I'd successfully avoided writing an update to how our pear trial went, but it's probably time. I just looked back and saw that it was on March 7th, almost two months ago, that we had the first food trial. I desperately wish I could write that she's loving pears, bananas and potatoes, and all is going well. That is not the story, though. She loved pears the first day, hated them the next several days. So we gave her a break and took a week or two off. We then tried bananas, and she hated those as well. And yes, we tried every form of each; pureed, mashed up, chopped up, frozen chips, frozen and mashed up, mixed with breast milk, mixed with water, you get the picture. We took a week off, and tried bananas again, with no luck again. She would not eat the bananas or pears enough to call it a real trial. If you recall from previous posts; her reaction time seems to be two weeks, and the gastroenterologist and allergist agreed that until she turns 1 year old, the only things we can try are pears, bananas, and potatoes. So we hoped that potatoes would be the magic food, and maybe she just didn't like sweet foods. We tried the potatoes today, and it was worse than pears or bananas. She immediately gagged as soon as it touched her tongue, and continued to gag to the point of throwing up. Again, we tried pureeing and mixing with breast milk and water, and she had the same reaction. The whole rest of the afternoon and evening she was extremely fussy and clingy. This is unusual for her, as she's usually happy to entertain herself, and only fussy when she's hungry. She's been asleep for two hours now, and more squirmy than usual.
So here we are, stuck, because we don't actually know if any of these are safe foods for her, or foods that would end up with another vomit to shock, FPIES reaction if she had more of it. But it doesn't matter, because she hates them.
Here's the point where I have to decide if this blog is about just information and inspiration, or the real deal. Because here's the real deal, blog readers; this sucks. It's tough and it's exhausting and it's time consuming and overwhelming. And I know, it's only food, and there are far worse things that could be happening than this. But as a therapist, I remind people every day that the only way to deal with things is to really feel it; allow yourself to feel the uncomfortable feelings rather than just gloss over them, and to let go of the guilt for having them. Just don't live in them. I am not so good at this in real life, outside of venting to my husband. So here I am, trying to be real and allow myself to feel all of those things that aren't fun to feel. It's not fun to plan everything around when she'll trial a new food, because for those two weeks we can't get far from a hospital, can't be traveling to other cities (which we do a lot), and can't give food within a few hours of going to bed (difficult when I get home from work at 6 and start bedtime at 6:45). It's not fun to feel jealous of seeing babies eat pancakes and fruit and vegetables, and take bites of whatever everyone else is eating. It's not fun to know that her first birthday cake will likely be plastic. It's not fun to feel the pressure of producing enough breast milk to meet her needs for who knows how long. It's not fun to worry about what will happen when breastfeeding cannot meet all of her nutritional needs, which is not too far away. And I see that I continue to not really be honest, because it's easier to call it 'not fun' than to call it what it really feels. It really feels awful and hurts really bad.
A downfall of being real is that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't want to make people around me feel uncomfortable when they feed their babies delicious food. Please, enjoy it. I don't want people to feel guilty when they ask what we're going to do for a smash cake at her birthday. It's normal to ask. I will remember it's normal to feel all my hurt feelings, AND also be ridiculously happy to watch my sweet niece smash a cake in her face at her birthday in a few weeks, AND be overwhelmed with stress, AND know that I have the most perfect little daughter who lights up my life. These feelings are all valid and can exist simultaneously.
To the FPIES parents who have recently Google'd and found my blog and reached out to me; please know that all of your feelings are valid. It's okay to feel blessed and pissed all at the same time.
I'm coming to terms with accepting my own feelings, and wrapping this up so that I can wake up and be prepared to present at a Mental Health Expo tomorrow. Yes, I know, the irony of this is not lost on me. Even therapists are real, complex humans. I'll make sure to stick around for my colleague's presentations on anxiety and stress management.
So here we are, stuck, because we don't actually know if any of these are safe foods for her, or foods that would end up with another vomit to shock, FPIES reaction if she had more of it. But it doesn't matter, because she hates them.
Here's the point where I have to decide if this blog is about just information and inspiration, or the real deal. Because here's the real deal, blog readers; this sucks. It's tough and it's exhausting and it's time consuming and overwhelming. And I know, it's only food, and there are far worse things that could be happening than this. But as a therapist, I remind people every day that the only way to deal with things is to really feel it; allow yourself to feel the uncomfortable feelings rather than just gloss over them, and to let go of the guilt for having them. Just don't live in them. I am not so good at this in real life, outside of venting to my husband. So here I am, trying to be real and allow myself to feel all of those things that aren't fun to feel. It's not fun to plan everything around when she'll trial a new food, because for those two weeks we can't get far from a hospital, can't be traveling to other cities (which we do a lot), and can't give food within a few hours of going to bed (difficult when I get home from work at 6 and start bedtime at 6:45). It's not fun to feel jealous of seeing babies eat pancakes and fruit and vegetables, and take bites of whatever everyone else is eating. It's not fun to know that her first birthday cake will likely be plastic. It's not fun to feel the pressure of producing enough breast milk to meet her needs for who knows how long. It's not fun to worry about what will happen when breastfeeding cannot meet all of her nutritional needs, which is not too far away. And I see that I continue to not really be honest, because it's easier to call it 'not fun' than to call it what it really feels. It really feels awful and hurts really bad.
A downfall of being real is that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't want to make people around me feel uncomfortable when they feed their babies delicious food. Please, enjoy it. I don't want people to feel guilty when they ask what we're going to do for a smash cake at her birthday. It's normal to ask. I will remember it's normal to feel all my hurt feelings, AND also be ridiculously happy to watch my sweet niece smash a cake in her face at her birthday in a few weeks, AND be overwhelmed with stress, AND know that I have the most perfect little daughter who lights up my life. These feelings are all valid and can exist simultaneously.
To the FPIES parents who have recently Google'd and found my blog and reached out to me; please know that all of your feelings are valid. It's okay to feel blessed and pissed all at the same time.
I'm coming to terms with accepting my own feelings, and wrapping this up so that I can wake up and be prepared to present at a Mental Health Expo tomorrow. Yes, I know, the irony of this is not lost on me. Even therapists are real, complex humans. I'll make sure to stick around for my colleague's presentations on anxiety and stress management.