Poop Happens - and Sometimes it Doesn't...

We have a Poop Strike on our hands. Ever since Poop-Xplotion 2.0, Evan has refused to poop. We’re going on day 16. Evan’s pediatrician has assured us he’s fine, it’s not uncommon and that the non-poop is usually a much bigger issue for the parents than it is for the child. How right he is.


Medical mysteries aside, the poop non-event can be quite nerve-racking. This strike Evan has succeeded in shattering his prior record, set in his 8th week of life when he decided to withhold a poop for 12 days. That poop became the bane of my existence. Every book and magazine article I read said it was perfectly normal for breast fed babies to go a week without pooping. It’s not even considered constipation. It’s called “infrequent stooling.” On about the eighth day I called the consulting nurse service to check in. I was told he was fine but to go ahead and come in anyway, since this was his first bout of “infrequent stooling.” When we were getting off the phone she casually mentioned that when he did actually go, it was going to be, in her words, “a doosy.” She actually used the phrase “in his hair and in his toes.” She then followed it up with, “you know you’re never getting it out of his clothes. I’ve tried. You might as well just throw them away."


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There are various forms of torture, but the anticipation of the event is a form of torture unto its own. The imagination can become crippling, the fear all consuming, the sense of impending doom becomes torture itself, and it can break you. And I broke. I became a complete freak. I had heard stories about these blow-outs. I had read Jenny McCarthy’s account of her own child “shitting up the back,” and my friend has a particularly horrible story of her own involving a restaurant, a Baby Bjorn, and out of town guests. But when the threat hit home, and the possibility became real, I became a head case. I began bundling Evan in two diapers in hopes of containment. I laid down old towels when he slept in our bed, and wrapped him in them when we walked around the house. I wore only the worst of my clothes and dressed him in the ugliest outfits we owned. I had towels and washcloths piled outside the shower so I would be ready when it hit. The longer he went without a poop, the more crazy I became.
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So obsessed with the emergence of this impending poo, I became afraid to leave the house; a prisoner to the phantom poop. By day 12, I was full-blown psychotic. I bought something called a “Piddle Pad” for the car seat for when we absolutely had to leave the house. I refrained from putting him in the Baby Bjorn or his swing. I kept us on the crappy leather couch downstairs as much as possible. And then it came; a poop about the size of a quarter. And then another poop about the size of a golf ball. And then another poop the same size. And another. And crisis averted, terror level was adjusted to green, and my sanity returned.

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This time around I’m trying to take it a bit more in stride. Having experienced my fair share of Poop-Xplosions, I realize that I can imagine the worst, but it’s going to happen anyway, and if I’m trying to protect myself from Pompeii, I just can’t. So life goes on, the Poop Strike continues, and Evan is getting sick of eating prunes at every meal.