Reality Bites - w/ special edit

For those of you that look forward to these few and far between posts, this might be an unexpected change in tone. Nevertheless, while having a baby comes with it’s fair share of comedic moments, it also comes littered with a heavy dose of real-life can’t-laugh-my-way-out-of-this moments. Those are the times when the you realize that you’re a grown-ass adult that has to suck it up and deal with all the unexpected cards life has dealt you, sorry for the cliché.

Matilda has been diagnosed with psoriasis. I’m sure several of you have stopped reading and fired up google. Before you pass out at the sight of your search engine results, let me just say, please pay no mind to the images that pop up. At least in our case, the breakout looks like nothing more than a bad diaper rash. But apparently it might be psoriasis: the skin disorder with all the weird commercials on TV. Why am I coming forth with this on my otherwise light-hearted blog you may ask? Well, I promised to create a real and unfiltered depiction of parenthood, so it is what it is.

Throughout my pregnancy my husband and I were adamant about doing things as naturally as possible. I abstained from as many artificial substances as possible, never took medication, etc. Anyways, as month nine came along I started feeling incredibly uncomfortable. What had otherwise been a great pregnancy became a living hell. I needed the baby out, now. So, by week 39 our natural labor birth plan was tossed out the window and HELLO INDUCTION…Nine hours of artificially induced contractions later I was asking for an epidural, three hours after that I was pushing, and an hour later Baby Tills arrived. Only, she wasn’t crying. Turns out Miss Matilda had swallowed fluids during labor; at first we thought this had not presented any complications but on day two of our hospital stay she was admitted into the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) where she remained for ten days to run a course of antibiotics. Now, if that’s not the natural method, I don’t know what is. Here’s another myth buster for all you nature-loving freaks (my hubs and I included) out there who believe that if faced with this same situation you would refute your doctors wishes to pump your baby full of meds; you won’t. It doesn’t get any more anti-medicine than my husband, but believe me when they tell you your baby is in danger you will agree to anything. Fast forward ten days and we’re finally home with Matilda. Life is great. Then we take her to her first pediatrician appointment and they tell us she has developed thrush. The antibiotics apparently did a number on her intestinal flora and shut down her immune system, therefore she developed a yeast infection, joy! So we’re told we must now lather her in more antibiotic ointments…as you can see by now, the cycle is never-ending. 

The latest in our list of medical adventures was a stubbornly persistent diaper rash. What we originally thought was an adverse reaction to regular diapers has turned into a full-fledge nightmare. After having again attempted to attack this latest ailment with natural remedies: changing from conventional diapers to wallet-draining hypoallergenic eco-diapers, switching from wipes to water and cotton pads, lathering her in every natural butt balm on the market, soaking her in oatmeal baths, dousing her in pure aloe sap, sprinkling her with corn starch…the list goes on. After having done all of this we tried prescription diaper rash cream, nothing. Finally we were told to see a pediatric dermatologist and voila: a “working diagnosis” of psoriasis! The cause? Either genetic predisposition or an auto immune response to some other ailment or infection. Considering there is no history of psoriasis in either of our families, the answer to our question would be the latter. The culprit: those lovely ten days of meds that caused the yeast infection that sparked the ongoing cycle of, you guessed it, psoriasis.

From what little research I’ve done so far what you tend to find out there on the Internet is pretty scary and not very helpful. I’ve come to realize that when people welcome any word that starts with “ps” into their lives they tend to get crank up the drama factor big time. I refuse to do the same. I’m hoping this latest diagnosis is the last of the few ailments that have sprung up due to the antibiotic treatment she had to undergo upon birth, but one can never be sure. The ironic thing throughout all of this is that Matilda has never once seemed bothered by any of the discomforts that she’s already endured in her mere months on earth. She never complained about her IV as a newborn, nor did she flinch when I had to make her swallow a disgusting syrup to cure the thrush, nor is she fazed by her “diaper rash”. She is, quite literally, the happiest baby I’ve ever met. I’m the one that is flustered and shell-shocked every time I’m told something new has sprung up. In fact, in re-reading this I’ve come to realize that the situation sounds a lot worse than what we’re living. Theoretically, this sucks, especially with this latest surprise; but in actuality we’re doing great and thriving as a family. I don’t foresee that changing. Furthermore, we are told she will most likely outgrow her current condition, and that this could potentially be a severe case of dermatitis eczema. If it is psoriasis this could be something that she might have to deal with her entire life. However, I chose to remain optimistic and hope that she will indeed outgrow it. We’re also not giving up on taking homeopathic preventative measures. I will be sure to update the blog with more info once we embark on that journey. For now, the important thing is to get her current flare-up under control and then we can begin exploring ways to ensure that her skin stays silky smooth and outbreak-free.

