It has been a crazy wonderful past two months. Brighton has already lived up to her name...she has most certainly "brightened"up our world. She LOVES her changing table and always smiles and "talks" to us when she is being changed. She loves to suck on her hands. It is so loud and cute! She moves her head side to side constantly when she is on her tummy. Her favorite stuffed animal is a black bat Nana gave her for Halloween. She stares at it forever! Brandon loves to make her smile. We are all in love.
With all the joys we've experienced however, there have been some sorrows as well. At three weeks old Brighton started to be really fussy. It just seemed like something was not right, like she was hurting. After taking her in, our doctor said she found mucus and small traces of blood (unseen by the eye) in her poo, which was a pretty sure sign of an allergy. From that point on, I was cutting things out of my diet. First the doctor told me to cut out dairy, then dairy and soy. After those failed to show any change, the pediatrician sent us to see a GI doctor. She said we were now officially too complicated for her. Hoping the GI doctor would be able to help us, we quickly went to see him. He said that we should put Brighton on formula for three days and see if that clears up the mucus and blood. I was not happy with that advice, but wanting to do what was best for our baby, we headed home to give her a bottle of formula. Ha!! Well Brighton was NOT having any of it! She screamed like crazy the first time I tried to feed her. She kept looking at me with tears in her eyes. It seemed as though she was confused as to why I was not feeding her the way I always did. She cried and cried and then fell asleep hungry. That I must say was the worst hour of my life. I was crying just as much as she was. Neither of us wanted this. I wanted to nurse my baby and feel the closeness that comes with breastfeeding. I wanted to give her want she wanted. I was so frustrated and sad. So so sad that we were having to go through this...that my milk was not perfect for her. I gave up. John tried when he got home, and he gave up too. It was just much too difficult to see our daughter be that upset.
So, I called in the big guns, my mom! She flew in from Utah to try and feed our little stubborn sweetie a bottle. She gave it such a good try, hours and hours of trying. Brighton just cried and cried. I couldn't take it. I will never be able to thank her enough for her efforts and love. She is the best.
So now here we are five weeks into this allergy mess and I am on a very strict diet. No dairy, soy, corn, peanuts or eggs. I think it is helping. We go in tomorrow for another poo test and she will be weighed. So far she is gaining weight perfectly so I hope that continues.
Oh little Brighton, we love you so much! Please get better so we can stop stressing out!
