Results

A nurse from our pediatrician's office called on Thursday and said that Collins' blood test came back good. No anemia and more importantly, no dairy allergy!!! So now we wait until our April 2 GI appointment to see if there is anything going on inside that's causing the bloody stools and discomfort she occasionally gets.

 

Thursday was Valentine's day and my mom had just so happened to bring over Collins v-day present that morning and left cupcakes for Derek. You better believe I devoured one of those babies after the phone call. I am SO happy I didn't give up breast feeding when we were first told it was probably a dairy allergy. I'm a little annoyed that they didn't do the allergy testing the first time they drew her blood but our pediatrician said you can get false results when you test a child this young. So eliminating dairy from my diet was the best way to see if it helped her symptoms and when it didn't, we went through with the allergy testing.

 

Thanks for all your prayers and support. She hasn't had any reactions to me eating dairy again and I am one happy momma to have cheese and chocolate back in my life.

More Testing

I have been dairy free for 3 weeks now and Collins pediatrician said if we weren't noticing any changes in 2-3 weeks, we needed to bring her back in. Well she was fussy over the weekend and then had more blood in her diaper on Sunday then we have ever seen before, so Monday morning I called and got us an appointment. Before we left for our appointment yesterday, she had blood in her diaper again. Usually it's only 1-2 a week but this was the 3rd time since Thursday.

After going over how shes been with the ped, she decided that she doesn't think it's a dairy allergy. She thinks her congestion she has had for 2 months is from reflux. They didn't refill our prescription before we left town Friday so we went without and she was a sleepless, fussy mess over the weekend. Our ped switched her reflux medicine and we will start that today and see if that helps the spitting up and congestion.

This is where it gets a little TMI... she looked at her bottom the last time we were there to see if there was a tear causing the blood but didn't see anything. Yesterday she decided to do an internal anal exam to make sure she didn't have a cyst or anything. Come to find out, Collins bottom is pretty tight so she thinks she is straining to poop causing the bleeding. Tight bottom+anal exam=Collins freaking out. Poor baby was not a fan of that exam. Who would be though?! Anyways, she sent us back to Children's Mercy for another blood test to rule out the dairy allergy and test her hemoglobin levels. If the test comes back that she doesn't have the dairy allergy, we will see a GI specialist in 2 months. Yes, it takes that long to get a GI appointment I guess. She said it could also be an inner hemorrhoid that babies get that are painless and that they outgrow.

So back to Children's we went after our appointment. As soon as we walk into the hospital there was a 1 year old riding in a wagon who had cancer. I almost lost it right there. I dreaded having Collins do blood work again but I kept saying how thankful we were that we were only there for blood work and not anything else. I can't even imagine how that tiny girl felt and how much she had been through.

I warned the guy before he started that she has tiny veins and it took them 3 tries, a heat pad and a vein light to find one the last time. Did he listen? Nope! Tried a vein in her arm and couldn't get blood from it. Surprisingly, she hardly cried. She was digging the sugar water we were giving her on her binky. So he calls in another nurse who searches for veins and can't find anything so she calls in another nurse to help her. After LOTS of screaming from Collins and them putting a heating pad on her arm, they finally got blood out of her hand. Collins was screaming before they did the draw because she was tired, hungry and they were not being very gentle looking for veins around her body. Once they put the needle in and were doing all sorts of things to get all the blood they needed, shit hit the fan. I have never heard or seen Collins cry the way she did. I was above her head and she kept looking up at my like wwwwhhhyyy?!? It was heart breaking. She turned bright red and her cry became silent she was crying so hard. I was sure she was going to pass out. Momma bear almost pushed the nurses away and picked up her baby but I didn't want them to have to redo it all so I just got down in her ear and told her I was sorry and it was almost over. Pretty sure my daughter hated me yesterday.

We should know the results within 48 hours so I am just waiting a call from the pediatrician. I'm anxious for the results and hopeful I might get to eat cheese soon :) I'll keep you all informed!

