Month: May 2024

^{*Note: As the weather warms up, I have a much harder time being on the computer, so I appologise that the blogs are not more frequent, but as I am just starting out, I’m not sure if anyone is reading them regularly anyways 🙂}

So now that things are going better in our marriage, we are having the struggles with the youngest to work out. As I compacted the last three years in the one blog, in the middle of that time we also moved.

We were living in a two bedroom, 800 sf old mobile home from the 1970s. It was a challenge for sure to fit everyone in, but we made it work. It wasn’t as terrible having the youngest stay in a crib in our room for a while. I had built specialize bunk beds for the older two in the room. The top bunk was like a crib with a gate to open up to the ladder. The bedroom for the kids was only 9′ x 7′, so very very tight to fit all three in.

When my brother and his family decided to move and offered to sell their house and 1/4 section of land to us which was our grandparents before his, I definitely jumped at the chance!! The house was 3x the size of the trailer! The boys could share a large room and our daughter could have her own room and there was a playroom too. The basement was unfinished but that didn’t matter, just the 1.5 stories that we were able to use was double what we had before!

We moved when the youngest was 16 months and it was cold (being December) but so nice to be out of the trailer. We even had a woodstove which made everything so much more cozy on the snowy days. God was so good to us to give us what I had wanted but didn’t think I’d ever get; the farm my grandparents had.

Psalm 67:1 “God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, Selah.”

Our marriage was doing much better at this time. We were working on rebuilding trust and repairing the damage that was done. That doesn’t happen quickly, it takes years to repair. As we were working on that, I was having more issues with our youngest.

The poor boy wasn’t colicky, he was actually ill! But no doctor would listen. For the first couple weeks he was jaundiced, but not severely enough to be hospitalized. I put him in a window with the summer sun shining on him. I had to take him into the hospital a couple times to check his levels, which were getting better each time.

However he was not well. I was nursing but he was still having issues with digestion so I went to formula. That worked for a short time, but then he wouldn’t do well again, so we switched formulas, same thing. It would work for about a month then he was upset again. This went on for the entire first year and a half of his life. He had blood work tests done at different times and had two allergy tests done before he was 18 months and nothing came back as abnormal. His symptoms were diaper rash almost 24/7 that nothing would make go away and it would bleed regularly. If I could get it to stop bleeding, that was wonderful! His stools were never a “proper” colour or consistency. He was almost always hungry and after he ate he never settled well. He would randomly get 102-103F fevers and very regularly. It was so frustrating because the doctors wouldn’t believe me, but he was definitely not well.

So it was time to research for myself!

I did online research as well as trial and error in my cooking and baking. Through everything I managed to figure out the boy couldn’t have anything acidic (salad dressings/vinegar, ketchup, tomatoes, oranges etc), that caused the incessant diaper rash. He couldn’t have anything very fibrous (oatmeal, bran, etc), that was a large part of the stool issues, he couldn’t have anything dairy (tummy issues & stool issues), and the biggest one – no eggs! That would spike a fever within hours!

So we went on a very limited diet for him for many years and slowly the issues cleared up, no thanks to the medical system. I did figure out that all of those things affected him through my breast milk and no matter what kind of formula I used, there would always be something in it that would bother him. The eggs were so severe that even if they were in baking he would have a fever.

There were many, many times he would take a bite of something (usually cookies) then say yucky. I learned quickly that “yucky” meant it hurt his stomach. By the time he was 3 years old, he knew what to ask about and what to avoid already. It actually took 8 years before he could eat eggs without issues. He had a hard time when he was young because he has always loved eggs, however he KNEW he couldn’t have them. He is a teenager now and loves his eggs. He also has no more dietary restrictions! Praise the Lord! If only that were how it was with the older two…

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.