got milk?

I do.

And apparently I have too much.

Yesterday John noticed Harper's poo wasn't her normal color and consistency. We thought nothing of it and went about our day as normal. Last night, well around 3 am, as I was feeding her she seemed to be having a very hard time latching on and was extremely cranky and frustrated. Again, I just thought maybe she was tired (like me :) ) and having a hard time eating. She was screaming and her face was bright red as she was trying to eat. I could tell she was pissed and hungry and just couldn't seem to work it out. She ate a tiny bit, I swaddled her, calmed her down and we both went back to bed.

This morning as I was trying to feed her I noticed something was a little off. You see, babies love love love to be with their moms while they are eating. Harper even seems to dink around while eating just so she can stay with me longer. She smiles and falls asleep and takes her sweet time. This morning it was like she hated being there with me. She wouldn't stop screaming and was flailing her arms all over. She would latch on, eat for a minute then pull off, screaming. This happened every time I fed her today. To top it off she was cranky and irritable all day and wouldn't sleep and barely ate. -That makes for one unhappy Harper.

This evening while John was changing her diaper (in the middle of another screaming fit) he noticed her poo was extremely different in color and consistency. I googled it and instantly we found our answer:

Mom's who make too much milk can have babies that suffer from not getting enough "hindmilk"-The fatty portion of the milk. They get full before they get to the fatty part.

All of our symptoms matched me and Harper to a T. The irritability. The unhappiness while eating. The green poo. The choking and gasping for air while eating. Even the symptoms for me. It was so exciting to figure out what was wrong with our baby. We pulled out some of the milk we had froze, put it into a bottle and she guzzled it down instantly and quickly and has been sleeping ever since.

So I have to stop pumping for a couple days to slow my production and do something called "blockfeeding" which I don't understand enough about to explain. But I know the jist of it is to feed on 1 side several times before switching to the other. Things should be back to normal in a couple days.

Karen (John's mom) brought to my attention how incredible it is that Harper instinctively knew that milk wasn't good enough for her. How God made our bodies to signal us when something is wrong. As soon as she tasted the milk we had frozen, she drank it, cause it was good and had what she needed and she knew it.

I kinda wonder if there is actually any biological reason her poo is green when she doesn't get enough hindmilk. It wouldn't surprise me if it's only to warn us something is wrong.

Thank God for green shit.