Friday, August 27, 2010

Progress!

For the last three weeks, I’ve been on an elimination diet to try to get to the root of Cedar’s gas and allergy issues. No dairy, soy, gluten, corn, fish, beans, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, radishes, kale, turnips, brussell sprouts, coffee, sulfites, garlic, onions, nuts, spicy foods, shellfish, citrus or eggs. So what am I eating, you may ask? Meat, rice products, other vegetables (namely spinach, chard, carrots, potatoes, beets, squash, and cucumbers), fruits, coconut products, quinoa, and millet. With the exception of a few days stint, I have not cut out caffeine completely; I did cut out coffee, which is supposedly the worst, but I’m holding out on that precious cup of tea in the morning, especially since I’ve been so tired lately, and also since I don’t think it’s a major culprit of Cedar’s gas (wishful thinking?). I also have held out on my evening glass of wine, though I’m mostly drinking wine with no added sulfites, since sulfites could possibly be an issue, but I doubt it. So, there you have it, caffeine and alcohol are my hold outs. Hey, I’ve never been a health fiend. I value my emotional stability, and, in these days of self-deprivation on many fronts, tea and wine are a couple of my dearest friends.

Actually, it hasn’t been as hard as it might sound. And it’s been that much easier for me to take on, because I’m doing this not just for myself, but mostly for my baby. True, it is virtually impossible for me to eat anything served in a restaurant, but these days I mostly stay at home anyway, and nor do I have much time to cook, so as long as I keep the fridge stocked with things I can eat, most days I don’t feel that deprived. Breakfast a bowl of rice cereal, and maybe some fruit or turkey sausage, minimally processed. Lunch is often a salad with rice or quinoa, chicken, lots of vegetables, and oil and balsamic. Dinner might be the same, or else maybe some other meat and roasted yams and potatoes. Treats are avocados, salt and vinegar potato chips, coconut ice cream, fruit, and gin and tonics, without the lime. It’s ironic how these days I view a little bit of alcohol as “better” for me and Cedar than, say, broccoli, especially when for the last year I’ve completely avoided alcohol or had very little of it. But when it comes down to varying opinions about how much and when exactly a glass of alcohol gets transmitted through breast milk, versus seeing an immediate correlation between eating a food and then watching your baby cry, arch his back, and struggle in pain some 4-24 hours later, um, I’ll take the gin and tonic. Right now rewarding myself with little treats is often what gets me through a tough day.

The good news is, Cedar’s gas has been mostly absent recently! He still has an occasional squirmy, gassy uncomfortable moment easily attribute to gas, but this seems much more like what one might consider normal, baby gas, gas that passes fairly quickly without a prolonged acrobatic routine of putting him in various positions, massaging his tummy, nursing him, and bouncing him on a ball for hours. And so, by this token, the diet has already been a success.

Cedar’s rash, unfortunately, still has not gone away, except with the help of some topical steroids, which I only wanted to use for a very short period in order to get his itchy, bumpy, red infected cheeks under control. They look way better now, but I know this is only treating the symptom and not the cause. He used to only break out with a rash when I ate dairy; that was the first food that I figured out for sure he was allergic to. But now I’m not sure what this new prolonged rash has been about. I’m wondering now if he doesn’t also have some allergies to environmental stuff, like our cat, or dust, or the detergent we use. So, for now, I’ve washed all our blankets and clothes in a more natural detergent, and will keep looking into other factors if it continues to be a problem. I sure hope we don’t have to get rid of our cat.

Now comes an exciting, yet also potentially new hard stage: adding foods back in. One at a time, with some days spaced in between, testing each forbidden food to see what kind of reaction he has. I’ve been deliberating lately which foods to test first, and which foods I may not want to test at all. I know for sure I’m not testing dairy. I’m also not testing cabbage. And beans and garlic may not be worth it either, based on past reactions.

But back then, before I was on this diet, I never could tell for sure what he was reacting to. And the naturopath I visited taught me that sometimes one can have a small reaction to a lot of different things, and the compounded result is still bad news. So, who knows, maybe on one of those nights I thought Cedar was reacting to the beans, it was actually the little bit of garlic, onions, beans, and kale, all together. After I figure out what he’s allergic to I can experiment with whether eating tiny amounts are tolerable to his system.