The following links are products I have come across and that seem to be good alternative ways to keep the ‘ps’ in check:

http://www.justnaturalskincare.com/Psoriasis/skin-vinegar-body-rinse-natural.html

http://www.arbonne.com/products/baby/set.asp

I’ve also purchased the following Aveeno Baby bath product to add to her tub:

http://www.aveeno.com/baby-care/soothing-bath-treatment

Again, I will report back once I start seeing results. And please, if you know of anyone with a similar situation, please share this post. Positive feedback on this matter is hard to find.

All-in-all, I have to be honest and say that there are days when I’m about ready to file a formal complaint with whomever the f*&% is responsible for handing out the “tough situations” to new parents, ‘cause considering we’re only 6 months in I’m pretty certain we’ve gotten our quota and then some. And while I know we’ve passed all with flying colors (believe me, NO ONE should be sent home from the hospital baby-less; hands down the WORST day of my life) it still doesn’t mean that I don’t envy those moms around me whose idea of a tough situation is that their baby won’t latch onto their boob or isn’t napping as much as they’d like them to. Although, in those cases I must say I’ve more than lucked out with a baby that loves to eat anything you put in front of her and that has slept through the night since she was six weeks old and still does 3 two-hour naps a day. Had to throw in a little shameless bragging, yes I did.

Ultimately, reality bites, but all you have to do is turn around and bitch-slap it right back!

One Happy Baby! 

01/25/13: After much research and a second opinion, it was determined that Matilda's psoriasis is in fact a yeast infection that has spread and yes, developed into a dermatitis/eczema outbreak. With that said, it saddens me that we live in a time when doctor's don't take the time to listen to concerned parents and truly determine what is going on with a baby.
If you or anyone you know is having a similar problem, look for these common signs of a yeast infection:
- bumpy outbreak in the diaper area with red dots/specks 
- irritated and inflamed skin
- baby does NOT seem to complain nor be bothered by the rash (BIG BIG sign that it's yeast!)
- if your baby has ever taken antibiotics they are very prone to developing yeast 

Anyways...now that that scare is over with...back to bitchin' about the trials and tribulations of mommyhood...

The Inevitable Truth

We were once a grown-ass couple. We were independent. We drank, a lot. We dined out, a lot. We spent our money at expensive boutiques. We travelled, a lot. But most of all, we slept in ‘til whatever goddamn time we felt necessary. Then we had a baby…

Nowadays I wake up at 5:30 am, everyday, seven days a week…apparently motherhood has made me a neurotic psycho that can’t seem to sleep past 6:00am. Also, if I wake up at this time I guarantee myself a calm start to the day. I make my baby’s bottle, feed the dog, walk the dog, and make coffee all before my little one starts to squirm. I know it might sound ridiculous, but it’s heavenly. Should I decide to sleep in, my mornings turn into a scene from I Know What You did Last Summer, sans the blood. Just a lot of screaming and frantic running around…

                                                    

But, regardless of whether I wake up at 5:30 am or 7:00 am…things like this seem to happen to me, a lot:

-     You schedule weekly mommy lunches to which you’re, for the most part, surprisingly on time for. This requires a tremendous amount of preparation. But, on more than one occasion you will find yourself stuck in traffic for 1 ½ hours with your baby screaming her/his head off. You will be rendered helpless, and will give in to the urge to cry your eyes out along with your child. I’m sure other drivers will find this quite interesting as you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. But you will be mortified and scarred for life.

-      Upon reaching your destination, your child will decide to FINALLY go #2 after days of withholding from the act. Hence/thus/therefore you will have a fecal explosion to deal with in a public bathroom. Other women will give you dirty looks as you rip clothes off your sodden child…Oh, not to mention that this will happen on the ONE day you forget to pack a proper replacement outfit, so your child will then be parading around in public looking like a hot mess. Embarrassing.

-     Should you NOT know this by now, all babies think it’s best to go pee and poo at an accelerated rate the moment you take them out of the house. So, on any give day you will go through at least three outfits on a 2-hour outing. For example, first she will pee the equivalent of her weight to the point where the diaper will begin to leak (cue change of clothes #1). Then she will poop (cue change #2). Then she will decide to spit up like a fountain; by the time change #3 comes around you’ll be scavenging for random separates scattered in your diaper bag, which will result in your child looking like a homeless baby with hand-me-downs on…cue rushing back home. 

