Pukefest 2010

Something momentous happened yesterday: my son, for the first time in his life, went more than 5 hours without throwing up. That's right, I got several hours in a row of vomit-free interaction with MLO. You may be wondering what the big deal is, or you may be wondering how he made it 6 months as such an apparently prolific puker. Let me explain.

Vomiting has marked MLO, and all of us that love him, since the day he was born. His first upchuck, only hours after birth, prompted a quick detour as all of us were shuttled from the labor and delivery floor to the mother and baby floor. In the time it took the nurses to clean up his bassinet they noticed that he was breathing laboriously. Subsequent examination resulted in his being admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with pneumonia. There, MLO spent the first 7 days of his life hooked up to monitors and IVs. It was the worst 7 days I've ever spent.

While in the NICU I had limited contact with him, as I was severely anemic and instructed to get as much sleep and general rest as possible. I was discharged after my second night in the hospital, so I needed to balance naps for me with feeding and bonding time with my newborn 20 minutes away. As our interaction was limited, I had no real concept of the pandemonious pukage I was about to experience. When we finally got MLO home and we started to get better at nursing, I realized that this kid just couldn't keep food down. I worried at first about how he was going to survive with all the vomit he tossed so unceremoniously on me. All of his check ups showed that he was growing at just the right rate, and though he was small, he was developing normally.

Let me tell you friends, that I would not rather be covered in anyone else's regurgitated food than MLO's. And while that may sound honorable of me, the sticky, smelly, stained reality is that if anyone else threw up on me with that shear volume and consistency they would no longer be living in my house. They may no longer be living at all. I couldn't feed MLO in bed because I would end up sitting in a puddle of puke. I didn't bother to shower until the end of the day because, inevitably, I would have hurl in my hair, puke on my clothes and vomit in my cleavage. Multiple times a day. Every day. I changed clothes three or more times a day and I still stank of regurgitated breastmilk.

Yes, regurgitated breastmilk stinks. The intensity of aroma depends on how long the milk has been exposed to the digestive enzymes of the stomach; in some cases the smell is only slightly offensive, in other cases the stench is akin to really really bad blue cheese. MLO has actually induced gagging in his loved ones by spitting up on them. Not only is the smell bad, but the clumpy, slimy consistency is not unlike a thicker version of cottage cheese. Imagine that dropping a few feet into your toes or imagine trying to fish it out of your hair. I loved snuggling him under my chin, even though that meant the eventual puddle of puke between my boobs. Ick.

So ok, the puke is gross, but the volume of puke was amazing. This child could eject enough vomit to create a puddle (with splatter) of a couple of feet in diameter. He could throw up, then throw up again, then do it again within 60 seconds. The worst though, was when he would 'gurge and I would just finish cleaning up the puddle when he would 'gurge again. Hard surfaces provided the optimal clean up area. Unfortunately I chose to nurse on our couch (much more comfortable than a wooden chair downstairs on a wooden floor). One simply can't clean up that much vomit from fabric: it soaks in too quickly. Hubby made the mistake of putting his nose down close to the seat cushion once and came up gagging. Yup, our couch smells like old, funky milk.

It doesn't help that this is my breastmilk. I try not to think about how many of our friends have had the misfortune of coming into contact with my breastmilk second hand.  The dogs, on the other hand, love coming into contact with it. That's right, the dogs will seek out and lap up any bit of regurgitated breastmilk, my breastmilk, they can find. I can't tell you how that sickens me. My dogs, licking up my breastmilk, that used to be in my sons stomach. Disgusting.

Well, if this post hasn't made you want to go out and puke then you're made for this whole parenthood thing. Don't worry, if you've tossed some chunks during the course of reading this take comfort in the knowledge that I probably would have, too, before it was me writing it. Motherhood makes you tough. Thankfully, with each passing day the puke lessens: yay for growing baby and yay for solid food. The unfortunate thing about solid food is what subsequently comes out the other end. I will leave that equally lovely topic for another post.