I’m eager to test coffee and sulfites, so I can go back to my unrestricted hedonistic ways. I’m also eager to test gluten, soy, and corn, since these things are found and so often hidden in SO many foods. I’m excited to test tomatoes, so that I can hopefully enjoy the crop that we’ll have coming in soon. And fish, nuts, eggs, and citrus, too, since these are all foods I regularly enjoy. It would suck if Cedar was allergic to fish, since my husband is an avid fly fisherman and our freezer is stocked with salmon and steelhead. But the truth is, I’d prefer to give up fish to gluten or soy or caffeine.

Hopefully, we’ll discover a few key culprits, and not that Cedar is allergic to almost everything on the list. But even if he is, at least then I’ll know how to help him live more comfortably, and how to avoid his bouts of pain, which can be so hard on mama’s tender heart and sleep-deprived nerves. And most likely, he will outgrow most of these allergies by the time he’s a toddler. Babies are such sensitive beings.

The bad news is, Cedar’s nighttime sleep patterns have not yet improved. I’d attributed his frequent night waking of the last couple months mostly to gas, but now I’m not so sure. Was it originally due to gas, yet now has just become a newly ingrained bad habit? Or is it more due to the fact that he sleeps so close to me in bed, or that he doesn’t yet know how to go back to sleep on his own? These are questions that can only be solved through more experimentation and trial and error, and experimenting with a whole new sleeping routine is more than I can tackle right now. I think I’ll wait until I’m done reintroducing foods (and potentially revisiting some bad, gassy nights) before I take on any new challenges. One thing at a time.

For now, I’m just so very grateful that we have seen progress, and that all this food deprivation and visits to doctors have not been for nothing. In fact, it’s already been so worth it to now have a happier baby. And the unintentional side effect is that I’m eating healthier and I’m more aware of what I’m putting into my body than ever before.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

A Different Kind of Tired

I was talking to my husband the other day about how tiring it is to care for a baby, but how it’s a different kind of tired than going out into the world to work each day. Anticipation of another day with my baby doesn’t keep me up at night with worry, or make me nervous in the same way that I might be if I am about to teach a new class or meet a new roomful of students. It can be utterly exhausting, to be sure, but it isn’t a kind of work that fills my mind with obsessive thoughts or anxiety. It’s a kind of work that for me, for the most part, is blessedly devoid of ego.

There’s no boss to please or clients to impress. There are no communication games to play or battles to wage, no guessing games about hidden intentions, unspoken resentments, or judgments harbored inside. There’s no fear about whether people like you, what impression you are making, all the self-judgment that we pass on ourselves each day. It’s just me and my baby, doing my best to stay present with his needs.

True, his needs are near constant and incredibly demanding with no breaks scheduled in, much less any autonomy to claim them at will-- not even to take a shit or a shower. But at the end of the day, when I am utterly drained, I never have a sense of dread about waking up the next morning and starting a new one. Caring for my baby simply is what it is. In spite of my recent worries about my son’s gas, allergies, and sleep patterns, caring for him is still a cleaner, simpler kind of tired. I trust in my role as his mama. I still worry, yes. But at core I know that I’m doing the best I can.

Caring for any child holds forth an immediate, constant lesson in being present with each moment. It teaches patience and acceptance like no other job I can imagine. If you can master these skills, then you are liable to enjoy child-rearing as your full-time occupation. Days can feel long and spacious. One activity flows into the next. One has the ability to slow way down and to come closer to taking in the world from an infants or child’s perspective. Look at the brilliance of this yellow sunflower. Listen to and watch the magical spray of the water coming out of this hose. Feel the rhythm of this swaying reggae music. The world holds such an infinitude of wonderment and discovery. This is what we wake to each day.

But lest I paint a too idyllic picture of what our days are like, and thus perpetuate the myth that staying home with the kids is somehow easier than going to work in a suit and tie, let me just reiterate that it is not easy, only different. More devoid of psychological maneuvering, yes, but more constant and never-ending—and often compounded by sleep deprivation, chores and housework, and a gnawing reminder of all the other things you’d like to be doing which you no longer have time to do.

My good friend who holds a demanding position at a nonprofit and who recently returned to near full-time work after over three months of maternity leave, has said that the days where she is at work all day are actually less tiring than the days she is at home with the baby. She’s come to appreciate little pockets of time, such as riding the bus to and from work each day, in which she is not doing anything, and where she can just be by herself. Herein lies a key difference. When you are a full-time mother or childcare giver, you don’t have any moments to yourself to take a breather.

