To Poop or Not To Poop? That is the question

Many of you know that poop is my last favorite substance in the universe. If I walk into a bathroom that smells bad, I often say, "It smells like death in here." Conversations about poop can make me gag and almost throw up. Other people changing baby diapers near me can make me sick, and I often did gag when I had to wipe Rosy's heiney. I've never even understood the charm of birthday cards that referenced poop. Well, here I am now measuring my entire success as a mother by what's happening in the diaper.

For a breast feeding mommy, diaper contents are critical. You need a certain amount of poopies each day and they should look a certain way (which looks more like cooked squash than any poop I had ever seen before). We were doing really well until yesterday. We took Baby Boy to our home town Friday and he managed to talk my mom into feeding him tons of formula. He is usually limited to one bottle of formula (3 oz.) at his 4 AM feeding. He is such a slow breast feeder (he can take up to 2 1/2 hours) that we decided to take formula for him to eat during the visit and I would pump milk. This would let other family members give him bottles and would only take about 30 minutes for each feeding. This seemed to work very well! He loved it and would cry for more formula after each bottle. We thought he was on a growth spurt, so we let him have it. I am blaming my mom because you know that grandmother's always let the kids do whatever they want.

Baby Boy woke up around 3 AM Saturday morning and was miserable. We gave him some Mylecon and tried to go back to sleep. No such luck! Baby Boy was constipated! By Saturday afternoon, he had cried and cried. We had rubbed his tummy, rubbed his back, "bicycled" his legs, and any other remedy we could find online. Finally we called the pediatricain and they gave us some hints. Neither of their ideas were pleasant for any of us, but around 7:30PM (22 hours after the last poopie diaper) we had our first poopie diaper. And another at 7:40. And another at 7:50. And that went on for a little while.

Thank heavens for a wise pediatrician and a wise friend who recommended that we use that particular doctor group. We are also thankful that we survived our first medical crisis with no real trauma!

Next post: Our first Sunday at church