Adventures in Poop

People often asked me when I was pregnant, whether I was ready for poopy diapers.

I would roll my eyes and say yes, while what really I wanted to do was scream that I have been ready for years now. With every miscarriage, with every injection and every pill, I am ready.

I didn’t scream however, because in real life I am socially awkward and a bit of a coward.

But I was ready, ready for the poopy diapers, ready to cloth diaper and I was even ready to face meconium.

Bring it on, I thought.

What I wasn’t ready for, was blood in my child’s poopy diaper.

The first time it happened my heart stopped, of course P(husband) was in class. I called the Dr who told me it’s probably a tear from constipation, if it gets worse goto ER.

I wasn’t prepared to hear that worse was gushing blood either.

Every miscarriage chips away at your soul, your courage and erodes your Hope reserves, you know the ones you turn to because you can’t brew liquid courage like Harry can. So after all these years, all I could think of with a sinking feeling, was oh dear god no, I can’t lose her.

The blood stopped though, A laughed, and all was right with the world.

I forgot about it for a month or so till it happened again.

This time initially I was prepared to think it was another tear till I saw a dollop of blood. The pediatrician wanted me to go in the next day so I made the appointment. Of course P was in class again so I hugged my confused child tightly for an hour and kept saying I won’t let you go, no sirree.

The next day the pediatrician said she didn’t see a tear and A might have colitis, inflamed colon from an allergy. She said you are lucky you saw blood and showed me pictures of poop where you don’t even see the blood but it’s there.

I ran home and rushed back with poopy diapers to test and they all tested positive.

I could give up dairy and soy like the Dr wanted, no big deal right? Wrong soy is in everything, everything. So I started obsessively reading labels. Besides dairy, will someone tell me why soy is in our chocolate? Well it is.

Now to be fair, I didn’t think dairy was the culprit because if you have been keeping up with the mil(k) wars, you might know just how much dairy I consumed in September. Milk to get my mil off my back; cookies, chocolate and ice cream to cope with getting my mil off my back; and paneer cuz she thought she was being so clever in disguising the milk.

When I went home though I faintly remembered the pictures the Dr had shown about hidden blood and called the nurse in a panic. She told me it didn’t apply to me. I believed her.

Next time we went to pediatrician, some diapers still tested positive for blood. I stopped giving her iron because the drops were mimicking blood. I felt angry and helpless.

A week later we had more blood on her diaper.

Now it could be that I was just staring at the poop under a lamp, every single time and so spotting it more. I was devastated that I was hurting baby. This little child was depending on me to keep her safe and I had failed. Needless to say I started a food diary recording everything I ate and everything about her poop.

I was poobsessed. I turned to my old friend Dr Google and pieced things together for myself.

Green poop – not normal
Mucusy poop – not normal
That persistent redness in diaper area because of which I switched diaper brand, wipe brand, detergent brand, used water, made wipes? Of course not normal but also due to above green n mucusy poop.

The adventure intensified and one lamp turned into two under which I stared at the poop every single time.

I eventually figured out it was corn.

It dawned on me that all the times I blamed processed food, were all the times the corn was hiding in the tortilla or salsa or the veggie burger.

When I stopped soy and thus vegetable oil, for a short time I turned to canola oil made from corn making things a lot worse.

It’s been 2 weeks, several trips to stores to find ketchup, Pepsi and baby Tylenol without corn syrup and multiple hiccups later.

I still stare at the poop obsessively but slowly its getting better.

But poop is an ever changing adventure apparently because next stop, solids.

Also why is my first post about poop? Because this is the whole reason I took up blogging again. If it helps even one mom find colitis faster or feel less helpless its all worth it.