Being at home alone with my baby for four days a week, I want my husband to understand how hard it is, even when to him it may sound like most of my days are fairly carefree (met so and so at the park, walked to the pond, watched Family Feud, etc.). It may look like I do a lot of laying around on blankets or nursing in bed, but those moments of “rest” are never really restful in the way that one can rest when you have the ability to completely “check out”. For when you are caring for a child, you are always “on.” And this seems doubly true for a new mother, in which your body is programmed to tense and jump and sometimes, yes, run, at the slightest call and need from your baby. Even when you sleep. You are always on call.

I certainly don’t envy my husband, however, when he has to pack his bags on Monday mornings and head out onto the road, giving presentations to doctors and trying to get his foot in the door at clinic after clinic. And I do possess a certain freedom and luxury in my ability to stay home all day if I please, hang out with new mom friends, and not have to engage with many of the stressors of the outside world. But if he could live my 24-hour a day reality for even just a week, I’m sure he’d have a new appreciation of what I do. And likewise, if I lived his job and work week, I would too.

But as it is, I envy his ability to take off to the river alone at the end of a long, hard day and fish in the elements until nightfall. Or to meet up spontaneously with a friend for dinner and a beer. Or to even have a beer without waiting till nightfall, and even then, still feeling slightly guilty for it. I envy the ways in which he is still very much a free agent in the world, with an identity that is separate from the baby still intact, or, at very least, still easily accessible. I envy the fact that he’s gotten hours upon hours of time away from the immediate demands of being a new parent since Cedar was born, whereas I could probably easily tally the short, two-hour dashes to a café breaks I’ve had they are still so infrequent and precious. And most recently, I envy the fact that he can eat whatever he wants without worrying about how it will affect the baby, and how he still sleeps sound and hard most nights, whereas I wake up every couple hours to have to nurse and settle Cedar.

And yet, I still wouldn’t trade places with my husband. For I can’t imagine giving up the intimate bond I have with my baby; I would feel sad to not be the one who is closest to him. Despite my complaints, I am grateful to be the one who stays home with our baby. I can’t imagine being on the road, away from home, so many days a week. And I am grateful that my husband is out there, working hard to support us.

In my ideal world, I could still work part-time, and we could trade off more of the care for our baby. But the problem is, the kind of work I do, as a freelance writing teacher, editor, and mentor, never did bring in very much money. And the work I miss the most—my soul work, my creative work, my writing--  hardly brought in any money at all. So this is the way it must be for now, the best arrangement we have found. I must continue to learn the lessons of patience and acceptance from my baby and my role as full-time mama. And I must allow for this work to feed me as much as it can, to not pine so much for what I’ve given up, but to hold fast to all that I’ve gained.

Yes, everyone said it would be tiring, and it is. But it’s a different kind of tired than I’ve known before. It’s a kind of tired that is less existential, and more rooted in the present moment. For there’s no question in my mind that what I’m doing right now is what is most important, and that it’s what I’ve chosen.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Tears and Decaf

This has been a hard couple weeks, maybe the hardest since Cedar was born. All of his gas and allergy problems, plus me being run down with a cold, plus health issues in my extended family, all compounded by my lack of sleep and rest, has resulted in a swelling of my emotions, all of my worry and exhaustion coming to the surface in tears.

I have always been a fan of tears, however. That is, I am usually relieved when I finally come around to crying again, especially if I can really have at it in privacy and let out those wailing sounds of desperation. Because then, usually, I feel better, even if there are still more tears that need to be let out. For tears are always inside of me, dormant, waiting to build up enough that they finally must be released. So when they do come, I welcome them with a degree of relief. Oh, yes. You again. What took you so long?

I’ve cried a few times in this last week already. The last time was on Monday morning when I was finally going to get my long-awaited date with myself and my journal at a café. Only since I am on an elimination diet now, I could not have my usual coffee (much less dairy or soy). So I ordered a decaf, which was lukewarm and sour. I drank it down nonetheless in the midst of chattering parents and noisy children at Top Pot, and tried to begin a new blog post about finally visiting a naturopath for Cedar’s allergy and gas issues. But I gave up after a few paragraphs. Not only did I not feel like rehashing the ordeal that we’ve been going through right then (especially since that morning Cedar’s red cheeks looked even worse than the day before, right when I thought they were getting better which left me demoralized and sad), but I also was not getting that usual caffeine kick that I’ve come to depend on to get me started with these blog entries. Normally, I can quickly overcome a bad night’s sleep, sit down, focus, and crank a first draft out in an hour or two, but not this day. Instead, I gave up after half an hour and drove home in tears, proceeding to bury my head in my husband’s chest. “What’s wrong?” he asked (he later told me he thought it was something awful, like I’d gotten in a car accident). “I’m too tired to write,” I cried. “And I just had the worst cup of decaf.”

