I'd be lying if I said that life was back to normal. In fact, I feel like it's the same as it's always been. I guess she has more time during the day when she isn't red-faced and sobbing, but she's still one fussy baby.
I haven't had a lot of success talking to her Dr. about it, which is disappointing. And I've been saying all week that I'm going to start a total elimination diet, eating only a few select foods for 2 weeks and then slowly adding more foods until I find one (or more) foods that make her belly upset. The problem: I don't have time to shop for these foods, and don't have time to prepare and cook these foods. How do I cook a healthy meal with safe ingredients when I can only put my baby down for 5 minutes at a time? Nothing quick or easy is anything I can make (with "safe" ingredients).
Did you know that deli meat, you know, the stuff they cut right in front of you has added extra crap in it? I always thought that the hunk of meat I saw was directly from an animal that was already roasted so it was safe to eat. Nope, there's ALL KINDS of extra stuff in that. So I can't even just eat a lunchmeat sandwich.
It's frustraiting. And it's so hard when people tell me things like, "well you need to put her down more so she gets used to being alone." because that sends a message that I just cannot agree with. When she's older and can understand more, it might be different. But right now, if we don't respond to her cries, she thinks to herself, "why isn't she hearing me? why is she ignoring me?" and that quickly leads to distrust.
It's also so hard not to compare her to other babies. A woman who Wes works with has a daughter that is 5 days younger than Ella, and she sleeps through the night or only wakes up one time, and she is generally a happy baby. I can just see the look in Wes' face when he comes home and says, "Yeah, she told me that her baby slept through the night last night..." because I can just see the thoughts running through his head:
"why doesn't my baby sleep through the night? why does she cry when I hold her? why doesn't she smile when I get home?" and I know it's so disappointing.
I don't mean to sound like life is horrible for us over here, but the truth is, it's very, very hard. We're surviving. Not really enjoying.
My sister and her fiance have offered to babysit tomorrow night, so we're going. It will be our very first date without her. We were kind of waiting for things to settle down, but it doesn't look like that will happen any time soon, and we really need the break. It will be hard for me, but I know that it's important that we go out.
In happy news, Ella had some pictures taken! I'll try to post some pictures sometime when I get a chance.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
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3 comments:
Very good......
I'm sorry Rach. It has to be hard. It probably does seem like forever and I hope you can figure out what it is that upsets her so much. I'll babysit her over Christmas for you. ;)
My heart goes out to you. Total elimination diets are great, in theory. But, as you say, how do you pull it off when you are sleep deprived and your brain is on edge from hearing your baby cry so much for so long and being unable to do anything to soothe her?
Survival mode is hardly the ideal for trying to figure out and pull off eating differently. Especially, when you're not even sure how or what it is that you need to be eating.
I know it's really hard to feel like a very good Mom when your baby screams all the time. But a whole lot of things go into what being a very good Mom means. And I'd say, given all your givens, it sounds like you really are pulling off being a Very Good Mom to little Ella.
It feels pretty lame to say I'll be praying for you, I understand, or I remember what it was like. I'll say those things anyway (because I haven't actually figured out the perfect, non-annoying comforting thing to say, but I don't suppose not saying anything is much of a comfort, either), hoping you can take whatever comfort is in the words and ignore the part that's annoying.
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