i never liked eggs anyways

My first discussion with my pediatrician about Cameron’s upset belly happened almost an entire year ago. Cameron has never been a good sleeper, always very gassy at night and needing to be held upright in order to sleep. He’s always been FUSSY when he needs to poop. The problem snowballed pretty much from month two to month eight, peeking around the five month age when he started figuring out his voice and how to use it to get what he wanted.

He screamed all fricking night long. For months on end.

Those were some hard times for me. There were nights when I seriously thought I was going insane.

Around eight months things got a little better. He would sleep for slightly longer stretches, like four hours sometimes, but he was still waking up from dead sleep arching his back in pain. Some babies wake up talking and gibbering, mine woke up screaming. SCREAMING.

I got to the point where I just gave up and quit trying to change it. I quit trying to follow the rules to get your kid to sleep because nothing worked. I was so tired of thinking about it. I gave him Maalox sometimes and that seemed to help but it didn’t go away. Life became survival; I vowed to wait it out until it just magically went away on its own. My husband and traded night duties, both trying to get enough sleep to function at work. I quit talking to his doctor about it because I don’t think she really believed me that there was a problem. Babies don’t all sleep, right? Suck it up.

I had tried elimination diets while I was nursing to try to figure out if something was causing it and eventually just quit nursing all together. He adjusted to formula and started eating solid foods and things did get better. Around 10 months I thought we were headed in the right direction. He seemed happier, would get better, less fitful sleep most nights and was generally more rested.

Then a month or so ago things took a turn for the worse. He started waking up at night again and he’s a toddler now and stubborn as a mule and I’ll be damned if he didn’t fall asleep the minute we sat with him in the chair only to lose his shit and start screaming the SECOND we laid him down. Over and over.

I blamed teething for a while and then a couple of weeks ago I was making chocolate chip cookies and he was sitting on the counter “helping.” I wiped off the wooden spoon with a paper towel and give it to him to chew on. He broke out in a rash all over his face.

You would think the light bulb would have gone off then but it didn’t really. It didn’t really go off until I took him in to get his flu shot and they asked me if he had an egg allergy.  I didn’t know how to answer that. I told his doctor about the cookie incident and she suggested we do a blood test to look for egg allergies before we gave him the vaccine.

I got the results back the other day. The little dude is allergic to eggs. On a scale of one to five, he’s only a two. It means he will likely break out with hives when he comes in contact with raw eggs. It means that it is possible that an egg allergy is the culprit for his gastrointestinal problems from day one. A YEAR ago, I thought there might be something going on with a food allergy. For a YEAR he’s been dealing with an upset belly from the things I was eating or from the things I was putting on his plate.

When I look back now, it makes a lot of sense. His best stretch in terms of sleeping and generally happiness were months nine and ten. ALL I was feeding him was formula, fruits, vegetables and meats. No bread, no waffles, no EGGS.

I feel the biggest sigh of relief that I have ever felt in my life. Honestly, I cry just thinking about what he’s been going through, what I’ve been going through, what we’ve all been going through. I so wish that I had pushed the blood test for him sooner but I’m glad that the cookie dough incident happened so that I had something to go on. I’m thankful that the allergy isn’t severe and that it isn’t a dairy or wheat allergy instead. I'm learning how to make eggless waffles (his favorite). I’m learning how to make a lot of food without eggs.

We’re going egg-free and I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. I accept that it probably won't magically fix everything, maybe it's not related to his belly issues at all, maybe next week he'll get up nine times next Monday night. But I have hope. For the first time in a long time, I have hope.

Comments

[The Mommy]

It is SO HARD when they can't talk and they just.don't.sleep. Allergies are hard to deal with, but at least you have something to run with. It can only get better, right? Good luck.

[Nicole]

I am so happy that you finally have an answer! I'm sure it does little to make you forget about the past year, but it will hopefully help make the future a bit more tolerable.

[kim]

I'm so glad you finally have a little relief. Hope it makes things much better.

[jenny]

so happy that you finally have some answers. i'm sure everything will get better and you will all be able to rest a little easier now. :)