Just a couple of pictures ...

Signs and Slings

It worked! Our causal commitment to teaching Lovey sign language has had a success. This morning it became clear that he has learned the sign for "milk," which we use to refer to nursing. He's been practicing it for awhile but not always with intent to nurse. Today, he put the 2 together! He's getting better at controlling his hands and is even starting to clap his hands, too! We've been showing him the signs for mommy, daddy, eat, bath, story, cat. I'm less consistent with signing diaper, ball, sleep, car, play. This is great motivation to keep going with this!

I'm excited to have received our new sling - a Solarveil Taylor Made ring sling - that I ordered especially for our upcoming family trip to Cuba. The fabric blocks UVA/UVB rays so it will be perfect for protecting little Monkey from the Caribbean sun. Sadly, the manufacturer of Solarveil no longer makes the fabric and everyone is selling out of baby carriers made with it, so I am lucky that I found this one. I bought it online from Pookababy in Toronto - ordered it on Sunday night and received it on Thursday. It was $70 with tax and shipping, but well worth it, I'm sure. And do I ever love ordering stuff online. Or maybe I just love the getting-packages-in-the-mail part! As for baby carriers, I've come to really enjoy them and wish I had been using them from the start. I got our first wrap at about 6 weeks after borrowing one from our midwife. My mom copied the wrap design and made me 2 out of some $20 fabric that I found. One of these wraps would have cost $60+. We've more recently started using an organic pouch sling that my generous co-workers gave us at a baby shower. We have used the Snugli front carrier although there is some evidence that over-using these types of carriers (dangling-by-the-crotch style) can be damaging to the baby's spinal development. And now with this new ring sling we have a nice little collection! Of course, I hear great things about the Ergo ... maybe we won the lottery last night!! LOL

You can find more information on baby-wearing here and here.

More ED Ramblings

Well, to continue on the main theme of this blog so far (and of my life, currently) the elimination diet has been going ok. I'd say great, but the diapers aren't totally perfect. We've seen no blood since Christmas day, so that is definitely something to celebrate. We still see occasional mucous. So what does that mean? Probably that 1 (or more) of my 18 foods is still bothering him or has started to bother him. Less likely suspects are teething, oversupply/overactive let-down, or the nasty cold he's been battling this week. If it's a food, I don't know how to narrow it down without taking out a bunch of foods again, and I don't think I'm up for that. We saw the pediatrician today and she was supportive and felt that great progress had been made. I really like her. She revealed that she had, in a way, gone to bat for us by having a "heated conversation" with the allergist about breastfeeding v.s. formula.. Baby is thriving, bottom line. He's up to 18 pounds and is meeting all milestones, most of them early. He's happy and bright and doing well (which makes it so hard for people to understand what we are going through, but we're grateful).

The results of my blood tests from last week showed that I have lower iron (18) and that I am dehydrated. I saw a dietician today who was sweet and concerned, and I'll give her credit for pointing me towards a very cool iron supplement called Spatone - 100% natural iron in water, so there is no chance of trace allergens. I have a new plan. I'm going to continue to introduce foods fairly quickly (every 4 days or so, 2 at a time) until I have enough to develop a decent rotation diet. I have run the risk of overexposing him to certain foods (namely chicken, rice, pear) that I have eaten ad nauseum for the past month and perhaps creating new sensitivities. Plus, I am so sick of chicken, rice and pear!

And that's where things stand right now. I promise that my next post won't have anything to do with the ED or any of our food issues. There are lots of other things to write about!

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

And so we continue along with the elimination diet ... it's all about the diapers - good diapers and bad diapers. The good diapers are celebrated and allow me to add new foods. The bad diapers are disappointing and maddening. And now that they don't come every day, they are greatly anticipated and encouraged ("Poop! Poop! Poop! Are you gonna poop today?!") We've had a few bad ones and I'm trying so hard not to let it get me down, but it's tough.

Avocado was a no go - total bummer since I needed the nutrients and the fat. I added 2 foods at a time next - carrots and almonds (high allergen, need the fat and nutrients though) - big mistake because a bad diaper after those ones left us unsure which was the culprit. Also gave him some homeopathic teething tablets which contained lactose - stupid, stupid, stupid! He isn't supposed to necessarily react to lactose as it is the milk protein that he is intolerant to, but further research revealed that some dairy-intolerant babies can't manage this specific tablet. So, after taking out the tablets and the carrot, and adding in Swiss chard, we're waiting for the next diaper to find out where we stand. And I'm feeling all of this pressure from certain people to feed him solids, and I know he wants them, but then to me it's a tradeoff between new foods for me and tastes of solids for him. That being said, we threw into the mix some tastes of some of our presumed "safe" foods - pear and of chicken and bone broth (supposed to be great for gut healing) for him, just to make things more hard to figure out should his diapers continue to be bad.

