How We Got Here Part 2 (otherwise known as the poop talk)

Another one of Gavin’s “issues” is his poop. It’s always been a little funny. I won’t go into much detail other than to say it’s not solid and it never really has been. (Sorry. I’m done.) For a long time I thought it was because his favorite (and pretty much ONLY) food he was consuming on a daily basis were Amy’s Bean and Cheese Burritos.

In my defense, Gavin is my “test waffle” and I had no idea what his poop should look like and that it’s not ok for him to be SO picky. I just thought kids were picky eaters. Most are. But not to this extreme. From about 18 months on, Gavin has had a very limited menu of foods that he has deemed acceptable. For the longest time it was the burritos. Then it was Mac & Cheese. Sam’s Club became our best buddy when it came to enormous boxes of Easy Mac. Oh those 4 minutes in the microwave are a LIFETIME to a hungry toddler. But I digress……….

After a year or more of weird poop, I talked to our pediatrician about it. I was told not to worry and was given a referral to a children’s gastro doctor. For a while I was thinking celiac disease. He displayed some of the symptoms. This doctor took one look, and I mean one look, and said that was not it. Whew! X-rays were taken (yes, of his stomach) and a few minutes later, it was pronounced that Gavin was backed up all through his intestines and that he just doesn’t like to poop. WHAT? You have to understand something. Gavin was pooping after every meal. How can you sit there with your specialized medical degree and tell me that he doesn’t like to poop when he does it 2-3 times a day? We were confused, but hey, he’s the doctor, he knows what he’s talking about.

We walked out of that office that day, a prescription for laxatives in hand. After a month of laxatives and a follow-up visit where we were told to keep up the laxatives, I finally got smart. This guy DID NOT know my son. I do. Gavin isn’t afraid or doesn’t like to poop. THAT’S NOT IT. I was angry at the doctor for not digging deeper into the issue. I was angry at myself for believing everything he said and not questioning anything. I was angry that I had paid for 3 prescriptions that were not helping. I was angry that I didn’t know what else to do.

So we did nothing, for a while…….