This was before the pediatrician violated her

2 months

 

 We had her 2 month check up today and she is a growing girl! Besides her dairy allergy, she is healthy as can be.  The doctor gave us some formula for her dairy allergy if we decided to go that route. I tried this afternoon and she wouldn't take the first bottle but drank all 3oz the second bottle I offered her. I wasn't prepared to stop nursing yet so it's been an emotional day trying to outweight the pros and cons of continuing to nurse or not. We're trying to talk to the doctor about doing an allergy test early to confirm if it's dairy or something else. She wants us to give it a month and if there hasn't been a significant change, then we could do an allergy test or see a GI doctor. I just want an answer because I don't want to eat something she might be allergic too and I don't want to stop breastfeeding if it's something I can easily eliminate from my diet. So yeah, it's confusing and frustrating. I just want her congestion, bloody stools and reflux to go away and we're pretty sure it's all correlated to the allergy.

 

So enough with all that.

 

At 2 months, Collins is a happy, talkative, occasionally laughing, chubby cheeks girl. She is an amazing sleeper and is pretty continent throughout the day. She lights up when she sees people or the dogs and can carry on quite the conversation. My sister took the video below on Sunday and I crack up when she gives my mom her mean mug at the end. She isn't a big fan or tummy time but can hold her head up really well so I don't push it too much. She likes to lay on her back and kick her feet and look around but hasn't attempted rolling over yet. She has started to grasp things and really enjoys looking at her toys. She is in 0-3 month clothes and fit into 3-6 month pajamas last night.

 

I'll probably say this every month but I can't believe how fast time is going. She is our whole world and we love her to pieces.

 

Here's a video of her talking- http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151403733946049

 

Bye bye dairy

Going to be talking about blood and poop so if you don't care to hear about it, skip this post

To make a long story short, my pediatrician thinks that Collins has a dairy allergy. She has had about 5 diapers in the past 3 weeks that have had some blood in them. We did a stool sample to confirm it was blood and after that was positive, we were sent to Children's Mercy to have her blood drawn to rule out any infections. Her red and white blood cells were normal so their back to thinking it's a dairy allergy. I was told to lay off dairy for a week or 2 and then we will re evaluate at her 2 month check up next week.

After googling dairy allergy, I am 99% sure that's what she has. With the blood in her stools, eczema, upset tummy, etc. She was in horrible pain last night and screamed when I tried to give her a bath or change her diaper. A worse cry then when she had her blood drawn. I was in tears too and felt so bad that I was causing her this pain since it takes a couple days to get out of my system and a few weeks to get out of hers. So I was up half the night debating what to do. Do we just quite nursing and go straight to a dairy free formula (expensive as shit) or do I keep nursing and just give up dairy and possibly soy since most babies who are allergic to dairy, are allergic to soy too. Since she doesn't have that many bloody stools, I don't think she is allergic to soy and I think her dairy allergy is a mild case. I am hoping the doctor next week will just tell me to go easy on the dairy but that I can have it like in bread and all the foods it's hidden in (and man you don't realize how many things have dairy till you have to check the ingredients on everything). I don't love the idea of giving up dairy but we finally have the hang of nursing and I will be sad to stop. My daycare kids have brought in everything from fevers, flu, ear infection, croup, etc and I think nursing has helped her not get any of that. Plus, I really worry she won't take formula.

So that's what's going on around here. For the most part, she acts completely normal but occasionally she cries like she is in pain and it breaks my heart. I'm hoping to have a plan after we go in next week. Let me know if any of you have any experience with this and if you have any suggestions on what to do.

Now I will leave you with pics from her having her blood drawn. 1st nurse- poked and protruded at her vein in her arm with no luck getting blood. The 2nd nurse came in and poked and protruded a vein in her head. She kept digging around INSIDE her head with the needle trying to get the vein and I wanted to pull it out, pick her up and run the hell out of there. It was awful!! 3rd nurse came in with a vein light and found one in her foot. It wasn't great so she put a heat pad on her leg to try and get the vein to come out more. Finally got enough blood out of that one.  Poor girl was a trooper. She screamed when they were doing the draws but she was smiling and talking in between each one. The nurses kept apologizing and making sure I was OK cause I was crying more then she was!

Poor baby!!!

She was so happy and talkative as I loaded her up

And fast asleep before we walked out of the hospital