Possible Explanation

I felt a little guilty after my last post.  Anne Marie has been getting so much better in her temperament - Matt and I have been remarking about how MUCH better it is now, compared with two months ago.

Of course, she still isn't as content as any of my friends' babies, and seems to catch us off guard with a fit every now and then (like the day after my birthday, when she pitched a royal fit in a restaurant and I had to take her outside so that Matt could finish his meal - while she screamed non stop, soliciting advice from complete strangers and even one lady took her from me in an unsuccessful attempt to calm her...), but she's really started talking and giggling and being so cheerful a majority of the time; the fits are fewer and farther between.

So, after I re-read my last post, I felt a little bad complaining about how miserable things had been when they were really starting to look up.

I didn't know what had been getting better, but just assumed that Anne Marie was simply a colicky baby and was slowly starting to grow out of it.  She more than met the "guidelines" for colic the first three months, but I didn't see any indicators for something that was causing the crying (like reflux).

Back when she was still just a few weeks old, I had tried eliminating - or minimizing - a few common/potential "problem foods" in my diet in an attempt to determine if she was so fussy due to something I was eating.  I stopped drinking milk or using real creamer in my (now decaf) coffee, I also cut out a lot of "gassy" vegetables like broccoli.

Late last week, I'd started eating yogurt and real creamer again and then on Monday I had my first bowl of cereal with milk in what felt like ages.  A few hours later, Anne Marie had some blood in her diaper, which concerned me enough to call the pediatrician.

They told us to bring her in and looked her over, but what really caught the doctor's attention was when I told her that I'd had my first serving of milk that morning after cutting it out of my diet for weeks.  After several more questions about what I'd been eating or not eating, the timing of Anne Marie's fits, and her general demeanor, the doctor surmised that Anne Marie has a dairy/protein allergy or intollerance.

The solution is for me to eliminate all dairy, soy, eggs, and nuts from my diet.  It will take 2-4 weeks for it to clear my and AM's systems, so we won't be able to tell a discernible difference immediately, but it's worth a shot.  The alternative to changing my diet is to feed AM a special formula (but it's extremely expensive and she's not reliable about taking a bottle anyway).  We also had to bring in some samples for them to send to the lab to check for anything infectious or parasitic.  But she didn't have a fever and her diaper did test positive for blood, so it's most likely an allergy.

This is not a major deal.

She will most likely grow out of it and it should have any long-term effects on her.  Changing her (or my) diet until then is a perfectly workable solution.  Not necessarily so fun for me (or the wallet), but completely doable.  I'd already been limiting some of my dairy intake, which was probably the reason that she's been getting less and less fussy.  Now that I know this is most likely the cause of her issues, there is a clear motivation to making her feel better, even if it means I'll have to forgo the cheesecake for a while (sniff... cue trumpets playing taps in mourning...).

In some ways, this is a relief.  It explains a lot, and makes me feel a little vindicated from the weight I've carried due to her unpredictable temperament.  She hasn't been crying because she's "spoiled", or because I haven't held her enough, or because of something else I did or didn't do.

It's not my fault.  

At the same time, I feel guilty thinking about how she's really been in pain all this time and that it must have been torture for her to digest something her body might be allergic to. I wish we'd figured this out sooner, but all I can do now is be thankful that we may have caught it at all and not dwell on regret. 

I've been worried that people wouldn't love her as much as the sweet, cuddly babies that belong to my sister and girlfriends, that the nursery workers at church aren't exactly thrilled each time we bring AM in, and that Matt and I would forever be juggling whose turn it was to soothe our fussy little girl.

I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to this whole "parenting" thing.  Matt and I are feeling our way in the dark - the blind leading the blind - but we've managed to 1. survive 2. figure out some daily routines 3. actually start to enjoy this new phase a bit 4. begin trying to reconnect as husband and wife instead of just being parents of a new baby. 

I'd call that success - so far.