Caffeine and my headache solution

After complaining to Chris about my head for two straight days, he said, “Huh, maybe we should get the humidifier going in our room.” He’s had a dry, scratchy throat; I’ve had the pounding headache, what could it hurt? So he filled it up, plugged it in, and after a night of cool misty moisture my headache is gone.

Now on to caffeine. When I got pregnant I knew I wasn’t supposed to drink too much coffee, and I didn’t, really. I’d just have a grande Peppermint Mocha on my way into work three times a week. Come on, how else was I supposed to stay up all night? As my pregnancy wore on I read more and more articles that said they weren’t sure if caffeine really was OK for the fetus. When around 20 weeks I read a study that showed caffeine caused some infant boys to have undescended testicles, a birth defect that would need to be surgically corrected, I stopped drinking coffee all together.

Sure, I’d have a decaf latte here and there if I thought I needed it to stay awake, but most of the time I’d order hot chocolate, warm milk, Italian soda—I’ve run down the list of non-coffee menu items at most of CU’s coffee shops and it’s not long. I also became obsessed with smoothies. Same blended Frappuccino consistency, none of the caffeine.

After I had CJ one of my fabulous friends called to say she was coming over and she was bringing vanilla lattes. I was just a few weeks postpartum, I hadn’t had coffee in months, and the sleepless nights were killing me. To say I was drooling when she handed me my cup would be an understatement. Though she’d ordered decaf, the coffee was from Starbucks and I could feel the caffeine take effect almost immediately as I sipped the venti-sized brew. I started sweating, my pulse started racing, and I felt hungry, hungry enough to eat the entire contents of our fridge. Once I realized what was happening I stopped drinking my latte and switched to water, but the damage was already done.

I breastfed CJ as usual that evening and our routine was exactly the same as it had been every other night. We put him down in the Pack ’n Play in our room, then snuck out to catch an extra hour of TV before we turned in ourselves. Just as we were creeping back up the stairs to brush our teeth we heard him start to cry. Chris checked his diaper and he had a horrible liquidy poop accompanied by a suspicious-looking diaper rash. On top of that he was now crying inconsolably—not even Swaddle Champion Chris could calm him.

I thought about breastfeeding CJ but quickly realized the caffeine in my system was what was making him so upset. So Chris grabbed a bottle of formula and CJ sucked it down, as ravenous as I had been just hours earlier. We got him back to sleep, but then 45 minutes later he was up again, pooping and crying himself hoarse. That night CJ was awake every hour, always with a dirty diaper and always wanting to eat. The caffeine was doing the same thing to him as it did to me, only much, much worse.

After that night, I avoided caffeine like the plague. I bought caffeine-free coke, I became newly obsessed with smoothies, and both CJ and I were doing fine. Until I went back to work.

At first it was a decaf latte. There’s a Dunkin Donuts on my way to the hospital that has a 24-hour drive through and whenever I had the time in the morning I’d stop. Then I’d pump throughout the day and CJ would get the milk at the babysitter’s. When she didn’t report anything unusual after a few weeks I upped the ante and ordered a Mocha Blast. The Mocha Blast was a favorite of mine in college. Ice cream, coffee, and just the right amount of chocolate. Nothing like that to kick-start your day. Sigh. I love you, Mocha Blast.

I began making bolder coffee choices. On our way up to Chicago for CJ’s christening last month, we were in the drive thru at McDonald’s and I thought I’d try one of the drinks from their new McCafe line. I ordered my usual, an iced vanilla latte, and drank it slowly over the two-and-a-half hour drive. As we neared the city I could feel those familiar symptoms start to take hold—I was sweating, my heart was racing, I needed to get the caffeine out of my system NOW. We stopped for (what else?) a smoothie and I slurped it down, eager to get to dinner with my parents.

When we got to my parents’ house we brought CJ inside and he was his usual agreeable self, but then my mother gave him a kiss hello and he started wailing. It’s funny now, but at the time she was shocked. He’d always given her smiles and coos, and now he was air-horning it in her face. I tried to calm him down but the rest of the evening was a disaster. We went out to our favorite Chinese restaurant and CJ cried the WHOLE. ENTIRE. TIME. I’d never heard him cry so much, or seen him so upset. I felt terrible for everyone sitting around us—at the next table there was a big group and all they could talk about was how it was this girl’s first night out after she’d had her baby…none of them commented on my screaming child but I could feel their eyes on us the entire meal.

Since then, I’ve been off coffee. I still have the occasional decaf latte before work, but it’s only two days a week, and the decaf from Dunkin Donuts doesn’t seem to bother CJ. I am again a cardholder at the smoothie place in the mall, and while I’ve had a Peppermint Mocha this season it was decaf and it was only a tall.

It’s just, I miss the flavor of real coffee. I can taste the difference in decaf, mocha and all, and it just isn’t the same. I think in a lot of ways, coffee symbolizes comfort for me. Whether it’s chatting over lattes with a friend or waking up on those cold mornings of my childhood to the smell of Maxwell House brewing, coffee has always been a comforting presence in my life. I can’t wait to take my next first real sip.