The other side

I couldn't bring myself to post for a long time.  I didn't want to put in writing the way I was feeling.  It felt unfair and wrong to talk about my baby in any way that wasn't gushing and loving.  The truth was, we went through several months of pure hell.  From about 3 months, the crying grew more and more intense.  By 4.5 months, it was up to 8 hours per day.

I'm not exaggerating.

I'm also not exaggerating when I say it was SCREAMING.  Not crying, screaming.  We went to the doctor many times.  "Nothing" was wrong.  He was still gaining weight, albeit slowly.  I took him back in in late October because he didn't seem to be gaining much.  I was right, he had only gained 6oz in 3 weeks.  After doing a pre/post nursing weigh-in, he was taking in plenty and I was producing well.  The LC thought that maybe he needed more in the bottles while I was at work. Operation "fatten Quinn up" started.  The screaming got worse, but he gained 6oz on 6 days.  Nursing was a battle for both of us.  Latch, suck, scream, unlatch.  Repeat over and over.

I didn't care that he was gaining, something was wrong.  Babies don't scream that much.  This wasn't colic.  Still, I saw several peds, and all said it was just colic and reflux.  Finally, when he was 4.5 months old, he gained ZERO ounces in 10 days.  Our ped could see the exhaustion on our faces.  We probably spent almost as much time crying as Q did.  We were miserable.  We questioned if we had made a huge mistake having a baby.  Our ped kicked it into high gear.  The next day, we saw a GI specialist.  She took 5 tubes of blood, a urine sample, and 4 stool samples (those were FUN to collect!).  We could tell she was a bit stumped, but she decided we should try neocate, a fancy $50 per can amino acid hypoallergenice formula.  At that point, we were willing to bankrupt our savings to "fix" our baby.

This is a result of TEN days of formula:

TEN DAYS people!  He put on almost 2lbs in 10 days!  His personality immediately started to change.  The screaming was 50% less within 3 days, and 75% less within a week.  Clearly that was the answer.  The best as we can guess, he has a severe milk protein allergy.  I was poisoning him with breastmilk.  While I was sad to give up breastfeeding, we made it 4.5 months.  Clearly it was NOT what was best for my child.  We didn't have time to try an elimination diet for me.  We were days away from having to hospitalize Quinn.  I may be pro-breastfeeding, but I'm more pro doing what's best for my kid.  For him, formula is best.

He's stirring from a nap....more about the bonding finally coming and pictures of our awesome kid soon :)