Originally, I thought about writing about how teething was the worst thing ever when it came to raising a baby for the first time, but I’m pretty sure my new dad brogs #28, 27 and 26 were probably about the subject of teething, so I figured I’d lay off that topic for a minute. But it was going to lead up to how parenting for the first time genuinely feels like a bell curve of difficulty, as so many other parents have told mythical wife and I that “it gets easier!” in time, but I’m pretty sure that the people telling us this had long forgotten what the teething experience was like.
Frankly, the first two months or so of parenting weren’t really at all that difficult except for knowing that your sleep habits become more like fragmented shifts, and that your entire life is spent on your tiptoes making sure that your baby is breathing, eating and alive more or less. But during the daytime, my kid was mostly asleep in the Mamaroo next to me while I worked remotely, and I still have fond memories of simply turning my head and seeing my pride and joy blissfully sleeping while I was trying to maneuver through my work days and pretend like I give a shit.
Once the first sleep regressions hit, the stress ramped up, but settled down fairly soon, once new routine had been established. As I often say, routine and repetitions are the lynchpins to success, and it very much applies to parenting as well, because once you establish and reinforce, things get easy, that is, until it’s time to scrap everything and start all over again, which I’ve learned is basically the basis of raising a child.
Teething though, that’s stuff of nightmares, made worse by the simple fact that the timeline of it is basically several years, based on the pace in which a child’s teeth begin to come in and grow. Sure, as they age their pain tolerance begins to develop, but man those first few teeth, and the pain and suffering they put my child through, lord almighty, I’d do just about anything to take that kind of agony away from my kid. And that’s only four teeth out of the estimate 20 that kids usually have.
But we’re not going to talk about that kind of minutiae of new parenting, as recently was something of a high stress point in my life as a new dad.
A few months ago, we introduced my daughter to eggs. It was not a particularly good introduction, as we were met with projectile vomiting, runny diarrhea, and all sorts of skin breakouts. Embarrassingly, it took more than a day for us to realize the outlier in her diet that suddenly caused all of this, but once we identified that it could potentially be eggs, we immediately took them off the table.
A visit to an allergist revealed that our daughter isn’t outright allergic to eggs, but there is definitely an intolerance to them. This is very similar to me; as much as I do love eggs, eating them results in some very predictable and consistent results for me, and it took me a long time to realize that the issue was eggs, and not the cereals, the milk or anything else I might have been eating in the mornings, since I’ve had years of being able to eat eggs without incident.
Well apparently, my daughter has inherited the egg intolerance that I developed in my 30’s, but hopefully she’ll grow out if it, as I hope to someday grow out if myself. The thing is, intolerance isn’t as bad as allergy, as allergies could potentially result in shit like anaphylactic shock or other lethal results, and we’d rather not have to carry $1,200 EpiPens in the house if we don’t have to. The allergist did suggest to us that we should try eventually, food with egg cooked into it, so that we could introduce egg into her system in combined, smaller applications, to see if she could handle it.
I made some baby-friendly muffins that were full of ingredients that my child has already shown a liking to, like apple, carrot and banana, but egg was also in the ingredient list. I had our nanny introduce her to a single, less-than-a mini muffin size of a muffin, since she could remain entirely vigilant to her afterward whereas I unfortunately still have to work.
After the first hour, things seemed to be fine, which was good news, as the first time she ate straight scrambled eggs, the projectile vomiting occurred not long afterward. Our nanny later reported some softer stool, which was worth mentioning as her poops had been fairly firm and consistent throughout the last weeks, so I immediately suspected the egg had something to do with it.
But if soft poops were all that we would have to worry about from cooked-in egg foods, then I would’ve been thrilled, as eggs are delicious and the last thing I want is to deny my child any of the delicious foods of the world.
Naturally, five minutes after our nanny left for the day, the first spit up occurred. At first, it was just a little blah, something that could’ve just easily be made from being jostled too much. But since she did get it onto her clothing, I decided that it was time to change her outfit, so that she’s not sitting in bile soaked clothing. And it was when I put her onto the changing table did things go south real fast, as the throwing up faucet was turned on, and basically everything consumed from earlier in the day began coming back out.
Frankly, this was worse than the first incident in my opinion, because at least then, she barfed like 4-5 times and then it all appeared to be over. This next hour for me, was 4-5 and then some, but worse off, was the physical demeanor and behavior in my child that freaked me the fuck out, and I didn’t really think twice about taking her to the doctor instead of waiting around and hoping for improvement. She was very pale and most frighteningly, lethargic, and I wasn’t going to sit idle if she were on the verge of degenerating into something worse.
Driving to the doctor was an even more scary experience as I watched her in the baby mirror appearing to drift in and out of consciousness. Worse was, if anything happened, I’d have to have a lengthy delay of finding somewhere to pull over, get out of the car and rushing to the opposite side to tend to her, and every time her eyes closed and her head lulled to the side, I was scared out of my mind. Fortunately, we made it to the clinic fairly expediently, and her eyes were open by the time I got her out of the car.
Ultimately, the doctor’s diagnosis was some bad nausea and dehydration on account of all the vomiting. Obviously, egg is off the table until god knows when, regardless of if anyone gave me a timeline, I think we’re going to stay away from egg and egg products until she’s like 26, and this was an invaluable lesson learned as parents. As terrible as a lot of the circumstances were, the experience gained was definitely a positive.
But damn, are these the things that definitely make being parents for the first time, truly bonkers at times.