I decided I just needed to sleep, forget about writing today. Matthew left to take Cedar on a walk, I got in bed, cried a little, then lay there for almost an hour, unable to go to sleep. Finally I got up to eat and resume the thus far disappointing day. Later on that day, I tried to sleep with Cedar three times while he napped, but every time my mind wouldn’t turn off, especially when fueled by the knowledge that I needed to fall asleep quickly if I wanted to get in more than a few minutes before he woke up again. No luck.

Later, at 9:30 in the evening, after Cedar had been down for a while and I’d finally managed to send off an important email, I decided to go to bed early, despite the fact that my husband was still home, the last night of his five-day weekend. Again, I lay in bed for an hour and could not fall asleep. So, I got up, took a shower, poured myself a glass of wine, and joined my husband on the couch. Slowly I felt myself begin to decompress. I guess I needed to unwind my mind, let out all this worry and exhaustion I’ve been carrying, even if it meant that I yet again wouldn’t get enough sleep that night. It was more important that I sit and be with my emotions. Sift through all those layers that were now churning in my chest where they’d risen to, more fluid and accessible than before. Still liable to spill out with the right word spoken at the right time, but easier now at least for me to sit with them calmly, breathe in and out of their pores.

I didn’t mean to write this blog entry today. I wanted to go for something more positive this time, about an aspect of motherhood that I’m grateful for, and have wanted to write on for weeks. I don’t want to people think that I complain a lot, or am depressed, or that I am not, at core level, enjoying motherhood, because I am. But I guess I still need to get this other stuff out of the way first. And there is a lot of “stuff” that builds up when you don’t have the time to properly take care of yourself.

Today, my mother is watching Cedar for three hours after returning from L.A., where she has been taking care of her mother. When she wasn’t here for three weeks, and right in the midst of a lot of my stressors, I realized how much I’d come to depend on this weekly Wednesday afternoon break, how much of a difference even just a couple hours to myself can make, especially when they are a scheduled into my life, and I can look forward and depend on them each week.

I don’t always write during this time. Sometimes I get a massage, and other times I simply do chores and run errands. But these days, even doing chores and running errands can feel like a break, if you aren’t trying to do them while still caring for a baby.

But I don’t want to end this blog now on a complaining note like that. It’s not that I always want to tie a Pollyanna bow on the end of every post or essay, but it’s more that I am striving to keep everything in perspective, to remember how good I still have it compared to so many. Things have been rough, yes, but I feel like I hit my low point last week, and now things are on the upswing. Things will get rough again, and again I will finally come to the point of tears, and then slowly, things will get better again. And it is only through reaching those low points that I can finally be blessed with my tears again, and start to realize how hard it really has been, and then remember that I can and should ask my community for all the love and support they can give me.  

I feel like during the first couple months of this motherhood endeavor, I was surprised and pleased by how good I was handling things, especially the
single-mom for four days a week aspect of my arrangement. These last couple months have been more challenging. I still think I’ve been handling it pretty well, but I also now acknowledge how much it has caught up with me. It’s been hard. And no need to tell me “it will get better” or to “hang in there,” because I know it will get better, and then it will get worse, and then it will get better—and around and around—because that is how life goes. And I will hang in there, of course, because I have to, and because I’m still breathlessly in love with my son, and with this thing called life.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Gas, Food, Sleeping


Cedar and I have been laying low this last week, trying to get over a cold that we picked up somewhere—or that I developed myself since I’ve been running on empty lately. It’s been a busy and social couple weeks, culminating with a wedding for my dear friend Shelley (former co-author of this blog) on Whidbey Island—three full days of driving, ferries, delicious meals, ceremonies, getting dressed up, walking on the beach, socializing, nursing, bouncing, and trying to get Cedar to nap in between. On Sunday after the wedding, I was hit with a sore throat and stuffy nose, so this week I have been drinking lots of water, hanging around the house, and trying to go to bed early. 

