Perilously hanging on the edge of insanity, crying about it seemed like the best solution at the moment. True, the hormones of pregnancy were not helping, but I was at the end of my rope and I was finally ready to give up.
I do not give up easily.
"Princess, do you want to wear diapers or underwear?" I winced as I said it, bracing myself for her answer. I was careful to use a neutral tone so as not to influence her choice. But honestly? I secretly hoped she would say diapers - permission from the perpetrator herself to give up. For now. Maybe we'd take a break for a week. Maybe a couple of months. All I knew was that I was beyond the point of exhaustion.
Nobody could have warned me that a relapse would be this hard. Each day we seemed to digress even more, with no promise of improvement. No light at the end of the tunnel. My lower back complained each time I got down on my hands and knees to clean up yet another "accident." I was becoming less and less willing to leave the house, even for the shortest errand. It just wasn't worth it. Yet, I had to remain cheerful, encouraging, matter-of-fact. The last thing we needed was for shame or embarrassment to enter into the very sensitive potty training puzzle. Fake it long enough, and you just eventually crack.
"Underwear!" She did not even hesitate to think about her response.
"Okay." One upbeat pep talk later, and I was feeling as drained as ever. Would someone please give me a pep talk? Anyone.
I was feverishly driven to discover the cause of the regression. All the while, I told myself that knowing "why" wouldn't fix anything. If anything, it might frustrate me more. (After all, everyone kept on telling me that these sorts of relapses in potty training are extremely common.) I could tell you exactly when the troubles started, and Princess's behavior patterns since then, up to her every move. I was a serious student of my child, with a goal in mind. Still, nothing made sense. Nothing improved.
When my husband and I went on our scouting trip to New Mexico, Princess spent the weekend with her grandmother, who had quite honestly done a flawless job caring for her in our absence. But it was immediately upon our return home that things went downhill quickly. She peed on the floor like it was going out of style. She'd have two "accidents" as close together as 20 minutes. She could scarcely go more than an hour without having to go. Sometimes she said she needed to go, and she would just sit there and produce us with nothing. Such games! It seemed like she literally forgot how to control her bladder as if she had been wearing diapers all over again. Only this time, when she had an accident, she would not stop mid-stream like she used to do. She'd just let it all fly! This same girl, a few days prior to this, would often report to us when she had to go, especially when we were away from the house. And she always went. I would have called her potty trained, not potty training.
I scratched my head when I wanted to beat it against the wall, I prayed when I wanted to scream, and I shut my mouth when I wanted to lecture. I also kept obsessing about WHY things were going this way. Again, everyone told me that these relapses just happen to many children and we just had to keep working at it. They're right. But that still didn't answer that burning question. Why why WHY!? At the risk of hurting feelings by sounding interrogating, I finally asked grandmother some very specific questions about the weekend. There was nothing out of the ordinary to report.
But grandmother had a good idea.
We just got back from the doctor this morning, and I am almost ashamed to admit that I am RELIEVED that my daughter has a mild bladder infection. Did you know the young, pregnant and elderly often get bladder infections without so much as a fever?! I did not. The doctor is still ordering a culture, but she was confident enough in the diagnosis to get Princess started on some antibiotics. She did a quick test strip in the office which gave us a "maybe," and she also said she could see a tiny bit of redness and detect a slight odor as well (TMI - sorryi). But mostly it was Princess's potty training story that had this doctor pretty convinced of the presence of an infection. The other things just lined up.
Princess absolutely refused to step onto the scale so we had to use the little baby scale to weigh her, but she thought it was kind of fun to pee in a cup. Just for the record. :-)
Moral of the story for this momma:
1. Don't be so paranoid when it comes to hurting people's feelings. If I wasn't such a coward in this regard, we may have been able to figure this out a couple weeks (!!!) sooner.
2. Do not ignore your gut feeling that there is something more to discover when you're obsessed with finding out the cause of the problem. Chase that "why" within an inch of its life. In this case, finding out the cause rather than just accepting it was the only solution.
P.S. Thanks to the grandma with the good idea. We are ALL on the road to recovery. :-)
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