baby daddy

You smiled at your mother first, Little Dude, and for that I shall never forgive you.

or

Colic: A Play in One Long Excruciating Part.

Hey there, Little Dude! I know it’s been a while since I wrote to you and all, but we’ve put in some real quality time together. The type of quality time that bonds son to father, son to mother, and parents together in ways they’d never expected when they started this new journey. Yeah that’s all mushy softy stuff, but it’s the truth. It’s also a nice way of saying that you require a but of attention.

And even that last sentence is a really nice way of saying: Dude, seriously. What’s wrong?

Over the past two months (you turned two months old on Sunday! Woot!) we’ve seen you change so much that you don’t even appear to be the same child any more. Of course there’s the physical stuff — you’ve been packing on the pounds and you’ve gotten taller. Your hair’s getting longer, and I can’t believe you don’t choke on your eyelashes when you eat. Those things need a trim, little guy. But then there’s the less noticeable physical stuff that’s probably been pretty difficult for you.

After a month of breastfeeding we were concerned that you were a little troublesome. You always had trouble with gas and really threw a fit whenever it was time to (ahem) drop a load, but it was becoming a problem that we just couldn’t take any longer; seemed you were in agreement with us, as you spent nearly every waking minute screaming your head off.

It’s troublesome for parents to try to figure out what wrong with their child when the thing can’t talk and every outward appearance shows systems functioning as normal. The head was never bonked, the toes weren’t bent backward, there wasn’t a stray mama hair wrapped around your fingers or elsewhere. Everything looked perfect, it’s just that the cryometer was off the charts.

Whenever our friends and family asked how you were doing, we told them: “Oh, he’s a little colicky.” And they looked confused. They asked “What’s that like?” But they didn’t believe us when we told them that whenever you slept, you slept for about an hour. When you woke, you screamed. When you finished eating, you screamed. You screamed yourself to sleep and you screamed again when you woke. More often than not your dreams were interrupted by your screams. You screamed through diaper changes, and screamed in the middle of breastfeeding. You screamed when we set you down and screamed when we picked you up and when nighttime came you’d scream for four to five hours straight and it seemed there was nothing we could do.

Only one friend seemed to “Get it.” She said: “It’s so hard to go through something like that and have no one understand you. I want you to know that I feel for the two of you. You must be so tired and so worried.” And then when she heard you throw one of your fits, she lost all composure, and ran around the room in a frantic search for a pacifier screaming “Do something! DO SOMETHING!”

When we took you to the doctor’s office, you were cheerful. All symptoms of any problem disappeared, though the doctor was concerned that your throat was a little red. But by the time we got you home the screaming had started again, and we made several more trips back to the doctor’s office. Your mom called so often that they greeted her by her first name, and whenever we pulled up in front of the office, the nurses became more relaxed because we were like good friends stopping by for a drink.

After five or six visits, the doctor finally checked your stool and decided that you might have a bit of a milk allergy, and you were placed on a weird formula that contained no milk parts, no lactose, and no soy (just in case). It was rough for your mama to quit the breastfeeding but we needed to find some way of making you feel better. And apparently it did its job because within a day or two you were a brand new kid. You were quiet more often. Your gas pains seemed to go away. You could sit around and just check out the environment with open eyes rather than through the strained slits of a freakout. This new formula cost a bit more than the regular baby formulas, but we didn’t really mind. Whatever it takes to make you happy, we’ll do, dude. It’s a promise.

But a week later we noticed that your poop had some blood in it. Another trip to the doctor’s office confirmed this and you were switched to a wholly different formula that contained even less of the foodstuffs from our processed environment. This new formula contained even less milk and soy, but also contained no corn byproducts. It was nearly an amino acid drink.

New foods always bring about new changes. I’m sure you felt this when we switched from breastmilk to the new formula — you poo turned from a watery glop into a semi-solid. When we switched to the second formula, well, I have no way to truly and accurately describe the green viscous chum that came out of you; needless to say it was different and disgusting, and worked altogether too well as a weapon in the wrong circumstances. Your grandpa’s bed suffered a pretty deadly blow, and I think he had to sacrifice the sheets for the safety of the rest of his bed.

Speaking of cloth sacrifices — that poo also filled one of your outfits so completely from the inside that you may as well not have been wearing a diaper. Your mom and I acted quickly and, using knowledge gleaned from episodes of ER and Scrubs, cut you out of your outfit with a pair of scissors before bathing you in the kitchen sink. It was every bit as gruesome and tension-filled as that show, except we didn’t have any cool music playing in the background, and I had absolutely no reason to keep calling out for 20 CCs of diatropine.

Somewhere between the formula switches, your pediatrician recommended that we visit a gastroenterologist, should this second formula not treat you well. We did and it turned out that your poo was so filled with your own blood that it was a near emergency to find out the root cause of the problem. But the gastroenterologist said that the signs and symptoms you have — the screaming; the gas; the hives; the horrifying diaper rash that had eaten through a few layers of skin and required a prescription medication to treat; the reflux issues that also required a prescription medication to treat; the mucousy poo, the gloppy poo, and the blood — are “classic” signs of a milk intolerance that completely disrupted your system from day one.

So now you have a new formula. A prescription formula that is entirely comprised of amino acids. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a medical necessity that you stay on this formula, else we put you through another series of problems that will only lead down a much longer and wider road toward pain, discomfort, and probably worse. This formula is so freaking expensive that we’re going to have to completely overhaul our way of living, but like I said earlier, little guy, if it’s going to keep you happy and healthy, we’re gong to make it happen.

And we only have to do that because this formula is not covered by any insurance — and I’m sure that you’ll read sometime in the near future about the battle we’re going to have to wage with the insurance company to help offset the cost of this food. You’ll also probably read about my disgust for Walmart (or at least one of our local Walmart stores) where the pharmacist refused to order your prescription formula because it’s not covered by insurance.

But until then, little guy, I want you to revel in the happiness you’ve been showing since this switch to this new formula. You’ve been sitting around and playing. You’ve been smiling and almost giggling. You scream only when we have to burp you because that means we’re taking your food away (you’re a bit of a pig; seriously, you snog and snort and grunt and wriggle for the bottle any time it comes near you). You’re genuinely a different kid, and I can’t even imagine what these past two months have been like for you. Hope it didn’t ruin you for the rest of your life, ’cause there’s some pretty cool stuff ahead.