Water

We finally figured out a way for Baby E to drink unthickened water without choking. Apparently her swallowing abilities have improved enough that if she drinks from a sippy cup with small enough holes, she does okay with it.

It's impossible to tell for sure whether she's aspirating trace amounts or not, but she's not doing a lot of choking and coughing with this method, so that's encouraging. It's much better than last time we tried these cups with her.

So, she's off the juice. She's just had water and for the last day and a half (in addition to nursing, of course). That seems to be going well so far. That's an answer to prayer that seemed nearly impossible not long ago.

We were going to try to not give her any fruit at all today, but she did get hold of M&M's half of an organic banana this morning. Her diet today contained no grains, and was very low in fructose but a bit higher in sucrose (only what was naturally occurring in things like the banana, carrots and turnips).

She was fussy and clingy today, refused to nap, wanted to nurse constantly, complained of stomach pain, and had diarrhea twice. We'll try again tomorrow.

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I would really like to get to a base level where she's going at least a few days (preferably weeks) at a time without bouts of diarrhea and stomach pain. Then we could start trying to add things one at a time and see what happens. With no dependable baseline to start from, it's very difficult to tell which foods are affecting her in what ways, or if it's something non-food-related altogether.

I've been leaving messages for the GI specialist trying to ask about the possibility of a fructose or sucrose intolerance for almost two months now, I think. I hope we get a call from someone soon who is able to either answer some questions or just tell us we need an appointment.

It's hard not to get impatient or frustrated when it takes several weeks or more to get a return call, and then it seems they haven't looked at her chart or the information got garbled somewhere in the communication line. I know it must be difficult for the medical personnel trying to interpret questions and relay information third-and fourth-hand. But it does make things frustrating on this end to wait so long for a return call that--when it finally comes--doesn't actually answer the question asked. Meanwhile, we're going on waiting and trying to figure it out for ourselves month after month.

AJ and M&M weren't feeling well today, either. I really hope that if we can figure out what's going on with Baby E, it will help all of us.

I think soon I'll probably try putting everyone in the house (or at least myself and the kids) on a gluten-, sulfite- and dairy-free diet with no added sugars for a few days to see what happens. It would be lots of vegetables and meat, but even that (depending on the vegetables) would still contain significant amounts of fructose, sucrose and starch, which may or may not be a problem. I haven't decided yet whether I'll try to temporarily cut out fruits for everyone or just Baby E and myself.

Baby E and I have very little sugar or gluten in our diets already, but the older girls get a bit more sugar (usually small amounts in things like jam or a bit of maple syrup added to porridge or plain yogurt) and quite a bit more fruit and gluten.

I think we're probably getting quite a few sulfites in our diet because I use tapioca starch and potato starch in baking (in addition to the tapioca starch we've been using in Baby E's drinks). I've been making quite a few grain-free "breads" out of things like tapioca flour, and we eat a lot of potato chips.

I'm really not exactly sure what to do or try next.

Mainly I'm just praying a lot for patience, strength, wisdom, perspective and a good attitude. That's what I really need right now, and what I'm struggling with the most.