Fright

Sophie is allergic to yogurt :(

She proved herself to be truly her father's daughter-- allergies and all-- when she gave me what was the fright of my life yesterday morning. As she closes in on her seventh month birthday, I thought it might be a good time to introduce her to yogurt. It has a nice amount of digestible protein and good fats that Sophie needs right now and many of my mommy friends started their babies on yogurt at around this time too. So we bought a half-dozen pack of the much-loved YoBaby organic plain yogurt by Stonyfield Farms and I added in my own pureed pears for Sophie's breakfast yesterday. Within 10 minutes of her first spoon, everywhere on her body that came into contact with the yogurt-- her entire face, neck, and hands (because she's fond of grabbing her food-stained bib and then rubbing her face with her hands...)-- broke out into hives! Blotchy, puffy hives :( I nearly passed out! I don't think I've ever been that panicked. Ever. It was terrifying...

So I called the doctor's office and while the nurse was asking me all these questions about Sophie's breathing and whether she was turning blue (what?? she'll turn blue?? why am I still on the phone with you??), all I wanted to do was whisk her to the clinic as soon as I could. In the end, they said to bring her in (was there even a question??) and I was out the door in under two minutes. If I hadn't looked at the mirror from the corner of my eye and realized how I was dressed, I would have walked out of the door in my PJs... Thankfully, by the time we got to the pediatrician's, the hives had subsided quite a bit. But there was still enough residual puffiness for the doctor to give her a dose of Benadryl and check her breathing and oxygen saturation. Everything looked fine and the doctor gave us the OK to go home for the day. We got a referral to an allergist so we can ascertain what it was specifically in the yogurt that caused the reaction- whether it was the cultures in the yogurt, the cow's milk, or some chemical in the processing.

Through this entire epic drama, Sophie was plain oblivious- she just sat in her play area, chewed on her teether and watched me go manic on the phone with the nurses, starred at me wide-eyed and curious when I bundled her up in a hurry to the doctor's, and while we were there, took time to smile and flirt with everyone who would give her the time of day... She probably had no clue what all the crazy fuss was about. And that was one of two things I was grateful for yesterday- that she wasn't in any pain or discomfort, and that her reaction was only superficial and didn't involve her respiratory system in any way. I wouldn't know what to do if she went into a full-on anaphylactic shock. Oh god, I can't even begin to imagine :(

So there, from now on, I'm going to go easy on this whole introducing new foods thing- we were back to good 'ol carrots and bananas today. Nothing exciting for Sophie for a while. I was going to start adding spices like cinnamon and cumin into her fruit and veggie purees this week, but I think until we see the allergist and determine her allergy profile, bland and simple's going to be the name of the game...