Ben's birth through year One

Moving along, Ben was extremely colicky and wasn't able to gain weight well at first, and after 2 months of non stop, head splitting, drive you insane screeching and screaming, an on call pediatrician advised me to "lay off the dairy" after I told her Ben wouldn't nurse for 8 hours straight and had screamed for the past 6 hours straight. This was my first clue that something wasn't right. I accepted this milk intolerance and removed all dairy, specifically casein - the protein found in dairy, from my diet. You must become a master of reading labels on everything because it will shock you at how many non dairy things have casein in it (like frozen waffles, breads, or frozen dinners). Ben's colic reduced by at least half and he met all his milestones on time. He smiled by 2 months, laughed, crawled, and even walked early.

Around 2 months old, I read Jenny McCarthy's book Louder than Words. I had already been a fan of her Belly Laughs, Baby Laughs, and Life Laughs books but I didn't want to read her book about her journey with Autism and her son while I was pregnant. Months after my colicky baby was born I went back to Borders and bought it. I was heartbroken for her and her son Evan and immediately went back online and ordered Mother Warriors. A day or two later I finished both books and called my pediatricians office with concern and anger over this whole vaccine issue. Our pediatrician told the nurse to tell me to read Autism's False Prophets and I immediately ordered the book and read it. It was disturbing, informative and very persuasive. I had a choice to make because there were two very different point of views on the issue of vaccines. One side claimed they can damage kids, the other side argued that they are safe and save lives. I put my faith in the book written by a doctor, not a celebrity. I decided to basically disregard everything I had learned from Jenny's books and all of the experiences those mothers had gone through. I told myself to believe that those women just needed something to blame for their kid being sick.

Because of my indecision to vaccinate while reading these two books, Ben missed the time window for the Rota Virus vaccine, which is given orally and only administered at a certain time. If you miss the first deadline you can't get the vaccination against Rota for your child, even though they give it two more times. It's given at something like 3 months, 6 months and 9 months. I would forever be in fear of Ben coming down with this life threatening vomiting and diarrhea stomach virus. Other than this vaccine he received every other vaccine, only never more than 2 at a time during his first year, and never when he was sick.

By 6 months of age we started integrating baby jar foods into his diet. This is when the spitting up, or throwing up started. I think spit up should be defined as enough to fill a teaspoon, and dribbles down the chin. If your baby projects liquid or food across the room, or could fill a coffee cup or makes a puddle across your floor, this has moved beyond spit up into the definition of vomit or throw up. My dear hubby thought I was "overfeeding him" or "feeding him too much or too fast" so I gave smaller bites, over a longer period of time. Ben still threw up once in a while though and I couldn't pin point it to any specific food. Sometimes he'd throw up the apples, other times the bananas and oatmeal.

At 1 year of age I was concerned about his speech. He still couldn't say momma, dadda or anything specific. We then moved from North Carolina to Florida shortly after his first birthday and that's when the throwing up really started to get worse. My wonderful hubby thought that the cheerios that fell on the floor that Ben would eat off the carpet was making him sick, or that it was something about the apartment (I dismissed this latter argument, but after lots of reading and research and looking back at the situation, I think of the paint fumes and cleaners in the carpets, the chemicals the new carpet off gas, and admit maybe my smart husband was onto something). Ben could point, clap, play with toys appropriately and mostly slept through the night and napped well, although a few times we had to redo the "cry it out method" because at 2 in the morning, when your baby / toddler won't cuddle and sleep in mom and dad's bed, and neither wants to play, eat or sleep in the swing (yes we continued to try and use the swing when he wouldn't nap or fall asleep) Ben had to cry himself to sleep in his bed.