Time for a Change

Baby E had a great day yesterday, and seems to be doing well today.

I'd forgotten how good she is at talking. She's using more words in the last day or two than she's used throughout the last few weeks, and added several new ones yesterday. It's very cute to hear the way she says words like "daip-werer" for diaper and "boo-bah" for Pooh Bear.

When she's feeling good she talks up a storm. After a few weeks of her communicating by crying and grunting, I often start wondering if I was imagining that she was saying all those words before.

I wasn't imagining it. My bright, cheerful, communicative baby is back.

I wrote a post (Dear Doctor) to submit to the Pediatric Grand Rounds carnival. But the host at Tales from the Womb wrote asking if I'd mind if he uses my summary of Baby E's medical history instead. He said that it had him quite stumped and he thought one of the other doctors might have some ideas.

Anyway, it would be fun to see some of them speculating about what they would do if a patient came to them with a similar set of symptoms.

I'm excited about having my post included. I've been revising that post and fleshing it out a bit this morning to make it more complete.

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Even if nobody who reads it here is able to give helpful input, I'm glad to have it written down in one spot. I think I'm going to print it out and give a copy to her various doctors. It's hard to get an idea of the full picture just from what I'm trying to describe in a short, disjointed conversation--especially when Baby E is having a good day and doesn't look or act sick at all.

I'm also going to start keeping detailed records of Baby E's symptoms, BMs, what she's eating, behavior, etc.

My biggest frustration with the doctors right now is that none of them seem to be particularly concerned. They keep telling me this sort of thing is probably normal, or that kids get sick a lot, or it's probably just her allergies (but the allergist then scolds me for thinking it's caused by allergies), or that I need to remember each child has a different personality and I can't expect this baby to be as easy as the first two.

I almost feel that they're doing tests and referrals just because I keep nagging them, and for CYA purposes. It's taken months just to get them to begin to look for causes instead of saying that since she doesn't have an ear infection or fever and she looks fine, then she must be healthy.

They're not here watching her day after day as she suffers, and they don't know as I do what is and isn't normal for her.

Almost all the things she's experiencing are, in isolation, probably well within the range of "normal." They're the kind of thing every child experiences now and then. It's the frequency and severity of the symptoms that seems abnormal to me.

I kept brushing it off and just trying to take it in stride for the first 14 months of her life. But I think I've passed my point of tolerance, and I no longer think this is something minor and temporary. It's been going on for 15 months. It's getting worse. Now I'm concerned.

And, also, now I feel that I need to move from crisis mode into a more long-term method of dealing with this. It may not be something that's going to go away soon. I need to find a way to cope with it in ways that are going to be more effective at keeping me from burning out and allowing me to meet the needs of the rest of the household better.

I love Baby E a lot. But I can't allow her to be the primary focus of my attention to the detriment of the rest of the family for years at a time.

It's time for some things to change. Exactly what or how, I don't know. But it's time.