Sleep has been an issue for us the last month or so, with Cedar waking at night as often as every hour or two, usually from gas. This broken sleep has no doubt contributed to my run-downness, and it’s kind of amazing that I don’t feel more sleep-deprived most days. I guess I’ve been able to get enough to survive, even if it is in these small chunks. Thankfully, I don’t have to leave the house and go to work in the morning so I can try to make up for bad nights with late mornings, in which I keep nursing Cedar back to sleep for as long as possible. And I guess my body—which used to demand nine hours of unbroken sleep a night—has adapted and will now humbly take what it can get. But, my god, it’d be amazing to experience an unbroken night’s sleep again! To sleep for eight hours in a row?! I never realized how downright luxurious that would seem. 

Cedar just had his four-month birthday, and some say that around three or four months is when babies start to develop more of a routine and sleep better through the night. Great. It pains me to think that we might be establishing a new “waking throughout the night routine” at this critical point in brain development when he is becoming more alert and aware of everything around him. I’m hoping that this is just a phase, and that it will pass sooner than later.  

When Cedar was about three months old, I decided to track his sleep patterns for a couple weeks to see if he had more of a schedule than I realized. Lo and behold, I found that on most days he was napping around 10:30 a.m., then again around 1:00, and again around 4:00 and 6:00, with some variation depending on how long each nap lasted. I was consistently putting him down for the night around 8:00, then he’d wake once at 3:00, and again at 7:00. At 7:00, he’d usually be pretty awake, so I’d change his diaper, feed, and play with him in bed for about an hour before he’d get tired again and go back to sleep for another hour, whereupon we’d both get up around 9:00. And repeat. It was so satisfying to have some sense of a routine and regularity, to know what to expect so as to better plan and flow with each day. 

And then, about a week and a half later, the night waking started—and the whole “schedule” went to hell. A week or so after that, I stopped keeping track—it wasn’t as satisfying to know all his sleep details when things weren’t going so well. I’d first attributed the night waking to early teething since he was showing all the signs (gnawing on his hand, batting at his ears, squirming from a discomfort that didn’t seem to be gas), but recently, he’s still been waking a lot, and most of the time now, it’s from gas (I know because I usually wake before he’s fully waken, and I hear him whimpering, kicking his legs around, and sometimes farting too).

Gas has been a constant struggle for Cedar from the beginning, but it didn’t seem to bother him—or us—as much before. I don’t know if it’s truly gotten worse now, or if he’s just more aware of his suffering. The gas seemed to reach a new peak of discomfort for him around two months, and ever since then, I’ve started paying extra close attention to my diet to see how much of it is food related. I’ve since deduced that cabbage is a definite no-no, the worst, really bad for my poor little guy. Other gassy vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, and peppers are also off limits, although they are not as bad. Beans are pretty awful for him too, as are garlic, onions, and spicy foods. I’ve also completely eliminated all dairy from my diet, because it makes him break out in a crusty rash on his face, and I know it can make some babies gassy, too. I tried eliminating coffee for a week or so, but I don’t think it made much difference. Wheat and soy could be culprits too, but I have yet to test them. The problem is I have yet to do a true elimination diet, so unless there is a super clear correlation that I can trace (i.e. the cabbage), sometimes I’m not positive what caused the gas, but I can make a pretty confident guess (i.e. the hummus—but was it the beans or the garlic?). And since I’m not positive, sometimes I’ll eat those foods again just to be sure, and then feel terrible when I indeed make Cedar suffer again. 

Last weekend on Whidbey we went out to eat, and I ate a couple mussels before I realized they were swimming in a broth of butter. Cedar’s face promptly turned red the next day, and on top of this, despite our best efforts to keep his face covered with a hat, he got some sun as we rehearsed for the wedding ceremony in the afternoon heat. By the next morning, his poor face was the reddest it’s ever been. I felt awful. We’d burned our baby. Or maybe it was mostly from the butter.  

I know I shouldn’t blame myself; I’m doing the best I can, and lord knows I’ve already invested a lot of energy into trying to figure this food allergy puzzle out. But it’s hard not to feel bad when you know that you control what goes into your baby’s system. Besides constantly tweaking my diet, I’ve also tried giving him homeopathics like gripe water and Hylands colic tablets—the latter of which seems to help when it’s really bad. 

I had another low moment last week when Cedar was being super fussy during our PEPS meeting, likely from gas, and I finally left early because I wasn’t able to be present with the discussion-- and shed some tears on my way out. His bad spells are manageable at home when I have the bouncy ball, the Moby, the swaddle blanket, and silence-- all my tools for calming him and putting him to sleep. But when in the midst of company, no matter how friendly and sympathetic they are, I realized how sensitive I felt about my baby’s fussiness.  He’s actually a really mellow baby most of the time, I felt like proclaiming.  

