30 Weeks: A few steps forward, a few steps back

Eloise turned 7 months old yesterday.

Sadly, though, this past week has been a rougher one for her. We seemed to have moved backwards a little on the pain front.

The good news, though, is that we moved forwards in a few other pretty great areas.

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Steps back: Food and pain for Eloise

The kefir we had been so hopeful about? Definitely a fail. Quite different than her oats failure, it took 3 days for the failure to become clear — but the fallout was much, much worse.

By Monday afternoon, day 3, we had diaper rash and not-great-💩. So now we know for sure — she almost certainly has a cow’s milk protein intolerance. (I had been initially hoping maybe kefir was high in a food chemical, but it isn’t. And kefir is also low in lactose. So it is the cow’s milk itself. Which means no dairy for me for awhile.) By Tuesday, Eloise’s pain was even worse.

So “fussy” is how we’d describe a lot of her week. She’d have a great few hours, then scream for a bit, then settle down then scream. Thankfully she only had a few short actual reflux pain episodes.

Poor thing.

Yesterday she continued struggling towards the end of the day with, still, some not-great-💩.

We aren’t sure if the pain and struggle is still from the kefir or if it’s from another source. For example, last weekend I simmered the lamb for 1.5 hours — which is longer than usual. Then I poured the meat stock into every dish for the week. Later, I discovered this might be borderline too long to cook it, and may have actually made everything quite high in all 3 of the natural food chemicals we’re trying to avoid.

So this past weekend I simmered the lamb only for an hour (man, cause the shorter cook times on higher heat make it really tough to eat). And only put the broth in with the lamb itself.

I’m hoping, if that is the problem, that we soon get back the kid we’ve been having for a few weeks that’s been pretty happyp and pain-free.

Her no longer being at “baseline” means, really, we shouldn’t be trialling any new foods for her or myself until she has a food good days in a row. Yet, impatient Mallory, I went ahead and added a few ingredients this weekend that should have been okay according to the diet I’m on. Despite Brian suggesting I go slow. And, well, I discovered I personally have a problem with something in there. But because I tried so many new things at once, I have no idea which one.

Sigh.

Patience is a virtue I need to develop more of.

Steps forward and back: Speaking of (my) food…

Remember I said I added a few ingredients at once this past weekend? It was for a good reason.

The diagnostic elimination diet books we ordered from Royal Prince Albert Hospital in Australia finally arrived. (They are written by the hospital’s allergy unit and are fantastic resources on everything food-allergy related.)

Not only do they provide a lot clearer guidelines on foods to eat or avoid for me, but they also have a recipe book. What’s especially amazing is they have specific instructions on how to “challenge” food issues, in what order, with what foods, and even in what quantity for breastfeeding mums or babies with allergies.

Interestingly, as far as “challenging” food allergies, they first suggest to double check if you really do have gluten, soy, and milk allergies by trialling those first. So, interestingly, we were actually right to try out kefir. So it was great confirmation.

However, the downside of getting the books is that I was so excited about the prospect of eating normal-type meals (for the last few months now, all of my meals have consisted of one meat and one veggie) that I got a little carried away and tried to make a bunch of those recipes this weekend. Not only was it a bit chaotic and overwhelming (thankfully Maarit was there who did a lot of the cooking), but it seems I reacted personally to at least one new ingredient in there — heartburn, a headache, and a little nausea to be exact.

So it looks like I’ll need to put aside most of my new dishes (frozen in our deep freezer) for at least a few days, and then try them each one at a time in the near future to see if I can isolate what the offending ingredient might be.

Regardless, I already knew I shouldn’t have tried a bunch of new ingredients at once, but I was just so hopeful.

Now we’re back to waiting for both Eloise and myself to return to normal for a few days before we try anything new.

Step back: Brian’s poor knees

One thing that Brian has been focused on making happen since Eloise’s diagnosis? Getting and staying healthy. It’s suddenly been very important to him personally to make sure he stays around to take care of her, so he’s been trying to figure out an exercise routine that would be an easy cardio workout for him — and also be free, preferably.

That’s why he started slowly doing a running program — his goal being to work his way up to doing a 5K a few tims a week. But, after 3 runs, his knees said “No more.” Many days later, they’re still hurting. In fact, as I type this up, he’s in the living room with ice packs on them. He’s probably more frustrated that he lost his easy, free exercise plan than the fact that his knees are in pain. His best new idea is to rent an elliptical machien for our home and try that out for a month.

But if you have any other ideas of free, easy, and great cardio workouts, let us know.

In the meantime, man, pray for his poor knees.

Step forward: It sure feels like a miracle

A few days ago I wrote about my internal dilemma about getting the vaccine but why, eventually, I decided it was (hopefully) more likely to protect Eloise rather than hurt her.

The plus side of the vaccine is that antibodies in my breastmilk should give her some protection. A baby’s saliva during nursing sends the message to the mom’s body how the antibodies need to be made for the baby at that moment, which would seem especially important in the case of these COVID-fighting antibodies. However, most of you know that I’m exclusively pumping because Eloise has never truly nursed. (I’m not counting the 1.5 months she “nursed” through a bottle-shaped nipple shield because there was no contact.) Which means my body has never really had a great feedback loop, other than the fact that we live in the same environment, of how to specifically make antibodies for her.

However, the same day I got my COVID jab was the day after her last kefir, so she was extra fussy. That afternoon, out of exasperation when she was crying, at some point I declared, “Gosh wouldn’t this be easier if you would just nurse!?!” And put her to my breast.

Then, instead of screaming at my chest — which is mostly what she’s done the hundreds of times I’ve tried before — she seemed interested. And, within a few minutes, to my utter disbelief, Eloise actually started nursing. Like, no-nipple-shield legitimate-nursing.

If there was any day to start tailor-making the exact right antibodies for her, the day of my COVID shot was a perfect day to start.

Regardless, she hasn’t been super interested in nursing since then, but I’ve started offering a few times a day. Most every day she’s nursed around 5 minutes. Not a lot, but it’s a start. (As a side note, when I often pumped shortly thereafter, I seemed to produce the same amount as normal, so I am not convinced she transferred a lot of milk.)

I guess I’ll keep offering a few times a day and see what happens. At this point, since I’ve been pumping so long, I assume that’s probably the method we’ll continue with to feed her. It’s still so interesting that I had just written about our first nursing experience just last week — never dreaming at that time something would change within a few days of me writing that post.

But it’s still incredible to think that a 7 month old baby can nurse out of nowhere. I’d thought she was beyond hope. It shouldn’t have surprised me, though. She just started using a bottle again. And, clearly kids learn the new skill of solids eating. So why not add nursing to the list?

Gosh, maybe releasing that tongue tie a few months ago — if there was one — really did help.

Regardless, Brian always says she could surprise us and change something drastically any day.

He was right.

Now, if I could only figure out how to get her to NOT bite down when she nurses (which then makes me involuntarily yelp and then her involuntarily cry at my reaction), that would make it a far more pleasant experience for us both.

All our hugs and love,

Mallory, Eloise, and Brian

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