Mt. Evelyn

When I first decided to start a blog I had a lot of trouble coming up with a title.  Friends suggested thinking about what my purpose was for writing.  I honestly wanted my blog to be about all the dumb, and funny, things that we do as parents.  I wanted the point to be that our kids end up fine in the long run.  I started a list of things to blog about.  I realized that half of my list had to do with poop.  I seriously considered calling my blog something like “It’s more than just poop…”  I felt that was too constricting (HA!), so I went with something broader that sticks more to the theme of my blog.  In honor of my original title, though, an entry about poop:

You have a baby.  You bring the baby home and you know that your life is about to be rocked.  But it’s okay because you’ve spent the last 7 ½ or so months preparing.  By preparing I mean that you’ve accepted that everything is about to change and there’s nothing you can do about it, but it’s a good thing.  I was prepared.  I was ready to roll with the punches, the first being that those newborn diapers I had arranged so nicely in the basket on the changing table were going to have to go.  Along with the two other cases that my ever prepared husband got.  My 9 pounder wasn’t going to fit into them. 

I rolled along when I had to sleep on the couch for a week with Evelyn in her sleeper next to me.  Steve got a bad cold a few nights after we came home, and the little sleep I was getting was just too precious to be cut into by his coughing.  Plus (sparing the gristly details), Evelyn didn’t come out very easily and the couch is more level with her sleeper, making it easier to get her in and out without too much moving by me.

I continued rolling when Steve had to go in to work a few times that first week, as I dealt with the slow recovery process, and as we tried to learn what this new little person needed.  I dealt with trying to be happy and cheerful because it was Christmas time and I had a new baby who everyone wanted to meet and love, when all I wanted was to curl up in my bed and sleep and have a nonsensical cry.  I even dealt with worrying that I had post-partum depression because people make such a big deal about it these days (not that it isn’t serious, but it’s just one more thing to worry about!).  I thought, you have this perfect baby girl, but you’re kind of sad.  You must be depressed.  Finally a friend clued me in.  It’s not all sunshine and rainbows at the beginning.  She didn’t like being a mom at first.  Then another friend said the same thing, and suddenly I felt better. 

Here’s the part I wasn’t prepared to deal with: all the talk about POOP!  Not a day went by that Steve and I didn’t discuss poop.  At the beginning we spent the days contemplating the color of her poop because, apparently, in the first few days of a baby’s life, her poop changes color.  If it doesn’t, it’s bad.  Then you have to think about the consistency, and then you have to think about how many times a day it’s happening.  So everyday Steve and I would check to be sure the color, consistency, and frequency was right.  We were even “those parents” who kept track of every diaper change and whether it was wet or dirty.  When Steve went back to work it’s what he would ask about as soon as he got home and every time he called, how many and what color? 

And then one day the poop didn’t happen.  It didn’t happen the next day either, or the next.  About five days went by and there was no poop.  I consulted the books, Steve googled it, I asked everyone I knew with kids if this was normal.  The responses were mixed.  Some advised me to call the doctor, my mom and dad said it was totally normal.  They even knew a girl years ago who would go for almost two weeks without pooping.  Her little body was just in perfect balance the doctors and specialists said.  I decided to stick to what my parents said because it was the easiest, and I didn’t want to make a name for myself at the pediatrician’s office before we had even been for her one month appointment.  She would poop when she was ready.

Finally, one evening she was ready, and oh did she poop!  It was an explosion the likes of which I had never seen before.  To be perfectly honest, a friend was over visiting, and it took all three of us to deal with this.  It started with a sound.  A gurgling that could just only mean a poopy diaper.  Then followed the smell.  Steve went to change her and when he opened that diaper, the utter shock that he expressed I just can’t capture in writing.  He called for reinforcements because the minute he lifted up her little legs, more came out.  It was like lava spewing from a volcano, the right color and everything.  Every time he lifted the legs, Mt. Evelyn erupted.  We literally went through 4 diapers because of the volume.  When we thought she was done and went to put the new diaper under her bottom, the legs went up and the eruption resumed.  In the meantime, the three of us were howling.  Tears pouring, practically peeing ourselves, howling. 

And this became our normal for a while.  Days and days of no poop, and then the eruption.  And, as you will learn, my kid is a daddy’s girl, and each eruption came at about 6:00, right before Steve gets home.  This became our normal until Evelyn learned a little trick to help her poop on a more regular basis.  Stay tuned!