I decided that day that I’d had it with the guesswork and needed to call a naturopath, do an elimination diet if that’s what it’d take. I promptly returned home and called Group Health to check what my insurance plan would cover, then did some research on which naturopath to invest my hope in. But in the end I decided to wait until Cedar had his four-month check-up this last Monday and see what our family doctor thought first. 

When I told our doctor that Cedar’s bad gassy spells might result in maybe a half an hour or so of crying a couple times a week, but that he was never fully inconsolable, she didn’t think this sounded that bad. She said that most babies cry on average of three hours a day, and we agreed that Cedar’s discomforts did not land him in the “colicky” territory. But, really-- three hours? I find this hard to believe based on the experience of other moms I know, but it did make me feel better. Cedar has gas most every day, but the really bad spells only happen now and then. What we’re going through, in the larger scope of baby issues, is not that big a problem.  

I think that his bad gas spells are from the foods I eat, whereas his constant baseline gassiness might come from ingesting air bubbles while he feeds. Or, it could come from other common allergens I have yet to test and eliminate, like wheat or soy. Or, who knows, maybe he just has a super delicate digestive system. I’ve been trying to burp him more than I used to, but at night I nurse him to sleep in our bed, and later when he wakes up gassy, nursing him again is what I’ve found most easily helps the gas pass through and helps him go back to sleep. If I try to burp him when he’s half-asleep, it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get anything out of him. Plus, being able to just roll over and not get out of bed when he wakes is one of the huge benefits of co-sleeping. If I had to wake and burp him after each night feeding, or get up and bounce on the ball for who knows how long each time he woke with gas, I’d be getting up all night long—and for an uncertain outcome. And when you’re as sleep-deprived as I’ve been lately, you don’t have much energy to invest in your own half-baked theories. You just want your baby to go back to sleep as quickly as possible. 

Raising a baby is a constant guessing game and experiment in progress It takes time to research and talk to experts, time I mostly don’t have. And then the experts (not to mention all the self-taught experts out there, a.k.a. other moms) often say different things. And in the end, sometimes I think no one really knows that much more than I do, since my 24-hours a day experience with this particular baby, and my own intuition armed with research, is probably more accurate than most people’s bits of passed-on wisdom.  Plus, by the time you think you’ve figured something out, your baby’s probably changed his game on you already anyway.  

I did feel a little better about Cedar’s gas and sleeping issues after talking to my doctor; it’s reassuring to feel like it’s not really that big a deal, and that night waking is still more the norm with this age than “sleeping through the night”. But after a couple more bad days and nights this week, my search for a naturopath’s second opinion has returned. Maybe we won’t ever get to the bottom of this, and Cedar’s gas is just something we’ll have to help him through and live with, but I can’t stand not knowing if there’s something else I’m ignoring that could help us all feel better. The hardest part is not knowing, a friend said. Indeed. 

On our way home from the wedding last weekend we stopped at Prima Bistro in Langley with the hope of having a nice lunch before getting in line to wait for the ferry. I took Cedar to change him in the bathroom, and just as I wiped his penis (which Matthew had noticed that morning looked kind of red on the underside) he started howling. Oh no. Could his penis be infected? He continued to cry the whole time we were at the restaurant so I got my salad to go, and he cried most of the time we were in line, on the ferry, and on the drive home. The breast wasn’t helping, and nor were the colic tablets, or the baby Tylenol I finally gave him. I felt demoralized, anxious, and sad—not to mention physically drained from my new cold. It didn’t help that he’d barely napped that day either, and that his face looked horrible from the butter and sun rash.  

By the time we got home, he’d calmed down. I had Matthew change his diaper, because I couldn’t deal with inflicting more pain on him, and Matthew reported that his penis actually looked fine, and he didn’t cry when it was wiped. What a huge relief! What this meant was that his crying that day was actually probably from gas. Probably from the white bean salad I’d indulged in and “tested” at the wedding, even though I knew I was taking a risk. Momentarily, things were again put in perspective for me. There are so many other more worrisome things that could be wrong with him. All Cedar had was a mild cold, an unsightly rash, and some persistent reoccurring gas. I could deal with this, even if it still strains my heart each day with worry. We’re going through a rough patch here, but all in all, I am still so very grateful that we are, for the most part, healthy and happy.

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