Finally, he poops

I'm going to give you fair warning. This blog post is indeed about poop. Not a synonym for poop. No, actual poop. And a frank discussion at that. However, I won't be describing it in an adult, so that might make it a little more palatable. So yea, this isn't a post about Jeff's poop. Aren't you glad about that?

When Asa was about two weeks old my milk became low. We were on the lookout for it and knew what to do, as we had already experienced it with Millicent. So it was with a heavy heart that I gave Asa his first bottle.

It wasn't more than a few days when the formula started causing severe pain in my newborn baby. He was literally screaming from it. There was nothing I could do and I felt like a total failure because my body didn't work the way it was suppose to. Because of that, he was in pain. He had to be fed and I couldn't feed him. People think formula is good enough? It was apparent in Asa that it was not. IT IS NOT.

It was then that God led me to Milkshare. Through Milkshare I found an amazing mom who loves children and wanted to donate some of her excess milk. She lived near me. She almost completely provided Asa with all the milk he needed for the first six to eight months.

There would be times we would run out or couldn't get to where she lived. So we would go back to formula. As long as he was on the breastmilk he was fine. He was always a big crier. (You've had one of those right? A baby who, every time you put him down, immediately starts crying and does not stop until you pick him up again, including when he's asleep or you are sleeping and no one wants to hold him because he cries when they hold him too because they aren't you. You've had one right?) But on the formula it was all he did. He became constipated. When he was able to go it hurt and hurt and hurt. He would cry from stomach pains. He would constantly throw up, too.

It wasn't long before our donor was mostly out of milk and we had to resort to formula full time. We decided to find an alternative and researched our options. CLEARLY formula was not the best choice for Asa. (Unless of course, you like seeing your child in pain. While I like to be the one inflicting the pain, I do not like it be from some other source.) Organic goat's milk seemed like a good alternative. We could see pretty quickly that it did not cause the same pain that the formula did, initially. As he got older anything he drank would cause EXTREME constipation, whether it was goats milk or formula (since we were out of breastmilk).

When he needed to go he would scream and cry and clinch up. Oh, my mommy's heart would ache as we held him and he tried to go. He would have blood in his stool from it tearing him as it came out. (And you know what this is like. Come on. Think back to the days after you gave birth. Do they still MAKE you go before you can leave the hospital? I lied about it, what about you? But even at home, I would hold it in as long as I could, because I just knew it was going to hurt. And oh, man, did I want to postpone that as long as I could.) I can't tell you how many times I cried as he went to the bathroom. He wasn't even a year old.

We began using an infant enema once or twice a week to help with the discomfort associated with the constipation and the painful experience of actually pooping. It helped some but didn't actually solve the problem of going on his own, naturally.

I finally took Asa to the doctor...his first appointment since he was tiny. The doctor recommended Miralax. It helped, a LOT. As long as we gave him some every day, he would go peacefully and easily every few days. If we would forget to give him some it would be the same thing as always. At first we had to find the perfect amount to give him so he wasn't just pooping and pooping and pooping...and oh man, did we have some blow outs. It seemed he was always in disposables too, which created even more of a mess. (We actually didn't have many blow outs in cloth.) Let me just tell you, getting poop off a car seat and a baby, while at a gas station, not fun!

But recently I have been trying to decrease Asa's bottles. We are actually down to just sleep times now. So, as I had hoped, he's eating more food. Every morning he either has a whole banana or a Kashi bar.

The unexpected joy in this is that he is actually pooping on his own, with no help from anyone or anything. NO PAIN. Just pooping at least once a day. Oh glorious day! Who knew that as a mom I would get excited about poop. Oh the things we moms love.

So what about your week? What unexpected, crazy thing happened to you this week? And/or how hard was it for you to poop after you gave birth?