, on whether to go just bottle (breastmilk and formula) or just breast (to get the baby used to it and not pushing anymore). We should talk to a lactation consultant. And other people. Her huge funds of knowledge were spent in our case. She was cutting us loose and wishing us the best.

Crap.

Around this time I started wondering if maybe there was a milk allergy in the way. The midwife gave a few ideas about how to start looking into this. And then, after a night of just breast milk, A got a substantial meal of formula all at once and projectile vomitted all over the floor and my mom.

Ok, time to get this figured out. The medical system (including midwives) is not meant to solve our baby's problems, not if they are uncommon. The system is good at solving the average problems - poor sucking latch, my overall health, etc. But it doesn't handle those statistical tails very well, and so far, that is where I seem to hang out when it comes to babies. In terms of fertility (where the gynecologist didn't know to send me to a specialist as quickly as she should have), pregnancy pain (where the osteopath didn't catch that my underwear was just too tight around the leg and causing the nerve pain), delivery (where the midwife and doctors on that first shift were not as focused on a natural birth), breast feeding (where the lactation consultants tried their 3 options and then declared that "breastfeeding isn't for everyone"), and now with A's big pains and tummy problems in that little body of hers. Poor thing.

So who is supposed to solve this? I think we are. That is our role as parents, at least partially, to flag those 3-sigma moments, and to push for them to be solved.

Which brings me to the post I wish I was writing. I would like to be making the "after X weeks of colic and abnormal amounts of crying, we realized that Z was the cause of it all and we're now finally calmed down. A sleeps and eats well and spends very little time crying. Thank god!" I think I may be able to make that post at some point, and not just "when she outgrows colic." Because I'm not okay to just call it colic and label her a fussy baby. I want to work on anything we can to ease this time for her, to make it better.

So I've stopped eating dairy products and we switched to a supposedly less cow-milk intensive formula. I'm also (although this seems more urban legend than so well supported) keeping a food diary to see if something else I eat is causing that gas pain. Which means I have eggs and ham for breakfast, but none of my beloved milk products, and now I'm also a bit suspicious of citrus, or chocolate, maybe onions? What have I been eating this whole time she's been home and having problems? Is it a short timescale issue where my current meal influences her next one? Is it longer term dairy (since there are some issues in my family with this)? Who knows. But we're trying to figure it out. With charts and timing.

And it seems to have improved, although having 2 grandma's and an aunt here doesn't hurt one bit. But A seems calmer with less fussy periods. She actually gets to sleep for 2-3 hours at a time, and this means she can be awake and alert and calm at other times, looking around at the world. And we seem to be getting more sleep as well as more calm time when we're awake. So maybe I'll be able to make that post soon.

Not yet. But I've got hope.

And a bowl of almond butter and a banana for a snack.