And Then There Was FOUR

MASON COLE made his debut JANUARY 21, 2009 at 6:28pm! He weighed in at 7lbs 8oz. and was 20in. long!

Waiting...

Sunday morning I woke up and my body screamed "I AM DONE!" Now the baby just needs to get the message... And so we wait.....

It's Not Constipation

It's WITHOLDING.

Be forewarned, this entire post is going to be about bowel movements. Yes, I am talking about poop. Why? Because this is my blog and I can talk about what I want, and this is the #1 issue and stress in my life. It breaks my heart to see my 2 year old going through this every day, and maybe someone will find this post useful with their child who may have the same problem.

It started around February of last year. Tage had a painful poop. She didn't like it. The next time she had to go, she didn't want to. So she held it in until the urge passed. This made it painful again the next time she pooped. So the next urge she had, she held it in. She wouldn't poop for days. When she finally would go, she would scream and cry and dig her fingers into my shoulders. And I would cry too. And so the cycle began.... Painful poop.... withold... painful poop...withold even more....

In MARCH, I took her to the doctor for pink eye. Since I was there I figured it was a good time to mention the constipation problem. The doctor dismissed it as from being sick and said to give her more fluids and fiber filled food (DUH, like I hadn't already thought of that). And so we continued on our own for a few months, trying to find a problem in her diet, trying to increase fluids, trying to bribe her to go poop. NOTHING worked. We tried combinations of everything... water, juices, prune juice, prunes, more fruit, more veggies, less dairy, everything. Once we even gave her a suppository, and I vowed never to do such a cruel thing ever again. Tage wouldn't let us touch her bum for a month (it made for very difficult diaper changes!)

JUNE came along and it had gotten so bad that we took her back to the doctor to be seen specifically for this problem. Once again, the doctor (a different one, but from the same office) dismissed my concerns, and just told me to put her on Miralax for awhile. The doctor didn't really seem to acknowledge the serious problem that it really is. We bought the laxative and started giving it to Tage. She had the urge to poop. She screamed. She cried. I cried. She pooped. It was soft. We repeated this process for a few weeks, but started to get nervous because we felt that maybe she was on the laxative for too long and it wasn't good for her. We went back to trying to change her diet. It didn't work. We put her on the laxative again for almost a month, but still, she witheld. We took her off the laxative. And this took us up to....

OCTOBER. We took her back to the doctor. I expressed my concern about her bowel movements. I suggested taking her off of dairy completely. The doctor said that would be completely unnecessary.

She suggested increasing her fluids. Tried it.

Prunes. Tried it.

Prune Juice. Doesn't work.

Fruits. She eats tons every day.

Veggies. Tell me something we haven't tried.

Put her back on Miralax. Thanks for the great advice doc.

And so I went home and did more research on my own. We bought books. and this is what we learned. It's not constipation: It's witholding. And 30% of children have this issue. The books validated everything I have thought. Tage's witholding issue is COMPLETLY consuming. Our lives revolved around her poop. Kevin and my conversations pretty much consist of Tage's poop. I think and talk about her poop so much that I think I might turn into one. Tage is a completely different child once she is finally able to go.

We are in JANUARY now, and Tage has been on Miralax for about 3 months. She has not had a painful poop that entire period, and yet... when she has the urge, she crys, she lays down, she rocks on the floor, she wants to be held, she won't move, she won't eat, so won't play. This will go on for hours. When she can't hold it in any longer, she screams and cries and then finally it comes out against her will. It is awful how stressful it is. Unless you have a child that has this problem, you really don't know how consuming and serious it is. I never knew poop could become such a problem. And once Tage has gone, she is full of life and energy and it is so sad to see how she could be all of the time if pooping wasn't such a problem. She will do ANYTHING not to poop. It seems to be her main priority. We bribe her with all sorts of treats and exciting events and prizes, and yet nothing can get her to willingly push the poop out. She loves to go to the park. We will be walking there and just as the park is in sight, if she suddenly has the urge to go she will grab her bum and say "No thank you, don't want to go to the park. I want to go home." So we go home, and she gets her pink blanket and cuddles with it and lays on the floor, rocking, crying, screaming.

What we have mainly learned is that we are doing all we can do. We will keep her on the laxative for as long as it takes. We will continue holding her, and encouraging her to go, and when she does, she will get a reward (sometimes it's a "Big, big, ice cream with SPRINKLES!" other times it is baking cookies, or eating two suckers at once... whatever is exciting to Tage!) We wish we had been better informed about constipation and it's repercussions 11 months ago. We wish the doctors had given us more information and better advice earlier. We hope that she will be able to realize soon that she can poop right when she has the urge and go on with her day. It really is amazing the power she has to keep the poop in. All we can do though is wait, and hope that this will improve soon.

