A Clara Update

Parents obsess over the movements of their children's bowels. Since Clara's birth I now understand why: it's one of the few ways that you can know what is happening inside a child's body. If you are one of those who would rather not hear talk of such things, I recommend you skip this post.

Last Saturday afternoon I noticed blood in Clara's diaper. I called Kristin upstairs to inspect. We didn't see any external signs of bleeding, so we decided that we should keep a close eye on it. We were over visiting some friends that evening when the next dirty diaper also had blood in it. We ended up calling the 24-hour hotline for our doctors office and talked to a nurse who took a ton of information and had the doctor call us. The doctor explained that, as Clara is formula-fed, Clara is probably having a hard time digesting the proteins in the formula and that we should switch to hypoallergenic formula and see how she does. She also told us to call the office first thing this morning and get Clara in to see one of the doctors in the practice.

Bruce and I immediately ran out to buy some of the new formula. We also picked up some Dibs to soothe the agitated mother's soul. Back at their house, we made a bottle of the formula, which the doctor had warned us is more expensive and smells like beef broth, and Clara took the bottle without fuss. We were concerned that she might not like the new formula, but luckily she cooperated. Such a good little girl.

At the doctors office this morning we saw the doctor we will be seeing for her two-month check-up in February. We came armed with the most recent dirty diaper and pictures we'd taken of the Saturday diapers. The doctor had the the diaper we brought checked for blood and it came back negative. (A good sign that the new formula is digesting fine.) He confirmed what the other doctor has suspected, that Clara has allergic colitis, which means her colon inflames when cows milk proteins are present. It occurs in about 4-7% of all babies, and most children grow out of it. He said it can also be a sign of allergies later in life, which wouldn't be surprising as Kristin has wicked hay fever. We're also to plan on using the hypoallergenic formula for the rest of the time she's on a bottle. The one option we have is to try soy formula - 40% of babies allergic to cows milk also can't handle soy - but we're going to wait a while before we try that. It should take her intestines a week or so to heal, during which time we might see traces but not as much as we saw on Saturday.

They also weighed Clara today. She's tipping the scales at 9 lbs 15 oz. That's a 22 ounce gain in 13 days! The doctor says she doesn't look chubby, so she must be putting that all on in height. At home we measured her at 22.5 inches, up an inch. Shocking that this child might be tall. {INSERT_SARCASM_TAG_HERE}

So, the good news is that Clara looks okay. The bad news is that the hypoallergenic stuff is twice as expensive as normal formula. As Kristin said to me after dropping $50 on one week's worth of formula, "at least we're not dirt poor trying to buy the stuff." For that I am grateful.