Thanksgiving

So our trip to Michigan was a success! Sam slept a lot for both car trips, and had limited crying fits. The things is his cries now are WAY bigger than they used to be, but we're getting accustomed to the new big voice.

We had a chance to tour the baby around and see a lot of family who I hadn't seen in a long time, so that was nice. (FYI to you Erlewines out there -- we are talking of a family reunion next summer. Consult your schedules and hopefully we can come up with something. Rumor has it it will be in Big Rapids?) Sam also had what might have been his biggest crying fit ever during our second night in Big Rapids, and he woke up every two hours at least, crying. I just nursed him basically whenever he awoke because I didn't see the point in trying to "sleep train" while in a strange place after having messed with his regular sleep schedule (including naps). By our last night there he was sleeping MUCH better. So far tonight he has gone to bed early and is sleeping well in his own bed, so that's good. I, like Sam, am exhausted from our journey and will be going to bed really early tonight too.

A few discoveries on our trip:

• Nursing in the car was not nearly as difficult or awkward as I had feared!

• Sam might be ready to start solids! I told myself that I would watch his cues instead of picking an arbitrary age for when to start the foray into more-than-milk. One HILARIOUS moment was when Sam was in his papa's arms and I was sitting next to them eating a piece of pumpkin pie. Sam was ENTRANCED with that pie, reaching out for it and carefully studying each bite moving from my plate to my mouth, complete with mock chewing. It was so cute! He did it again later when his dad was eating a KitKat (Sam knows the good stuff) and when I was eating some broccoli too. I'm guessing this big boy of mine will be a good eater.
  
  
• Thanks for all of your comments on the vitamin/baby poo topic. I decided to take a break from the Tri Vi Sol w/iron for a bit and see how that changed things. Things remained pretty fluid for the next day or two, but changed color and odor, and today the stool seems to be back to how it was pre Tri Vi Sol w/ iron, so I think it is indeed the iron doing it (and it did also cause some diaper rash, but nothing that seemed to bother Sam much -- what do you Mom's like for diaper rash? The Burts Bees cream seems pretty good, I got some vasaline but that doesn't seem to help much...I hated the storebrand Desitin I tried...). I might get the Tri Vi Sol without iron, that way he can still get the extra AD&E...what do you think? (I'll ask the doc too).
  

So what am I thankful for this year? Though I continually find things to complain about, and I certainly could fill another blog about the struggles my family and I are currently facing, it is good for me to take a moment to look at the positive. Though it probably goes without saying, I am so wholly and completely thankful for the birth of my amazing son Samuel. He is far more than I could ever have imagined and puts everything else in my life into perspective. I am thankful for my supportive, loving, talented husband, and I am thankful that he has returned to school and gets to spend time doing his art again. I am thankful that out of all the places in the world my sister Meg could have moved to, she chose to move right next door to me to share her life with her nephew. I am thankful to all of you who read this haphazard blog full of mundane thoughts composed of run-on sentences, grammatical errors, and whatever else happens when I spout off a bunch of ramblings during my free moments. It means so much to have a little network of moms out there who can give me encouragement and support when I'm feeling unsure, and it's really cool to feel reunited with my cousins through the birth of this next generation. There is a lot more that I am thankful for, but I think I'll call it a night.

Appointment with Surgeon.

Ok, so I called the doc's office and basically it sounded as if no one made the appointment. Thanks guys! Anyway they said they'd make an appointment and call me back. They did within a few hours, only to find out that the date/time they picked wouldn't work for us. So then they gave me the direct number to schedule for myself. Geez, couldn't they have done that in the first place??

Anyway, we will see one of the surgeons from the Riley Children's Hospital on Tuesday Dec 9.

Sam is having a hard day. I am more and more suspecting teething. No fever, though I sort of suck at taking temperatures. He cries a lot and it's hard to keep the thermometer and place and often it ends up below temp which makes me suspicious. My friend got me one of those 1 second ear ones, but I'm a little scared I'll hurt his ear or something. I tried it though and I didn't seem to bother his ear and it was fast and seemed pretty good. I also did the under arm. Both were just about normal body temp, if not low, he isn't flush, his head isn't hot -- I don't think there is a fever. But he gets really upset and has crying spells, which just isn't usual for him. I even think today that the tooth has emerged more, but it's so slight and difficult to see that it could be in my head. Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see.

