Soy made me suspicious of words.

Not foods.

Words.

I would see an ingredient I had never heard of and immediately wonder whether it was secretly soy wearing a fake mustache. Then I would Google it. This was usually a mistake. One website would say the ingredient can be made from soy. Another would say corn. Another would list five possible sources. Now I had learned a lot and understood nothing. There was a period when I was making my diet smaller based on what ingredients could theoretically be instead of what I actually knew they were.

That was exhausting.

Eventually I decided I needed evidence before I accused an ingredient of being soy. If the company tells me it is soy, great. I have an answer. If the source is not identified and I need to know, I ask. If nobody can tell me, then I decide whether I am comfortable with the uncertainty.

But I stopped automatically turning “possibly” into “definitely.” That one change made food feel much less scary. Soybean oil was different for me because the source was right there in the name. And this is one place where my own baby changed how I think about things. I know different families make different decisions about highly refined oils. For me, if the ingredient explicitly says soybean oil, I want to know that when I am screening for soy. I am much more comfortable having too much information and deciding what to do with it than having someone decide on my behalf that the information is not important.

But that is my approach. It is not me telling another mom what her baby will react to. Because while I was trying to make sense of ingredients, I was also watching my baby for every tiny sign that she felt better. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I became a person who celebrated farts.

Actual baby farts.

Every time she let out a good one, I would feel genuinely relieved. Yes! Get it out! That is gas that is no longer trapped in your tiny stomach making you miserable. I never expected motherhood to include cheering for someone else’s bodily functions, but apparently this is where we are. There are parents who know exactly what I mean—the baby finally passes gas after squirming and straining and you react like they just accomplished something enormous.

Honestly, in that moment, it feels enormous.

If there is one thing I have learned from reading other families’ stories, it is that babies are wildly committed to being individuals. One baby reacts to something another baby tolerates perfectly. One family removes two foods and everything improves. Another family is six foods deep and still trying to figure out what is happening. Which is extremely inconvenient for those of us who would like a flowchart. I would love a flowchart. Instead, I have learned to be a little more boring about evidence. What does the ingredient list actually say? What did the company actually tell me? What happened with my own baby? Those questions are much more useful than “What terrifying possibility did I find on page four of Google at midnight?”

I still Google things at midnight, obviously. I have not achieved enlightenment. I am just better at closing the tab.

These days, I try to save my energy for the questions that actually have answers. If I know something matters for us, I check it. If I need clarification, I ask. If the internet starts offering me seventeen hypothetical ways an ingredient could have been manufactured in 2009, I try to leave.

Try.

I am still me.

But at least now I know that not every unfamiliar word deserves a midnight investigation. Sometimes I can close the browser, put the phone down, and go back to staring proudly at my baby because she farted.