7 Weeks and An Upset Tummy

This week has been so full of drama it's not even funny.  But first, a quick story!  On Monday, I had to run some errands in town.  It was President's Day, so Andy had the day off of work, but he wanted to paint the hall bathroom, so I was glad to take Ellie with me.  We went to Target and Walmart and stopped by the store where I used to work to show her off to my old boss.  She was wearing her 'going home' outfit, which is really cute navy and lime green with flowers and polka dots.  Still pretty girly without looking like a bottle of pepto exploded all over it.  (no offense to fans of the color pink)  Anyway, everywhere we went, everyone kept calling her a 'he'!  She was even called handsome several times.  They didn't even ask, they just assumed.  Green car seat = little boy.  Lesson Learned : always, always, ALWAYS wear a headband on the poor girl!  It'll be a while until she has enough hair to make her look girly, so frilly headbands will have to do it!  Ok, now on to the drama . . .

So of course, as soon as I start typing up the post that just raves about my success with the sleep schedule, Ellie gets an upset tummy and the schedule goes down the tubes.  Last Thursday is when we first started noticing that her stools were watery.  Then she started spitting up more often than usual.  And then came the gas.  Oh my word, the gas.  We're talking gas that you can hear from another room.  Poor baby was so terribly uncomfortable she just couldn't stay asleep.  We thought maybe she just had a touch of a tummy bug, so we watched for signs of dehydration (which she didn't have) and fever (again, not a trace) and let it run its course.

Well it didn't go away.  So then Monday night I was getting ready for bed and it hit me: I bet it's a milk problem.  It sounds like all the symptoms that people with lactose intolerance experience.  After some research (thank you, internet!) I learned that there's rarely a case of true lactose intolerance found in infants, but there are various milk protein allergies or lactose sensitivities that they can experience.  Dang it.  I did that research hoping to be proved wrong.

Poor little sicky face only wanted to be cuddled, which didn't leave a lot of opportunities for me to get work done around the house.  So I broke out the infant carrier (which we've nicknamed the kangaroo pouch) and she loves it!  She'll just sleep and sleep in it, as opposed to waking up and screaming as soon as I laid her down.  It turns everything I do into a workout (which I know isn't necessarily a bad thing), so it's not crazy fun, but it comes with a pretty great view . . .

Then Tuesday, it started to get better!  So I put all the silly milk problems out of my mind and didn't call the doctor.

And then, of course, on Tuesday night, it started to get worse again.  So first thing Wednesday morning, I called the doctor and was able to get her in that afternoon.  We got there and she got all checked out and our doctor listened to the symptoms and thought for about 2.6 seconds before saying that it sounded like a lactose sensitivity or a milk protein allergy.  First time ever that I've been upset to be right.  So, according to her, I had to cut dairy out of my diet.  That's a big deal for me.  I love dairy.  Like, really love it.  I put cheese on just about everything.

So in my sleep deprived, emotionally raw state, I promptly came home and cried for about an hour while scouring the internet for diary-free recipes.  Didn't find much.  Basically, the only way to do it is just use regular recipes and use dairy substitutes.  Good thing Friday was my regularly scheduled grocery day!

It was a long and difficult grocery trip because I really didn't know what I'd find.  And every single time I picked something up, I had to scan the ingredient list for any milk products.  You should try it sometime.  I was really surprised to find how many things include whey, which is dairy.  Even all the margarine that I looked at had SOME kind of dairy product in it.  Well, except one, but it specifically said that it wasn't suitable for cooking or baking.  So I grabbed one that had whey in the 'contains less than 2% of ' list and figured that as long as I only use it to cook with it will be so diluted that it shouldn't make a big difference.  I also discovered that there are NO dairy products in Oreos!  So you know I bought a couple of packages of them!  You would think that between the chocolate cookie and the creamy filling there would be some kind of dairy somewhere, but there's not!

So I got the butter substitute and I found some unsweetened almond milk (which is what the internet recommended cooking with) at Aldi, which made me super excited because it's my favorite grocery store!  Then there was just the issue of cheese.  I knew they made soy 'ice cream', and they have fake milk and butter, so you would think they would have figured out a cheese substitute by now.  Normally, I don't shop at Giant because we're on a VERY strict budget and it just wouldn't go far enough in that store.  But I had been told to check there for more specialty type foods, like fake cheese.  And guess what I found!

 FAKE CHEESE!  There were two kinds - lactose free was cheaper, but still contained dairy, so I had to go with the much more expensive dairy free kind.  I'm really not sure what it's made of because it claims to be free of soy as well, but I don't really care.  I grabbed a bag of cheddar, mozzarella, and a package of american and I was on my way.  I smiled the whole way home.  I had a piece of the american on a sandwich that night and, while it didn't taste exactly right, it wasn't too bad.  It was better than nothing!  I haven't tried the shredded 'cheeses' yet, but I'm encouraged that they at least exist.  Way too expensive to do something like make a pizza, but it'll work for topping off a shepherd's pie or garnishing my spaghetti!  I feel so much better about this whole no-dairy thing now.

(Special thanks goes out to all of my facebook friends who offered up suggestions and helpful tips when I first found out about this challenge!)

So we've been diary free for three whole days now.  The doctor said to call if we didn't notice any change in a week.  Well, we're still not sure if it's helping.  It seems like her spitting up has calmed down a bit.  She has been sleeping better and the gas doesn't seem quite as severe, but the poos are still so runny.  I mean, we've gone back to sponge baths because by the time you get her in the bathwater, she's got poo running all over the place.  So it's hard to say.  But I do know that I've seen more smiles in the past day or so, which is SUPER nice!  She's also been happy to do some more tummy time and general floor playing.  I even got her to show some interest in her O-Ball that Grandma got her - up until now she hasn't shown interest in any toys whatsoever.  So I'm hoping this is a sign that she's both gaining more developmental skills and feeling better.

Cheese!

And on Saturday, Ellie got to meet her Great-GrandPappy!  Great-Grandma Cil came along and so did Great-Uncle Mel and Aunt Mary Sue.  We had a good time passing her around - for a little while.  She got sleepy eventually and wanted to fall asleep on me, but that's alright.  She really liked playing with Pappy and listening to his voice!

It was a really nice visit and we're all glad they could come!

Another accomplishment this week - she's done with Newborn sized diapers!  She's still wearing the newborn sized clothes, but the size 1 diapers fit will enough that when we ran out of newborns on Saturday, we decided not to get any more.  This means that soon our 'one-size' cloth diapers will fit and we can get started using them.  That's going to be a whole 'nother adventure!  I'm a little nervous about it, but people have told me it's like breastfeeding - once you get the hang of it, it's easy.  I guess we will see!

PS - When we were at the doctor, she was weighed and she is now up to 8 pounds 10 ounces!  She will definitely have doubled her birth weight by the time we have her 2 month checkup on March 12th!