In the categories of "I never thought I'd hear myself have a conversation like this" and "One day Merrill will hate me for telling this story"....

She. Will. Not. Poop.

Oh, she's trying to - but because my body decided it was time to stop producing breast milk and so I've had to give her formula, her little stomach is struggling in a way that is painful to watch. She strains, she cries, she gets red faced, she screams - and nothing comes out. I called the pediatrician's office to find out what I can do to help her out (and in turn, help me out because my God, my heart is breaking to watch her in pain and I can't handle it anymore), and so we are now adding dark karo syrup to her bottle twice a day. That did help - once. I'm currently waiting and hoping for it to work again....essentially, praying for poop. Yeah.

I broke down in tears watching her cry, wanting so badly to fix this for her and knowing I couldn't. The feeling that it's my fault overtakes me, because if it weren't for my lack of breast milk she wouldn't be on formula, but that's a whole OTHER set of issues that I can't even go into at this point, lest my head explode. It initially made me feel like I'm not cut out for this motherhood stuff - because if the sight of my baby being constipated makes me break down, how on earth will I ever be able to handle anything big and real that she has to overcome? It took a teary conversation with my friend Jessi, in which she helped me understand that the presence of my caring means I am cut out for this, to put things in perspective.

Oh, and this didn't hurt either.