Another thing that has got me worrying today is diarrhea. Poop talk becomes VERY common for new parents. Here are details that may not be appealing...Sam has always had frequent stools. They eventually slowed around 3 mos or so, to one thicker monster poo per day. Then I think around the time of the first fistula (or whatever it is) "popping" he started having more frequent runnier stools. At this time he also switched from the Tri Vi Sol vitamin to the Tri Vi Sol vitamin with iron. His poo changed color and odor too. I attributed this to the iron, and I'm like 99% sure it is indeed the iron. He started going like 6-8 times a day again I think. He has kept with that pretty steady for weeks now. But often the stools are darker in color and much more watery than they used to be -- before they were curdy and seedy like breast milk poo is supposed to be. Yes, all you new to baby poo, it is a whole world of textures, colors, odors, frequency, and quantity -- oh joy! Anyway, I had read somewhere early on (probably when his poo was sort of green as opposed to yellow) that you shouldn't worry about your baby's poo because it changes soooo much and most of it is really normal. If they start pooping more than once per feeding, THEN it might be diarrhea. Well today, all my reading indicates that watery poo IS in fact diarrhea. So I think he's been having diarrhea for like a couple of weeks! Is it time to call the doctor? He doesn't have any other sick symptoms, apart from the teething symptoms. AND THEN I ready that diarrhea can be a symptom of teething from swallowing excess drool OR from putting so many new things in their mouth that they get bad bacteria.

I dunno. All this just raises a mom's alert level. But I'm thinking that the diarrhea isn't a problem, right? I mean, I don't KNOW that it's diarrhea, I just know it's very runny watery poo. He's eating normally and urinating normally and he continues to grow and be happy so I know he isn't dehydrated. He seems cranky and uncomfortable, but other than that he just doesn't seem sick at all. He isn't progressing, he doesn't have fever, and when he's upset he can be distracted by things like making faces in the mirror...

What do you moms think? Time to call the doctor? Or wait for real warning signs?

Sleep.

Is he sleeping through the night?
The question feels like a judgment call. If he's not, then you MUST be doing something wrong. If he is, then you have the ever coveted "good baby".

So does Sam sleep through the night? I don't know. Sometimes. Sort of??
Sam "should" be sleeping through the night. After all, he has apparently reached the size and age where nighttime feedings are no longer necessary. Therefore, he should sleep through the night. The end. Really?

First, I don't actually know what "sleeping through the night" means. I asked the last doc we saw and he sorta made it sound like I was stupid for asking, like I was looking for a magic number of hours or something. But really, if you are trying to figure out the sleep routine and, dare I say, "sleep train" your child, how are you to know when to feed and when not to?

So I guess I have to take a step back and talk about Sam and his sleep.

Sam has always been a good sleeper. He takes naps and he sleeps at night. From very early on he liked to get long stretches of sleep at night -- he would wake to feed, but easily go right back to sleep. He did not think it was play time, just business -- food and sleep (a man after my own heart!!). One magical night around 3 months, he didn't wake up to eat. He just slept through the night. I was shocked and happy that it happened so naturally. Never did it happen again.

In the early days, Sam slept mostly in his crib, then I got more comfortable having him in bed with us, and then it sort of got to where he was in bed with us every night. I got to like it. He is my baby and I like being close. It also made nighttime feeding easier. Aaron and I do not have a regular routine. I'm not working (outside the home) and Aaron is in school and doesn't have to get up in the mornings. Parents without routine = baby without routine. I would watch Sam for queues as to when he was sleepy and ready for bed. Some of them are very obvious -- nodding off, rubbing his eyes, yawning. But a lot of times I don't notice until it is "too late" -- he starts to get really fussy or whining. It's harder for him to go to sleep like that. Sometimes he "crosses over to the dark side" and the fussiness turns into outright crying. At that point I would lie down in bed with him, hold his hand, snuggle close, and sing until he fell asleep.

Once he was a sleep, he would give like a four-hour stretch, followed by a three-hour stretch, then some more sleep after that. It was ok, but it wasn't progressing, and it was getting more and more to where I had to lie down and comfort him to sleep. I think it was because he was getting increasingly aware of his surroundings and would get too stimulated by things to fall asleep on his own, but I don't know.

I was never very unhappy with our sleep routines. Some days Sam got up earlier than I wanted. Some nights I had harder time getting back to sleep than others. But that is life, baby or no baby.