-      Here’s one thing I can’t get over: that awkward moment when you find yourself face-to-face with a breastfeeding mom in a Nordstrom’s bathroom. She will be eagerly feeding her mischievous 8-month old, flashing him (and you) her boob while going “Aqui esta la leche bebe” (“Here’s your milk baby”). SHOOT ME NOW!

-  Your baby will pee all over your duvet cover, and you won’t care, at all…’cause honestly, I’m not washing that shit. FEBREEZE!

-     You will start a blog when your baby is a peaceful newborn, thinking that you will have the time to devote to this new hobby, only to realize that the little buggers will start to sleep less and whine more as they get older. You will begin to devote an immense amount of time to entertaining an infant, which entails: singing totally made-up songs (‘cause unless there’s another child in the house, you truly don’t have a clue about lullaby lyrics) and aimlessly pacing up and down your townhouse with baby in tow. Should a peeping Tom peek into your house he’ll think you’ve taken up cabaret classes as you’ll also start using “Jazz hands” and exaggerated facial expressions both of which your baby finds hilarious (I like to think I’m giving my face mad exercise and will therefore never wrinkle!) All of these things will leave little time for you to eat and shower, much less sit down and write a full blog post.

-     You will realize that there’s no such thing as acquiring new hobbies…you’ll settle for getting through the day alive.

-  Your new bedtime is 10 pm sharp. You’ll invite friends over for dinner at 6pm and practically kick them out at 9:45pm. If they complain, they’re still single and don’t have an f-ing clue.

-   On the rare occasion that you decide to stop drinking for a month to shed some of the baby weight and then proceed to drink yourself senseless on your birthday, you will realize that a hangover is a parent's worst enemy. You will ask the Powers that Be to open the Earth and swallow you whole as you lay on the floor, curled up in fetal position, next to your baby's tummy time mat. You will never ever want to drink again, ever, until you remember the bottle of bubbly sitting in the fridge. Mimosas anyone? 

There are many more things I could list, but they’ll have to wait…’cause the baby is up and I’ve got a version of All That Jazz I’ve been dying to try out on her. Wish me luck…*cue jazz hands*

Nothing like my bottle and my mommy's

tone-deaf singing... 

Mommy FYI

Things Every New Mom Needs to Come to Terms With:

• There is something about having an infant in the house that requires a mom to consume copious amounts of coffee…tarry-looking strong black coffee.
• Activities such as eating, showering and getting dressed will become Olympic sports, all done in record times and under extreme conditions.
•  Forget about dieting…just forget it.
• The first time your infant pukes you are certain their death is imminent, followed closely thereafter by your own miserable demise.
• At some point during the day (every day) you will be covered in vomit, spit-up, drool, pee and poo, and/or a combination of all. You may in fact end up so drenched in bodily fluids you will have to do a full change of clothes, down to your underwear. Yes, this is true.
•  You now call piss and shit “pee” and “poo”.
•  Makeup…what the hell is makeup?
• You will learn to carry on a full conversation while your child cries in the background.
•  In fact, crying is the new musac (elevator music).
• You will begin to empathize with parents that act unfazed when their child cries in public. While it is incredibly difficult to hear your child weep, you will develop an uncanny ability to differentiate their wails. You will also come to understand that unless they are hungry, are in need of diaper change, or are in pain; they are indeed fine. So you will let them cry and consider their howling an exercise in proper lung development. I am implementing this as I type…
• Say goodbye to a full night’s sleep. Even once your baby starts sleeping through the night you will find yourself waking up every couple of hours to make sure she is still breathing. This obsessive compulsive tendency manifests itself in several ways:
• Placing your finger beneath your baby’s nostrils to make sure air is indeed still flowing in and out of her body
•  Slightly tapping her face to see if she squirms
• Staring incessantly at the baby monitor for the reassuring rise and fall of your baby’s chest.
• You will receive texts from your mommy friend about her baby’s poopy patterns, worse of all, you will answer said texts with genuine excitement and/or concern…yes, it’s come to that.
• If your child, like mine, so happens to make the most absurd sounds when going #2 you will decided to record said event, even though you are fully aware of the emotional scarring that might ensue…but it’s just so cute! You will then send this video to the above mentioned mommy friend.
• You will feel like poppin’ bottles the first time your baby rolls over onto his/her back while laying face down…then you’ll remember you’re a mommy and the only bottles you’ll be poppin’ are filled with milk…it is what it is.
•  The most enlightening conversations you now engage in consist not of words, but of “goos” and “gaas”, and all sorts of other primal sounds you never imagined your adult-self making. However, the moment you first participate in this exchange with your little one you’ll realize there’s nothing more fulfilling in this world.  

