Poop Problems

Yes, I am really about to write a blog post about baby poop. This is not an April Fool's joke.

I truly hope this post doesn't make its way to Z's high school classmates 15 years from now. If it does, I'm sorry baby girl. Mama needs to vent.

Who, me?

Z has not had any issues in the bathroom department since she's been born. I've heard urban legends of babies that only poop once every few days. This is not the case with our child. However, things have been abnormal lately. Without getting too graphic, it was enough for us to freak out and go to the doctor last week. No fever, happy(ish) baby, everything looked fine. Just keep an eye on it, we were told.

Over the weekend, things didn't improve. They said it was time to test her stool and to come pick up a stool sample kit from the lab. When I saw how much poop we needed to provide, I thought it'd be no problem. As mentioned above, not pooping enough has never been an issue. But days later, we were still struggling to fill up the 3 containers because guess what? Breastfed baby poop is like, 99% liquid and soaks right into any kind of diaper you use.

I called the doctor again today to see if there was a different way we could test things out. The nurse said no, they need that sample, and asked if I had tried putting plastic wrap in her diapers to catch the poop?

...

Okay, whatever it takes to get this darn stool sample. We've meticulously covered the inside of her diapers with plastic wrap all day and scooped/dripped/squeezed every dirty diaper into the plastic container. We still don't have one container even halfway full.

I've touched more poop than ever before in my life. (And don't worry, I've immediately scrubbed the heck out of my hands each time). We still aren't halfway closer to dropping the containers back off at the lab and I'm sure the lab will be closed Friday-Sunday anyways because of Easter so my guess is we'll have the results of the test maybe late next week? That is, if we get enough poop to get sample in sometime tomorrow.

The joys of motherhood, y'all. 5 months in and I'm already going to great lengths to collect my daughter's poop. If you thought being a stay-at-home mom is dull, you've got it all wrong.

(In all seriousness, please keep her in her prayers. One mom said it sounds like she could have E. coli or salmonella but considering she seems okay and hasn't really eaten any "real" food yet, I don't think whatever this is is that serious)