Anyway, then we went to the doctor and they said we should let him learn to "self-soothe" and that he did not need to eat during the night for any nutritional purpose. So, we decided to make the move. We had been planning to move Sam to his own room at some point. We just didn't know what the some point was. I was thinking it would be once Sam slept through the night. But then with the doctor's suggestion and other reading I'd done about how baby slept better in their own room, I figured we should go for it. Plus it's fun to set up Sam's room -- Sam's room!! It sounds so fun!!

I tried to start a bedtime of around 9:00. But Sam got tired earlier, so it became around 8 or 8:30. We would do a nighttime bath, change, and go to sleep. He then would wake an hour later, I would feed him, and he'd go to sleep. Aaron has been staying up until ungodly hours working on school stuff, so he would check on Sam if he started to stir and offer the pacifier or other comforts and Sam happily drifted back to sleep. He would then wake around 5 or 6 and I would get him and feed him and bring him to bed. This was our new routine as of like last week.

When I would put him to bed, half the time it would be hardly any issue, the other half we basically tried cry-it-out. Now, fuss-it-out was something that came naturally to us. Sometimes, particularly during the day, Sam would just be tired and super fussy so I would lay him down in his play pen and leave him alone. He would kind of kick and make little noises until he drifted to sleep within just a few minutes. Crying it out is difficult no matter how you came to doing it. Sometimes, you have no choice. You are at your wits end and you can't easily comfort the baby in your arms without screaming yourself, so you let him lie down and you take a breather. Sometimes, baby falls asleep during this. Sometimes he doesn't. I did consciously try to let him cry it out a few times. Tonight being one of them. I would leave him in his crib, he would begin to cry. I would wait a few minutes (arbitrary, not timed) and go comfort him, then leave again. He would cry for a few minutes. I would go comfort, then leave again. He would cry for like two minutes and then just stop. He had drifted to sleep. Probably not crying more than 15 minutes. So, I guess it worked right?

Anyway, I guess we are up to speed. So I'm writing this all out because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Wait, yes I am. I'm SUPPOSED to stop worrying about all this stuff and just listen to my son and my gut and do what makes sense to us. Why is this so hard? Why do I constantly wonder how that baby sleeps and that other baby. Why do I keep wondering that if my baby isn't sleeping the way he's "supposed" to, I am doing something wrong? It's absurd the schools of thought that go to the extremes. I refuse to believe that if my child is crying and I'm not holding him or providing physical comfort, that he will lose faith in me and his fellow man. That seems very extreme to me -- what about all of the love and affection we share during the other 23 hours of the day? And I seriously question the notion of forcing a baby on to a strict day/night sleep routine, but I'm torn. I mean, without having a routine I enjoy sleeping during night and day, but I like being able to follow my body and sleep when I'm tired. Sometimes that's 10 pm, sometimes it's midnight, and so on. Wouldn't my baby be the same way? But there is always a question about instilling habits and routine, and at some point they are inevitable. But at 4 1/2 months?

Anyway I could probably go on and on. Really this was just inspired by trying to put my son to bed tonight. I gave him a bath (which I can't do every night because he gets really dry skin. So far aquaphor healing ointment seems really good -- opinions?) and got him ready for bed. Let him sit in his vibrating boppy and relax. But as soon as I put him in his crib he started crying. Now, he has started to really like his crib and fall asleep there easiest of all places. But not tonight. Took me a long time to realize that a frozen teething toy made him feel better, if only for a moment.

Anyway, this post has been interrupted by me doing a myriad of different projects, and also comforting my little one. I finally laid him down in our bed and let him play with my hair and he fell asleep. OH YEAH that's one of the super cute new things. He loves hair. During play time this can be rough because he had a good grip and likes to pull, but during sleepy time he gently runs his fingers through your hair. One of the sweetest things ever. Anyway, what I mean to say is that I've sort of lost my train of thought.

But what I do know is that I need to stop worrying about all the shouldas, and just do what works for us. We will inevitably not make the best choices all of the time. But we will work with it and it will be ok. And he is a happy, healthy, growing boy so something is working out. Plus it may really be teething pain that makes some nights difficult. We'll just have to see. So far the little white spot in his gums isn't growing and isn't necessarily obviously a tooth. But it sort of seems like all signs point to tooth. We'll see though.

Tomorrow I'll call the doc about the appointment with the surgeon, since i haven't heard anything. And then Tuesday Sam has his first road trip. We are going up to visit Dad for Thanksgiving. I hope it goes well! I'm a little nervous and feel like I'll be packing absolutely all of Sam's belongings for the trip, haha.

And if you made it through this long post, you deserve some new Sam photos:

Tooth?