What's a lil' poop when I get to spend my days with this face! 

One of those days...

Prior to becoming a mommy, I never quite understood why (a) mommies always look so tired and (b) they utter the phrase “It’s been one of those mornings,” with such exasperation and dread. Well, here’s why…

A few days ago I woke up on a glorious morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after my FIRST full night’s sleep. I should mention that Matilda is now sleeping in her crib and actually sleeps through the night. What’s more is that I am now able to, miraculously, sleep through the night as well. As opposed to the first few nights I put her in her crib when I would wake up every 15 minutes to stare at the baby monitor to make sure she was still alive. Unconvinced that the video monitor was proof enough, I would get out of bed to go make sure she was still breathing, in person. I’m happy to report those nights are over. But back to my lovely morning…

Picture an altered version of this peaceful scene...

I woke up to the sound of Tilly fussing and squirming, my cue to go make her bottle and my first pot of coffee.  As I made my way to her crib I had a strange feeling of calmness. I couldn’t believe how well the night and morning were panning out. If this is how my life with a baby was going to be, then I was one happy mommy. Then it hit me, a faint smell coming from what appeared to be a pool of chocolate underneath my baby, only it obviously wasn’t chocolate. Matilda lay peacefully snoozing while I frantically picked her up and began to assess the situation; how the hell does on go about dealing with such a disaster? Should I change her or change the bed? Do I leave the mess and feed her before she starts hollering? Or wait…should I just cut her clothes off so as to minimize both her and my exposure to the fecal mess? Better yet, I need to bathe her, ‘cause there certainly was poop in places poop should not be. As I pondered this mess I could hear my dog pacing back and forth, this was a little unusual seeing as she more often than not doesn’t bother to get up for the first morning feeding. She’s a bulldog after all and very much values her beauty sleep. Then, suddenly, she stopped pacing and that’s when I heard her PUKE all over the bathroom. Seriously? Pardon my French, but “Fuck my life!!!!”

I now stood holding my baby out like a dirty rag, staring at a shit-covered crib and fully aware of the puke-filled bathroom that awaited me. I ran to the bathroom to (a) stop my dog from eating her own vomit (dogs do this, gross but true) and (b) rinse my child off under the faucet (you learn to do such things after a while), then I proceeded to pry the remainder of the sodden-clothes off of my baby, change her, make a bottle, feed the dog and the baby, rock the baby and change the crib sheets. I’m still not quite sure in what order or how I did all this…all I remember is that at some point my husband stumbled out of bed and heroically asked if I needed his help. Thank you, f-ing Super Dad to the rescue! Is it me, or do husbands perfectly time waking up to exactly a minute AFTER you’re done doing all of the above?  Granted my husband is a huge help, but let’s just say he’s not a morning person…so any assistance he may offer has to wait ‘til after he’s had his coffee…and well, shitty babies and puking dogs aren’t the most patient of creatures.

The most amazing thing about this story is that when I shared it with my friend on our mommy-date she didn’t flinch nor seem surprised by any of it. In fact, she kind of one-upped me…

On a beautiful Saturday morning, my lovely, seasoned mommy-of-two friend decided to take a stroll in the park. She headed off with her babies and a lightweight purse, no diaper bag in sight. A couple hours later she found herself covered in baby doo-doo. It literally dripped off her shirt and pants all the way down to her toes. Turns out her little man was a wee-bit constipated, and let’s face it, nothing like a long walk to get those bowels going. All that nature and fresh air were enough to kick his intestinal tract into gear. Lucky for her, parks tend to be filled with other better equip mommies with lots of wipes and diapers. Let me just say that whoever invented the diaper needs to take a cue from the inventor of the tampon. We mommies must demand that they come out with an array of diapers: the ultra-thin, regular, heavy and super-heavy should all exist in diaper-land. Also, another thing I may point out is that a mommy should NEVER leave the house without a fully loaded diaper bag, packed with everything including a change of clothes for Mama Bear. Tisk tisk! By doing so one would avoid having to change in the backseat of your maid’s car. I can’t imagine that trying to put on a faja/spanx in such a confined space would be very easy…and yes, I just ousted all us new-mommies…we wear ‘em, yes we do.

Lessons to be learned: get comfortable with poop, you will be seeing lots of it. I for one am sure this won’t be the last time I address the subject matter.