Explosion

I took Averi in to be weighed at the pediatrician before we leave for vacation, just to make sure that she is at least still gaining weight.  I do not want to be on the other side of the country and realize that my new method of substituting formula is not working and I need to feed her more and I didn’t pack enough formula.  I sound confident, right?

So, she weighed in at 16 pounds 12 ounces.  That’s a gain of 6 ounces in the last 2 ½ weeks (keeping in mind that she had on a diaper and it’s a different scale) but that should at least keep GI off my back for a little while.

Averi was so excited about gaining weight that she gave us a present.  Dan went to pick her up as we were packing the car to leave for a Fourth of July party tonight and he smelled something nasty as she lifted her leg.  After further inspection he realized that she was sitting in a puddle of brown.

Now Averi has constipation problems so if she doesn’t poo for a couple of days we start giving her milk of magnesia to clear out her system.  The problem with this is that she usually goes several more days before getting it out and by then it has turned to liquid.  This being said, we have had messes before, but never to the extent of this EXPLOSION!

It was literally up to her nipples in the front and her shoulder blades in the back.  Dan ran her up to the bath tub and started rinsing off her chair.  Her clothes were so messy that we couldn’t get them off without getting poop all over her face.  Dan finally just ripped them off and threw them away.  While this was going on I was trying to hold down her poopy thumbs so that she wouldn’t put them in her mouth.

Once her clothes were off we began dumping water on her in hopes of getting enough brown off of her feeding tube to take out the extension and plug up her button without filling her stomach with poop.  Long story short (because it was very long, trust me) we finally gave her 3 different baths, threw away the tube extension and Mickey Button, and replaced the Button with a new one.

(I know it's a crappy picture...no pun intended...but considering the circumstances it was the best I could do before I had to hold her down again.)

Since Averi was screaming bloody murder during this entire experience, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that when I took out her Button her stomach contents literally shot into the air and got all over the carpet and her clean body.  This resulted in yet another mess and a rash that has now sprung up all over her tummy in reaction to the stomach acid.

Needless to say, we were more than 30 minutes late leaving for the party and Averi still didn’t smell clean.  Don’t worry, I’m sure it will happen again.