I'm getting more desperate and wanting to add more foods faster, selfishly, because, 1. well, I'm hungry and I miss lots of foods, 2. I'm concerned about my nutrition and health, and 3. we're going to Cuba in a month and I don't want to be miserable there. I had a bunch of blood taken yesterday when I went for my check-up so I will be interested to find out if they found any significant deficiencies (iron, B12, etc.). We are going back to the naturopath at the end of the month, and contemplating throwing down a few hundred bucks that we can't really spare on some testing for either the little guy or myself to identify our food sensitivities. Apparently he may be reacting to sensitivities that I have and am not aware of, or perhaps developed in pregnancy. I have ideas of why all of this could be happening to us, and I won't write that novel at this time, but still it's hard to understand - we're both so healthy otherwise and we don't have history of food allergies on either side of the family.

Well, it's Friday night and the boys are in bed. I am pretty wiped out, so I'm going to join them. By the way, no one is actually reading this blog yet since I haven't really told anyone I am writing. Might as well have a stash of entries already posted for people to read when/if they arrive! LOL

My Elimination Diet or How To Lose 70 Pounds in 7 Months

So here's the long, complicated story that I alluded to in my previous post, but I will try to keep it short. Those who know me are aware that we have been struggling with food sensitivity/allergy issues for some time now. Specifically, my son was showing signs of being sensitive to something that I was eating and passing through to him via breastmilk. We figured out dairy fairly early on, as once it was eliminated his mild excema and congestion disappeared. Things were fine for a good while but then we began to see occasional streaks of blood and mucous in his poops. As he was otherwise healthy, happy and thriving, the logical explanation was that there was something else that he was sensitive to in my diet. I tried taking out a few suspected allergens and adding some proactive, gut-healing supplements, but the problem continued. In fact, it seemed that the harder we tried to fix the problem, the worse it got. We saw an allergist who did skin tests, all negative. He said it was proctocolitis or allergic colitis (pretty much the same thing). He basically said that because the allergen could be virtually anything, an elimination diet would be too hard and could threaten my health, and that we should switch to hypoallergenic formula (so very totally NOT happening). So 3 weeks ago, I bit the bullet and put myself on a Total Elimination Diet, as per Dr. Sears. That meant that I was only eating chicken, turkey, rice, pear, and potato (which I switched out for asparagus early on). We hit "baseline" (no blood/mucous) a few days after Christmas, and have been steady ever since.

To add to the confusion, we had a pediatric gastroenterologist tell us that it was just dairy and soy, and that I could go ahead and eat all other foods. My own research and my instinct tells me that we need to be cautious in our approach and that I should add foods back in slowly in order to monitor potential reactions.

So far, the "safe" foods are:
rice
pear
chicken
turkey
asparagus
olive oil
banana
blueberry
cranberry
grape (via wine on New Year's)
avocado (testing as of today)

I think that some of my friends, and maybe family, don't really understand why I am doing this. How much easier it would be to put him on formula, right? Well, no, not really - since we would have to special order an ultraexpensive elemental formula that he may or may not even. Imagine if I lost my milk supply while we tried to feed him the formula, and he refused it - then where would we be? What would we feed him? Solids would not provide adequate nutrition for him at this point. Truly, I am a dedicated breastfeeding mom. Research shows that there are numerous benefits for both mother and child with extended breastfeeding. I won't go into that right now, but I will elaborate more in another post. Yes, I'm hungry, and I can't eat a huge variety of foods, so it's hard. Depressing and discouraging at times. But now that we've seen progress and our son's health is improving, it becomes clear that I'm doing the right thing for his health and for his future.

Happy New Year!

Best wishes, dear reader, for an exciting, happy and healthy new year! Our holidays were merry as we enjoyed 4 Christmas-type events, and our New Year's Eve was spent at my parents' home enjoying ourselves at the party that I convinced my mother to throw. Good times! This breastfeeding mother was even able to enjoy 1.5 glasses of a most delicious wine, the 2006 Chardonnay from Bonterra - a great find after a big search online to find an organic, vegan wine. I'm not actually vegan, I just needed vegan wine for a long, complicated reason which I will write about another time. I do want to highlight the fact that the customer service from Bonterra included a phone call to my cell phone from a company representative on New Year's Eve to confirm that it was indeed vegan. So that was pretty darn cool. The headache the next day, not so much, but what can you do when you're just not used to drinking very much anymore?!

When you reflect upon 2008, what stands out for you? The past few years have been defining for me in my adult (yikes!) life. In 2007 I became a homeowner, a landlord (landlady, I suppose), and a wife. In 2008 I began the journey of motherhood. I am not the same person I was in high school or in university. I am not the same person I was when I started my career. I am not even the same person I was in January of 2008. Heck, I'm not even the same person I was yesterday! And that would be mainly because of this little guy:



Isn't he outrageously cute? He has certainly changed my life in so many ways. His smile and his laugh have become the very reasons for my existence. My daily life is all about caring for him, tending to him, entertaining him. I have had to put aside many of the things that I thought were important or fulfilling to make room for that which truly IS important and fulfilling. Transitioning to this role has been a huge adjustment for me, but I surprise myself every day with how I'm growing into it. Perhaps not as gracefully as I would like, but it's happening. There is so much to look forward to, into 2009 and beyond!

I guess this is the best way to start off this blog. I was having trouble deciding what to write about (because there is so much to choose from!) but this is simple. I'll save the more complicated stuff for another day!