Paisli's Health Scare

I love this picture because she looks like a pirate, and it makes Hyatt laugh when he sees it.


On Tuesday, when Paisli was 5 days old, I changed her diaper and instead of the usual bright yellow baby poo you see, I was looking at a diaper full of black! I'd never seen my babies' poo go back to black once the meconium was gone, so I was a little surprised.

Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment for her scheduled later that day, so I told the pediatrician about it and she said meconium never comes back and that it sounded like it was blood. She tested the diaper we brought in and it came back positive for blood. Talk about scary! All that ran through my mind is that here 5 days after bonding with this beautiful baby, what if she was taken from me? I don't know how I could bear that pain. It would be hard to lose a baby at birth, like my mom did, but I think that losing one after having a lot of time to bond with it and hear it's coos and see it look at your face and smile (she smiled at me while looking in my eyes yesterday)...I don't know how I could bear that pain! So instead of dwelling on the worse-case scenario, I pushed it to the back of my mind and focused on what could be the cause of so much blood.

If blood is black by the time it comes out, it comes from the upper digestive tract, like the stomach or esophagus. The doctor said the two likely causes would be either my nipples are bleeding or Paisli is lactose intolerant.

Sure my nipples had taken a bit of a beating from nursing, and they bled a little, but I can't imagine that so much blood came from my sore nipples! 4 full diapers of blood? Was there any milk coming out? I mean, come on! Talea and Kiersa gave me way more damage and neither one of them ever had a black diaper after the meconium was gone. When I pumped, I didn't notice blood.

If Paisli is lactose intolerant (like Hyrum, Hyatt and Kiersa), just me drinking milk or ingesting dairy could be upsetting her system enough to make the blood in her stools.

For your viewing pleasure, and in case I need to show this to a doctor someday, and in the interest of completely grossing out my brother-in-law, Edward, here are a couple of her diapers. She had 4 diapers that day and the next that were SOLID black, (this is the 4th one)

then they tapered off slowly to half yellow, half black, (5th diaper)

then finally back to solid yellow today, with no flecks of black.

Okay, about the poo pictures and the hemi confession...You have to understand, I'm married to Hyrum, who NEVER gets embarrassed. He tells anyone and everyone whatever he feels like sharing, without regard to their possible reaction. He told one of his customers the other day when he was at their house that he had to go because he was late for getting me to the doctor to have my massive hemorrhoid checked out. I've been married to him long enough, that I too, no longer possess any shame. I shamelessly confess my hind-end ailments and post pictures of baby poo. Sorry to offend, if I do. I don't see the point in hiding things if I could possibly help someone else to be aware of these things.

Anyway...the doctor sent Paisli's info up to Portland. They thought the likely cause was lactose intolerance, so I'm ordered off of all dairy for two weeks, and then I can reintroduce it and see what happens.

I went off most dairy when the doctor thought it could be a cause back on Tuesday, but now after her call last night, I'm off it strictly for 2 weeks. Her diaper this morning was the first one with no trace of black in it. Things are looking up!

Now, I realize the last couple of posts I've done, have been a bit "scary" and a bit vile or disgusting, so I'll move on to a happier subject.

Paisli had her first bath at home the other day.




Her hair is so fluffy when it's clean. It also turns much lighter. Since it's so long, I play with it constantly, and that makes it get a bit greasy, so it's funny to see it all fluffy and sticking up after a bath.



Her umbilical cord fell of this morning...8 days old. It's much nicer when that shriveled back nastiness is gone.

I'm so glad you can't have babies 6 months apart! Here are Paisli (8 days), then Jaiden (6 months), then Kiersa (12 months).




I love these pictures of Kiersa and Paisli!




Hyrum's family is coming into town this weekend, for the week, so I'll take a blogging break until I get back to a computer again. We'll be staying at a beach house in Bandon (Hyrum traded countertops for rental time).