FPIES and the Octopus Mom

I recently learned something fascinating about the female octopus. 

The female octopus reproduces once in her lifetime. From the time she lays her eggs her only purpose in life is to care for her young. She stops eating, she stops going outside, so she can care for her babies. She cleans her eggs constantly and protects them harm, she exists solely for them. Mama Octopus becomes increasingly exhausted and immaciated and just as her eggs are ready to hatch she uses her last remaining energy to blow them through her siphon and sets them free into the ocean. 

This resonated deeply with me. It hit me as a mom and again as the mom of a chronically ill child. 

While our future isnt quite as finite as the octopods there are plenty of ways that we can relate. 

Life with FPIES is all comsuming. Every meal is made from scratch using only baby's safe foods. Eating enough calories to sustain mom and a baby or two is a full time job when you only have 6 safe foods. 

As a result, my body uses fat stores, pulling from me what it needs to sustain my child as it shrinks away.

Every night is filled with reflux and restless sleep, gas pains and cries. The sleep deficit grows until I begin to lose mental faculties. I don't need simple math skills anyways... right?!?

Immaciated. Exhausted.

The octomom cares for her eggs, gives her whole self to keep them safe, on constant watch for danger or threats. 

The FPIES mom is ever vigilant, eyes always moving, hunting, searching for a stray piece of rice on constant alert to grab an abandoned sippy cup or wayward crumb.

I feel like I really get the Octopus Mom and like she might just get me too. She spends so much time selflessly giving to keep her children alive that by the time she sets them free there is nothing left of her previous self. 

This is where the octomom and I part ways and our paths diverge. While the octopus must die after jettisoning her young into their future I am choosing to live. To evolve. I am choosing metamorphosis. 

This is my mantra as I focus on the future. The now is hard, the now is real, but the now isn't forever. One day this will all be behind us. 

The food trials, the sleepless nights, the uncertainty will be gone and I will emerge on the other side. I will swim up to shore and rise up from the FPIES ocean, no longer an Octopus Mom, I will be simply, Mom.

I can't wait!! 

#octopus #Octomom #Fpies #Fpieswarrior #Momlife