Our EC Journey

One of the things I wanted to record was our decision to use Elimination Communication (EC) and our journey so far.

While I was pregnant I heard about EC on the radio - 101.5, the John Tesh Radio Show. Every night, all summer, I took Jezebelle to Clark Lake after work - I would listen to the John Tesh Radio show to and from the park. One night he talked about Elimination Communication - a way for your baby to be diaper free. I thought about what he said - if animals don't want to soil the nest, why wouldn't humans have the same instinct? What did people do before disposable diapers? Why are so many 2-4 year olds still in diapers? Can we do something different? He gave a website to discover more information.

A few days later I began my journey. I checked out the diaper free website, I joined a yahoo group in seattle that does diaper free. I bought a book called Diaper Free! I spoke to my doula about diaper free - she talked to her fellow doulas about it and discovered that the woman who wrote Diaper Free! was having a seminar in Seattle, so we signed up. The seminar was interesting and both Dave and I came away thinking the concept was something we might want to try, but we were both a little concerned that it would involve a lot of getting peed/poohed on.

When Fiona was born, we were overwhelmed with the adjustment. It took me a few weeks to even feel comfortable changing her clothes (putting on a onesie is NOT intuitive - it seems like you could just twist the baby's arms right off her trying to get one on and off...and how do you support a wobbly head while trying to get a shirt over it and pull it on while the baby is laying down?!). I couldn't imagine trying to hold Fiona over any sort of receptacle while encouraging her to eliminate. Luckily for us, Fiona was adept at waiting until we changed her to actually pee. So we had a lot of opportunities to notice her peeing and make the cueing sound. It was also a good way for us to not be frustrated that she was peeing everywhere, but in her diaper anyway. We felt like we were doing SOMETHING other than cleaning up pee (oh, yes, there were a few explosive poohs that missed her diaper, too, but we weren't quick enough to make cueing sounds during that...in fact, more often than not, we were cussing and jumping out of the way - so I suppose that could have evolved into a cue of sorts).

As the first few weeks went by, we started taking our cueing work more seriously and actually began holding her in a sitting position while she was on her back (basically propping her legs into a sitting position) and making the cueing sound. This went on until 7 weeks - she actually got pretty good at peeing "on command", but it was messy while she was laying down and her head control was getting better, so I decided to see what would happen if I held her over the sink to pee instead.

It's weird, but the first time I successfully peed Fiona was an EXCITING day. I wanted to tell the world that my daughter had peed in the sink when I asked her to - but that sounds weird, doesn't it?

Over the next three weeks, we kept trying to potty her, but our success rate was pretty low. In fact, we spent my 35th birthday at the McMenamin's hotel in Troutdale, OR and Fiona peed on the bed not once, but twice. Yikes!

Then came Super Bowl Sunday, the SeaHawks and the Steelers. We all watched the game, but as painful as it was to watch, it gave me the opportunity to attempt to potty Fiona on a sort of "schedule". Once I caught the first one, it seemed to just follow along, about every 30 minutes I would give her the chance to pee...and every time she was dry and every time, she peed. It was a heady feeling, finally being in tune with her after spending 3 weeks in such a hit and mostly miss fashion. By this time, we had abandoned the sink idea and were sitting her on her own little Baby Bjorn potty.

The following week, the success continued. She wasn't dry all the time, but more often than not, when we gave her the opportunity to pee, she did. Daddy was able to pee her and Auntie Gae was able to pee her, too. And if that wasn't exciting enough, we caught our first pooh!

Holy cow, the ecstacy of not having to clean the pooh off our daughter was like nothing we had experienced yet. People who do not EC think that the process would take more patience than they have, but these people need to experience catching a pooh just once. I don't think they'd ever go back.

Fiona is almost 15 weeks old now. Some days we are able to catch the first pee of the day and go on from there with a mostly dry day. Other days, our timing is totally off and we'll miss more than we catch. But every day we see success and we use so many less diapers a week, it's crazy.

She's even started letting us know that she has to go - but only when she's playing in her baby gym. She will get fussy and as soon as you pick her up, she'll quiet down, then she starts looking behind her, down the hall, monitoring your progess carefully to the potty place. When you lay her down to remove her pants, she give you a big smile and as soon as she's on the potty, she pees (she doesn't even wait for the cueing sound), then when she's done, she lets out this absolute squeal of delight. There's nothing so amazing as that.

Most of the rest of the time, we still EC by timing and maybe a little by intuition. We have given up on ECing at night. Often she will be dry for the first 5-7 hours of sleep, but if you try to EC her or even change her at night, oh the HOWLING. She takes after her dad and absolutely HATES to wake up, she'd rather just sleep in her wet diaper. And since it hasn't caused any sort of diaper rash or complications, so far we are content to let her sleep. We figure that as the EC journey continues she will reach a place where she will either tell us she has to go at night before she goes or she won't want to tolerate being wet if she has an "accident" or she'll just get better at holding it longer - we will let her control the journey. Clearly right now she is telling us to knock it off, so we are listening.

I am so grateful that I happened to hear about this and that we have been brave enough to try it. I am also grateful that Auntie Gae, after raising numerous Conner babies in cotton and then disposable diapers, was willing to give this a try. She is wonderful with Fiona (in many ways), but having the consistent EC experience no matter who she is with - I think it's just priceless.