Poop Watch- Empty Again

So it all began about a month ago. She started having trouble pooping.  Four days would go by and then when she finally did poop, it was dry and hard and she cried and screamed.  It was the most heart-breaking thing to witness.  Chris rushed out to the store to get a thermometer and some Vaseline and we had to "help" the baby go.  Then after that she held it in. We pushed the prune juice on her twice a day and it seemed to get worse as she'd fight bouts of tummy pain and tried each time to keep it in.

My mom and dad would tell me that this was exactly the same way with me when I was her age.  That doesn't make it more of a relief.  Of course as a parent you don't want your baby to suffer.  So I went to two different drug stores after work looking for the glycerin suppositories and another one the next day until I finally found them.

Trust me when I say that it was not something Chris or I ever wanted to have to do for the baby let alone twice over the next 4 days. After that first hard poop, to try and avoid this whole ordeal, I forced her to eat baby cereal mixed thick with fruit baby food while Chris held her.  I'd quickly stick the spoon in her mouth and scrape it against her top teeth so the food would get stuck on the roof of her mouth.  Chris would quickly give her the bottle of water so she'd drink and swallow the food.  It made me feel terrible but she would just shake her head yelling, "NO! NO! NO!" to any food we put in front of her.

The day after the 2nd suppository, while we were giving her a bath, she starts to have her tummy ache again. We quickly pull a wet Elizabeth out of the tub,put her on a towel and help her poop it out.  Afterwards, we put her back in the tub to finish her bath and she poops a little more.  Then trying to put her to bed that night, she wouldn't stop crying.  We can't figure out what's wrong but when we check her diaper she pees but cries even harder.

Now we can't figure out if she's peeing because she's crying or crying because she's peeing.  So we decide that its time to take her to the ER (for the second time in 3 months) because now we're worried that she has a UTI.  It is just after midnight on Saturday.  In our panic to get her loaded in the car amongst her crying, I shut our door looking us in the garage and out of the house.  Not our finest moment because neither of us have our keys. Luckily, Ryan is in the house trying to sleep before getting up at 4am for work.  He stumbles downstairs and lets us in so through our jumbled minds we can get the essentials.

In the ER for 4 hours this time, they take her for an X-ray of her abdomen to check her bowels and 2 nurses come in to use a cathoder to get a urine sample to check for UTI. Again, my heart breaks for the suffering my baby's going through. I laid down on the gurney and snuggle with her as she stops crying.  Other than the exams and test she seems perfectly fine now.  I tell Chris, "If this was her way of not going to bed..." but of course I don't want them to find anything wrong with her.

The hospital admittance person comes in and asks if all our info is correct, since we're already on file (convenient but still sucky because it just means we've had to come there before). So the ER doctor comes back with her X-ray and tells us that they suspect her pain was from all the back-up and gas pockets going on in her tummy.  Apparently, she has way than we thought and we begin a regimen of more prune juice, old school mineral oil, and stool softener/laxative for the next 4 days to help clean her out.  After that, we're suppose to do a complete diet over-haul.  Fiber Fiber and more Fiber.

Not an easy task with our incredibly strong willed little 1 1/2 year old.  Its been a back and forth battle with what she will eat and what she should be eating. When a day goes by without poop we start the Poop Watch clock. So now as part of her vocabulary she can say: juice, apple, fish, chicken, french fry.   We're working on banana, orange, oatmeal, whole wheat bread. More fiber please. Tonight- empty again as Chris has told me to wrap it up and pinch off my blog.