I will end with Tage's victory chant(s):

"Poop, poop, poop. I like to poop! I like poop each day! poop, poop, poop."

And....

(say while jumping around in circles) "Pooooooooop. Poopity poopity poop. Poop Poop Poop. Poopity poopity poop!"

Those are our two recent favorites. But after 11 months, we have a lot of poop victory dances and chants.

Sticks

I spent Friday morning up at the Olsen Ranch helping prune fruit trees in the freezing cold. I did a little bit of cutting, but was not very confident in my pruning abilities, and was not ready to accept any responsibility that might come from the trees not producing any fruit this year, so mostly I picked up sticks. Lots of sticks. Some of those trees got massive haircuts and I cleaned it up. Tough work for being 37 weeks pregnant! I have spent the rest of the weekend trying to recover (I'm so sore!). After all the trees were sufficiently cut, we headed to the barn and gathered around a fire and enjoyed the company of good friends. We drank hot chocolate, roasted marshmallows (on apple wood sticks!) and roasted chestnuts.
Thanks Olsen's for another experience and another great memory at your ranch!

Merry Christmas Adam!

"Merry Christmas Everybody, Merry Christmas!"

Monday: Nativity FHE at the Talbots, featuring Tage, the Shepherd.

Tage didn't want to be a shepherd and wear the robe, but after some bribing (hooray for candy!) she agreed to put it on. Chocolate works for a lot of things in our house!

Tuesday: CHRISTMAS EVE! Okay, so it is really only Christmas Adam, but we are headed to Mom Mom and Pop Pop's tomorrow, so we decided to have Christmas a day early and do some celebrating with our own little family.

Tage helped make popcorn, and wanted to be the one to hold the towel (our popper is crazy, so we use a towel to shield the flying kernels...) Then we got a plate of goodies and laid out a blanket and watched "Christmas on Sesame Street" which is probably the coolest Christmas movie EVER! I used to watch it when I was a little girl, and my mom found it on DVD for me! Poor Big Bird freezes his giblets... (what??)

This must have been a really intense part of the movie... I think it was at the beginning, when Cookie Monster is doing some extreme ice skating, trying to jump over ONE... TWO... THREE! THREE barrels! Ah, ah, ah, ah.....

After the movie, we got ready for bed, and Tage put out some cookies and milk for Santa and went to bed very excited. It was a fun evening, and I can't wait for tomorrow morning!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! It really is the best time of the year, eh?

Grateful

We took this picture about a month ago at the Olsen's ranch (If I look uncomfortable it is probably because I am!) I am so grateful for the Olsen family! They could be my parents, but we count them as very good friends. They have definitely given us much more than we have given them.
It all started the summer we moved to Maryland. It was the 4th of July and we didn't know anyone and had no celebration plans. But then, we saw a flyer for a community potluck breakfast at the Olsen's Ranch, and we went. We contributed bananas to the breakfast. The Olsen's provided the pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage. Every year they do this, and every year it gets bigger. Hundreds of people attend, and the program usually consists of bag pipers, quartets, children singing, and Iraq war veterens who tell their story. War veterens are asked to come forward, and they are recognized and applauded for their service. It is an amazing program the Olsen's do every year, and we never want to miss it!
This past summer, Mr. Olsen invited me to help on the ranch and in return I could share in some of the produce. What a BLESSING that has turned out to be! Between my garden and his orchard, I rarely bought any produce over the summer. And it continues still... having canned a lot of his fruit, we are still able to cut down our grocery bill, and it should last us until the trees start producing once again.
Since the Olsen's were providing us with fruit to can, it got me into canning lots of other things too. Thanks to some more friends who are experts at canning and knowing where the good deals are, I have canned everything from Peaches to Beef--- that's right... BEEF. For super cheap. I even found an orchard that was selling apples for $6 a bushel! We got some in October, and are still trying to plow through them today! The Olsen's have really helped us get going on our food storage, and I am so grateful to have it to use right now.
Can I just talk about that beef again? It was so easy to can (I bought 25lbs of it!) and the thing I like the most is now I have meat that I can use and don't have to touch to prepare it. There is nothing worse than touching raw meat... so I spent a day where I touched it a lot, and now I don't have to. Yay!
I will never be able to thank the Olsen's enough for their kindness to our family!

I am cursing

I just wrote a wicked long post, and because my computer/internet is lame, it is now lost somewhere in cyberspace. Here was the gist of it.

I am 33 weeks pregnant.
My baby no longer looks like a wrinkled alien.
Tage has major poop problems.
And it is not funny.
After dealing with that all day (like I have every day for the past 9 months) plus her vomiting, plus my cold, I am going to bed.
And it is only 8:20pm.
And I pray the Fire Hall's alarm does not go off tonight and I can sleep peacefully.