When you hear hoof beats...

When you hear hoof beats, look for horses. When you've shot down all the horses and still hear hoof beats, start looking for the zebras.

We are officially in the realm of zebras.

Let's see....We are still waiting on RAST results (our pediatrician let us know today that the test goes to a lab in California and usually takes 2 weeks). I spoke to a very experienced (graduated med school in '53) pediatric immunologist and he said he didn't think the blood in my milk was causing any problems and said we should look for eosinophils in her stool. So, Josh repeated that experiment, using his blood as a control. Still no eosinophils (which should be there with an allergy). All this time I've been weighing her once a week. I normally weigh her on Mondays, but I cheated I put her on the scale last Friday. She's lost weight (2.5oz in the last week). That is definitely not normal. So, we called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for this morning.

Over the weekend, I did a 24 hour pre- and post-feed weight. That means I weighed her before and after every nursing and the difference tells me approximately how much milk she got. Average total daily intake for a breastfed baby at this age is 25oz and she took 27.5oz. So, she's getting enough. I emailed the milk bank and got the numbers from when they analyzed my donated milk--calorie and protein content were normal.

At the doctor this morning, he wasn't thrilled that she has slowed on her growth (averaged 2oz gain per week over last 3 weeks...3-5oz is normal), so she will be going back in two weeks to check on that. There is no more blood in her stool, which is good, but makes me think this isn't a food thing since I have not been avoiding things recently. Due to my family history of CF, he is ordering a cystic fibrosis test for her. We will go to Texas Children's Hospital for that and have a sweat test done.