The first 2yrs- What it meant then and what it means now.

Tylyn was born March 7^th, 1994 after a pretty uneventful pregnancy and delivery other than a scare when they tried to induce me two days prior.  I had a reaction the medication they had used which has since been pulled from the market. She arrived at 7:45am with strawberry blonde hair. Tylyn was red, wrinkly and weighed 6lbs and 14oz even though she was two weeks late.

Now I’m not going to ramble about the euphoric feelings I had when I saw my child. As a new mother I was pretty clueless about responsibility and too naïve to be scared about what it really meant to be a parent. I was 20 years old and pretty ignorant.

Luckily for me Tylyn, or as I affectionately call her-Ty, was a great baby. She ate like a horse, gaining two pounds in the first two weeks of her life. At five weeks she was sleeping from ten until five without waking and rarely cried or fussed,  a dream baby for any parent.

As she grew older, she always seemed hungry. At two months she only weighed nine pounds. Her pediatrician advised me she was petite and still fell within the growth chart. We decided to supplement her diet with Similac™ as she was not thriving on my breast milk.

This is where it all began. Sure it seems clear to me now, but back then this one chain of events seemed to spiral out of control, leaving me lost and wanting answers.

Two subsequent feedings of Similac™  yielded the same results, passing of blood in her stool. Her pediatrician advised me she might have a milk allergy. We switched her formula to Isomil™.  Being soy based, Ty’s system seemed to process this better, but we still dealt with constant gas and throwing up. It became factual in our family not to handle her too much after a feeding as her breakfast/lunch/dinner might end up on the front of the person holding her.

Still underweight and hungry, we decided to introduce Tylyn to rice. She immediately broke out into hives on her back, arms and face. Later on ice cream would do the same. We would also learn to avoid creams, lotions, perfume or perfumed soaps.

Unhappy with my current pediatrician I took the advice of my summer Chemistry professor at the college I was attending and got a second opinion about Tylyn’s failure to thrive.

Dr. Scagnelli out of Binghamton, NY is a pediatric gastroenterologist, or for those of you without a medical background- a stomach and bowel doctor. Immediately he identified Tylyn with a milk/soy protein allergy. She was placed on Alimentum, a very nasty smelling expensive formula. I am eternally grateful for the WIC program that covered all the costs. It’s hefty price tag was $28 a can and only came in liquid form which would fill four bottles. I am also thankful to CVS pharmacy that was the only place in town other that had a regular supply.

She would continue her formula diet for the first two years of her life. She would hardly ever consume any baby foods and when she did it usually resulted in hives. She was short in stature and small. I rejoiced the day I could turn the car seat forward, by law in NY state one year or twenty pounds. Tylyn was a year when her car seat made the switch; she did not break 20 pounds until 15 months, two months after she was walking.    

 Above: Tylyn at 15 months

The early years were pretty uneventful aside from her very regular doctor’s appointments and medications for ear infections that landed her regularly in the ER because at that time there was no outpatient clinic on the weekend.

She would never cry, fail to sleep, get a fever or pull at her ear. Quite simply when she had an ear infection she got diarrhea. They claimed it was her diet but she only drank the formula. I wonder now if they were right despite the Ceclor making the ear infection and ultimately the loose stools disappear. The doctor’s treated her with the Ceclor instead of penicillin due to me and her father being allergic to penicillin. They thought as a precaution they shouldn’t introduce her to other potential allergens.

I’m not sure any of those precautions helped or would ultimately hide the trouble that would take 15 more years to discover.

Up Next: Years 2-10 The quieter ones