Green

I don't think that I have been so disappointed by the color green.

On Lillie's birthday, Mary Hardin pooped green bubbly water for the first time. Weird, right? If this had been my first baby, my world would have stopped right then and I would have done a swift u-turn to the doctor's office. But I ignored it - it was Lillie's day and probably just something I ate.

The next day I looked a little closer and noticed the mucus, the tinges of blood and the frequency. And then there I was, vividly describing poop in the doctor's office.

Clearly the doctor had seen this before- he wasn't alarmed so neither was I. He told me to cut out the dairy and expect improvement in five days.

Nursing was going well, Mary Hardin was (and still is) a very happy baby.  I enjoyed the simplicity of nursing - no bottles to wash, food to pack and no ounces to count or force down her throat.  Everything was going great on the front end - so I just tried to ignore the diapers and wait for the promised improvement. 

As it turns out, I returned back to the doctor, again and again and again.

Cut out all whey and casein.
Cut out all soy.
Cut out all peanut butter.
Cut out all nuts in general.
This was beginning to be a full time job.

We saw some improvement, but also continued to see blood... daily.

Each diaper filled with green poop and blood screamed failure.  I was doing my best to control my diet, and it didn't seem to be good enough.
I had basically limited myself to grilled chicken and boil veggies. I had eggs in the morning, until I realized that Pam cooking spray had soy in it.  So, I cut out the morning eggs.

Why was there still blood in my baby's diaper?

For a second opinion, I spoke to a lactation consultant. She said it was definitely a hind milk/fore milk issue, not an allergy. So I got out the pump and pumped and bottle feed (along with my limited diet). No improvement.

In desperation, I got another doctor's opinion who told me decidedly to just to give up on nursing and go with Nutramigen formula and it would definitely work just fine.  But it didn't.

In the week following that last doctor's visit I got sick, gave up and went back to nursing three times and cried a lot.

We finally spoke to a pediatric GI specialist who directed us to Neocate, a pre-digested infant formula for children with multiple allergies.  And then waited until we could see a specialist in person.

I was disappointed and am still a little heart broken.