five days...wait, twenty seven days?

I was concerned because after all the travelling, Seung Yi has experienced a small delay in the gastro-intestinal area. I consulted my friend the internet and it told me not to worry. I could give Seung Yi some water or some sugar water to help things along. I'm always a little shy to admit to taking the internet's medical advice. Y'know, after Bill's well-known self diagnosis via the internet of irritable bowel syndrome. Which actually turned out to be cancer. Very very bad cancer. So, when I consult Dr. Internet, I read at least 15 different sites and try to distill the information. The distilled information about infant constipation in breast-fed babies was: don't worry.

But, c'mon, how can a mother not worry?

After the first day, I started giving her enthusiastic comments when she'd squeeze and push and turn purple. On the second day I also began giving her extra back and leggie massages. On day three I gave her some water, and on days four and five I gave her water with brown sugar dissolved in it. Still no result. Finally on day the sixth, we went to see the local nurse. Seung Yi was scheduled for her shots anyways, so I took the opportunity to ask some bung related questions.

The nurse was INCREDIBLY NICE. I'm used to going to the walk-in clinic in Toronto which, while open daily, does not have much else to recommend it. The reception staff are surly with a capital surrrr. They bark at sweet old Greek ladies who don't speak English and snarl at bedraggled mothers with armies of sick children. The doctors are ok but harried. The nurses are professionally competent, and one of them is nice, but the rest are just doing their job. The nurse here at Sauble Beach, on the other hand, went way out of her way to help us and make Seung Yi comfortable.

We were seen on time. Like, exactly on time. Scheduled for 1:00 pm, seen at 1:00 pm. Then, there was no fuss made about our non-residency status. They figured things out in 2.4 minutes and everything was hunky dory. Then the nurse chatted cheerfully with Seung Yi, turned up the heat so she'd be happy, did a well-baby check just cause I asked (SY is very healthy and is now over 12 pounds!), measured her on the paper rather than trying to straighten her out so she could tape measure over her back, and then let me soothe her in between shots. Seung Yi was maaaad about the shots but calmed down pretty quick. Then, afterwards, the nurse let us go to a lounge with a recliner chair so I could feed the baby. Wow.

And the verdict on the poop slow down was don't worry, but feel free to use a glycerine suppository. Hmm! Well, we tried it, and it worked. But later I was talking to Mum on the phone and she told me that her friend's friend had a baby that didn't poop for TWENTY SEVEN DAYS! Three trips to Sick Kids', and they just kept saying, don't worry. Baby still peeing? Still happy? Tummy looking ok? No fever? Don't worry! Can you imagine? And dig this: they didn't even get the record. Apparently another kid had gone thirty two days.

Dear Lord.

[Seung Yi-18-November-2006]