The end is coming

J is still sick today but he seems to be in good spirits. However his "red ring" around his hiney hole is TERRIBLE. The worse I've seen it despite the tons of bum creams I've been slathering on. Since this is a big indicator of a food allergy, needless to say this is beyond discouraging. I feel like a wave came over me today and I realized what I'm eating has little effect on him and this TED is now pointless. It could be his cold has made his stool more acidic, or it could be something like teething making his poop worse that we aren't aware of or it could be I'm still eating something that is causing him problems. I've always been suspect of the rice, but I just can't bring myself to pull it from my diet. I wouldn't even know what to exchange it for. Nothing is safe, do you hear me? Nothing! I'm actually wondering if I could be dealing with BOTH a food allergy and Over Active Letdown which may have caused a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. If his system was already sensitive, that could easily occur. I've learned that a temporary lactose intolerance can develop if the gut is already suffering from something like colitis. I stopped block feeding when my diet became so drastic, I was very worried about a drop in supply. Hell if I know, it could be a million other things or nothing at all. Maybe we're just screwed.

He has his well-baby Monday so I'm going to see what his ped thinks. And Tuesday I'm calling the GI back. I think I'm mentally ready for him to go on formula. 99.99% of the time breastmilk is best but that is not always the case when food allergies are involved and I need to understand this, I NEED to come to terms with it. At this point, no my milk is not better than a formula, not when something in MY milk is getting to him causing these issues. There are tons of babies who just couldn't thrive on breastmilk and were so much better off on a formula like Neocate. There comes a time when you just have to do what is best for your baby even if it goes against every fiber of your being.

Who knows, maybe formula won't help him and if that's the case he'll be right back on breastmilk. The only thing I'm now struggling with is should we scope him to determine if it is allergic colitis which would help confirm if the formula would help, or just go right to the formula? Do I have enough faith in the GI to read the biopsies well enough not to miss anything? Should we do more thorough (read: more evasive) of a scope, like a colonoscopy and endosopy instead of just a flex sigmoidoscopy, since things like this can be patchy and can be missed? How much do I want to put him through? How will I feed him the formula? I ordered the boob bottle last week but it feels like it's taking forever to get to me. We haven't tried giving him a bottle lately, it seemed like such a waste of breastmilk, time and frustration when I'm already mentally overwhelmed.

I *promised* to stick out the breastfeeding for the full 8 weeks. I'm on my 3rd week and I know it could take much longer for things to be better but when things are looking worse, that's not a good sign. I think this is is 3rd day in a row without blood in his stool, a positive sign. But with the worsening red ring, the degenerating sleep habits and continous mucous in his stool, it's hard to see anything positive right now, plus his stool is DARK, DARK green. I don't even have any vegetables in my diet, or anything of color, to blame this on.

This sucks and it's not fair (as I say stopping my feet and throwing a tantrum like a 4 year old!)