Introduction

I'll start this blog by introducing myself and my reasons for having such a blog. I think to most moms it will be self-explanitory. I live in Washington with my husband and three kids. Every day in my life as a mother is consumed with poop. Who pooped? What did it look like? What was the texture? How many times? Seriously, if someone came up to your 20-year-old self and said, "Someday, when you're a mom, you will think about poop all day, every day" would you have believed them? Well, they were right. Although my family is fairly special as far as #2 goes, many typical families and all moms have the same "OMG" moments as they are changing the 15th dirty diaper of the day. Read on, my friends, read on.

Michaela is 6. She is chronically constipated to the point where she has "accidents" in her pants, frequently. (She's going to kill me someday!). We have her on Miralax fairly regularly and try to keep to a high fiber/whole grain diet. It doesn't work. She'll be fine for 2 weeks, get constipated and have "accidents" in her pants, go on the Miralax for 2 weeks and be fine. Rinse. Repeat. We have had her tested for Hirschsprung's Disease, but her barium enema came back normal. (See Alasdair's entry below). So it's either a diet thing, an as of yet undetermined physical problem, or a serious attitude problem. We're working on figuring that part out.

Maeve is 2 1/2. She is not potty trained. She is not interested in potty training, sitting on her potty or having anything to do with her potty. However, she does change her own pull-ups, so I can't really complain about that.

Alasdair is 1. He was born with a rare condition called Hirschsprung's Disease (HD). You can read about it here. Basically the lower part of his colon did not have any nerve cells and was spasmed closed, so he couldn't poop even if he wanted to. He had a pull-through surgery to remove that part of his colon and his rectum. He is doing well so far as far as motility, but kids with HD get a NASTY diaper rash that weeps and bleeds. We still struggle with that every few weeks. If you want to read more about Alasdair's journey during his diagnosis and surgery, visit his blog here. So, every day with him are the questions: Did he poop? How many times? Was it hard? Is he constipated? Does he have the runs? What color was it? How did it smell? (our babysitter loves this part. Really.) Vigilance is required with him. If he gets constipated he's at risk for developing enterocolitis, which can be deadly if not caught and treated in time. If he gets the runs, he could already HAVE enterocolitis. It's a scary thing for me each and every day. So far we've been lucky, but kids with HD get enterocolits all the time, sometimes frequently.

So, the purpose of this blog is to vent my frustration as I change my 10th nasty diaper of the day, or wash "accident" panties out in the sink, or open my second pack of wipes for today. You may find it helpful to know that as you drown in dirty diapers, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!

Enjoy!

Jessica