So the past two days Sam has been Mr. Fussy, and that's not like him. He also started sucking in his bottom lip and chomping on everything. Could this be his first tooth?? He is only four months old, but that's not that abnormal I guess. I think lots of parents think the first tooth is coming when really it's still a long way off, so that might be the case here. BUT I think I see a little white spot on his gums -- could this be the tooth (hard to see because fussy baby does not want Mom pulling at his lips)?? Also, he totally is enjoying chomping on cold washcloths and cold teething toys and was screaming bloody murder at bed time tonight. So exciting. I hope this is a tooth coming in! Can't wait to see a goofy little tooth in there.

Oh, and still no call about the appointment with the surgeon, so I'll call them next week and see what's up. The lump is doing what it does -- fills with stuff, then it empties, and so on.

And bonus -- I can fit into all my pre-pregnancy jeans. Yipee!

No news is not good news.

Well the new doc was fine. He couldn't say what it was either and affirmed with our regular doc's opinions/course of action. So he has given the referral. We will see a surgeon from the Riley Children's Hospital. They send someone up to Lafayette now because they are part of the Clarian health system or something and we have a new hospital up here, so we may be able to see the surgeon here in L-town. If not, we'll drive down to Indy. Doc said that yes it could be a fistula but he simply couldn't say and had not seen one that looked like that before, but that it made sense to be a fistula. So I guess pediatricians really just don't deal with this sort of thing. Will be good to see the surgeon. They will call us with an appointment. I don't know when it will be, but today's doc confirmed this didn't seem like a rush or emergency sort of thing. I will let you know when we know more.

Also, we have moved Sam into his own room. Or rather we moved out of what is now his room. I'm trying hard to stick to a nighttime routine and we are trying to skip his 3 am feeding. I call it a 3 am feeding though he doesn't really have the same schedule everyday, but it seems it is OFTEN a 3 am feeding. Anyway, the first two nights we had to offer pacifier instead and he went to sleep without a hitch. Last night he didn't wake to feed. Maybe the doctor was right and that he isn't actually in need of food at that time. So last night he slept 10 pm-5 am without waking. Or if he did wake he got himself back to sleep without any fussing that we noticed. Maybe sleeping through the night isn't some magical thing but something that just happens if you have all of your pieces in place. I was realizing that we were probably waking Sam some of the times and I was just automatically feeding because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. The boy does not seem in need of food even with skipping this feeding so I think we might be on the right track. For the early morning feed, though, I do still bring him to bed because I like my cuddle time with the little guy. OH and those of you with cold-weather babies -- how do you keep them warm enough at night? He's fine in bed with us, but in his crib his hands always seem cold. And you can't use too many blankets. Hmmm...

Called the doctor.

So I called the doctor this am and my doc is out for the week and she didn't leave any instructions in Sam's chart, just a note that she looked at the lump (or divot, as it looked like on Thursday). So we are going to see another doctor tomorrow at 8:30 am. I'm a little curious to see if we like another doctor more than our current one, so this may be good for that too. We'll see. I'll let you know what he says.

Last I checked the white puss had drained and it is just a very slight pink lump.

I'm currently getting more and more worked up about the idea of surgery but this hasn't even officially been diagnosed as anything yet so I should try to keep my worries in check. But if it IS a fistula and if they DO need to cut it out, they COULD POSSIBLY remove too much of the sphincter making him INCONTINENT. Ugh. That's just tragic for me to imagine.....I hope my little guy is ok. It's amazing how quickly your children become your heart and soul.

It's back.

So the lump promptly returned. Looks different this time, like a giant white head. I am very confident in the diagnosis of fistula.

A fistula is a passageway between two parts of the body that shouldn't be there. It's a fairly common birth defect and can happen anywhere I guess. The idea of fistula really make sense to me, because looking at this "lump" in it's various stages I can totally imagine a tiny narrow channel somehow running from the rectum to this place in his skin; it can fill with tiny bits of pus or blood, etc. It fills and then opens and the stuff comes out, only to refill again. This link explains it pretty well: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec09/ch130/ch130e.html

I will call the doctor on Monday to let her know. Again, what she said was that if it refilled I was to call her. At that point she will refer us to the specialists at the Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. My doc said that if it was a fistula they would have to remove it. That means surgery, but I don't really know what exactly would be involved. The link above suggests there are different ways of dealing with it. So I guess we'll just call the doctor on Monday and take it from there.

Eeeek. I guess this proves that when something looks abnormal it's always worth getting it checked out. Mother's hunches are probably pretty good.