Day 5: Poop!

Yup, you read that right. Poop. It made its grand appearance today.

And, normally, I wouldn’t post about such a mundane and regular thing. Get it? “Regular”? (hiss! boo!)

Anyway. Evelyn hadn’t had a BM since she came out of the womb. Her very first diaper at the hospital was the merconium motherload. Since then, nada. Just a bunch of smelly gas. And, as a new father and mother, we became more concerned because every baby website you go to, poop should be regular and goes through stages in the first week of life. There’s the black tarry poop, the green poop, and then moves to a yellowy-greenish poop. And you should have 2-4 poops a day. We had none.

So, you can understand our concern. We knew there was gas, we knew she was eating, we knew there was pee, and we knew she was growing increasingly more uncomfortable.

I began instituting baby aerobics. Several websites recommended pushing her legs up, then pulling them back down, then moving them in a bicycle motion to help alleviate the gas. Then there was the rubbing of the belly in a clockwise motion. Then I kept rocking her and I figured out a specific way to hold her and rock her in order for the gas to come out. So, then after every feeding (about every 2-3 hours), I would string all of these “exercises” into one aerobic workout. This lasts about an hour. By the time I’m done and I think she’s good to go, I’m completely exhausted and Evelyn is amped because she doesn’t have gas anymore. And all is good in the world. For an hour.

So, we decided to call the pediatrician and get her checked out. I suspected constipation or some type of blockage. Christine thought I was a hypochondriac.

We finally get to see the pediatrician after an hour wait (who we actually do like and is very nice) and she asks us some basic questions about her feeding schedule and diaper schedule and we whip out our handy dandy spreadsheet I created to chronicle Evelyn’s first 2 weeks of life (which the pediatrician was very impressed with by the way – for good reason – it rocks), and she goes, “Well, sometimes you just need to give her something to push up against in order to get the first poop out.”

Uh, alright….

Next thing I know, she’s lubing up her gloved pinky, sticks it where the sun don’t shine in my beautiful baby girl, and voila! Poop. Smelly poop. Like, clear-a-room-there’s-something-toxic-in-here smelly poop. And Christine and I cheered and clapped. I bet the pediatrician thought we were nuts, but we were just so excited that she didn’t have something wrong with her!

Once we got home, Evelyn decided she wasn’t done and basically pooped out about 6 diaper-fulls. Poop factory. CEO: Evelyn Grace.

The point to this post is this: Nowhere on the internet did I find any recommendation to give your baby something to push up against in her booty in order to help her go. The doctor even recommended using a rectal thermometer if you don’t want to stick your pinky up there. If I would have known this could potentially work, I would have tried it.

So, internet: I’m disappointed in you.

And, there you go current and future mothers and fathers. If you see no poop from your newborn after the first 5 days of life, she’s probably constipated and you should help your baby out a bit.*

*Disclaimer:  This is not medical advice and I don’t condone doing anything unless you check with a licensed pediatrician beforehand.