4.27.17

 

Testing, testing.  Our last functioning laptop bit the dust the other day, so I took a giant leap(for me) and bought a mobile blogging app.  With 11 days to go until my stitches come out, I'm feeling a little manic energy around tying up all the loose ends before my hands are full of baby.  I've cleaned every closet in the house, washed the car seat, detailed the inside of my van(with help from my more-flexible-than-a-pregnant-body 12 year-old), ordered all the things from Amazon, and now I'm just trying to be patient. 

While I have no idea what it's like to watch a due date come and go, I imagine that waiting to go into labor is different for women who make it to term.  When my water broke with Lochlan at only 33 weeks, my first response was dread.  Now that I'm approaching 35 weeks I feel markedly less anxious, and while I feel super uncomfortable I'm content to wait and feel grateful for every day that this baby stays inside.  I'm excited to be done being pregnant and have room to breathe again, and I actively fantasize about guzzling ALL THE WATER right before bed with reckless abandon because I won't wake up to pee every hour, but having a history of preterm birth takes a lot of the pressure off of waiting.  I'll get to meet this baby soon enough, but hopefully not too soon. 

Lady in Waiting

So I'm pretty much the worst blogger in the world.  My favorite blogs to read are the ones that are frequently updated, and yet my own blog sits fallow, gathering dust. 

First and foremost, I'm sitting here seven months pregnant.  So much for using my blog to document important life events, but things are busy.  We are still homeschooling, the big boys are both in Scouts plus Matteas is doing baseball, and Lochlan is a total wild man.  Wilder than the other two boys were, and he and baby #4 are closer together than Jack and Matteas were.  Also, pregnant at 33 is not as easy as pregnant at 21 was.  Shocking, but true.

I debated about whether or not I was going to share this detail of my pregnancy, but I was talking to my sister Briana and she was all "You have to, for posterity!" I try to write the blog I'd like to read,  so in the event that my experience could possibly benefit someone else and/or in the name of writing at the level of sharing I like to read, let me tell you a little bit about my cervix.  In case you want to know.

Mine is over-eager, which is why I all my babies come early.  Technically, what I have is called an "incompetent cervix," or "cervical insufficiency."  We found out about it halfway through my pregnancy with Lochlan, but at that point the risks posed by surgical intervention are about the same as non-surgical options, so I chose the non-surgical route and ended up having a baby at 33 weeks.  Obviously he turned out fine, but we're really hoping to avoid the NICU and maybe even have a homebirth this time around.  At 14 weeks pregnant, I had a minor surgical procedure called a cerclage, during which my OB(same fabulous doctor who delivered Lochlan) stitched my cervix closed.  This does two things: 1) ideally, keeps my cervix from dilating prematurely and 2) will immediately alert me to any attempt at dilation because word on the street is that when your cervix had been trussed shut with surgical zip-ties, dilating is a painful and gory affair.  Something to look forward to!  Hopefully not.  The stitches come out on one of two occasions, the first being emergency removal if my body finds a way to go into labor early.  That's the sub-optimal option.  The second option, the one we're hoping for, is scheduled removal at 36 weeks, at which point my cervix is free to dilate away and I can deliver wherever I want.  We're getting close, but I'm also getting really nervous. 

I'm 32 weeks and four days today, and my water broke with Lochlan at exactly 33 weeks.  Premature labor tends to occur earlier and earlier, so the fact that I haven't gone into labor by now is really encouraging.  However, my Braxton Hicks decided to really step up their game today, and while I'm not having any bleeding or pain I'd identify as coming from my cervix, I'd just as soon prefer that my uterus calm down.  I've been taking it easy today and drinking lots of water, and ignoring the deteriorating condition of the house.  I've done most of my nesting already, so it's not too hard to just sit as much as I can.  Aaron came home and took Lochlan to Matteas' baseball game and is picking up takeout for dinner, and my plan is to lie in bed, read all the beautiful books I've been amassing, and order stuff for Easter on Amazon. 

Laryngo-whatnow?

After his fourth and final clipping, Dr. O'Hara referred us to an infant feeding specialist at Children's.  Although Lochlan's latch has improved dramatically, he still chokes every time he nurses and gets a belly full of air.

"Does he always breathe that fast?" asked the pretty, thoughtful therapist.

"Is he breathing fast?" I asked.

"Yes.  A normal breathing rate for a baby his age is 30-40 breaths per minute; he's doing about 60."

"Oh," I said, "then yes.  This is how he always breathes."

She held her tiny stethoscope to his throat as he nursed, or rather struggled to nurse, and listened to his swallowing.  She asked a lot of other thoughtful questions, each one pertaining to some quirk of his that I hadn't even told her about.  Then she told me that Lochlan has laryngomalacia, which literally means "floppy larynx." The short of it is that his airway collapses a lot, and that while eating he often has to choose between swallowing or breathing. This is good news and bad news.  The good news is: it is non life-threatening; it resolves with time; he will eventually be able to transition from bottles to breastfeeding.  The bad news is: it lasts until four months corrected age at least, possibly longer; it causes frequent choking during eating; it can cause severe reflux; it may take several months to resolve.

In a lot of ways, the diagnosis was a relief.  It explains why it takes him SO LONG to finish a bottle, and why he still struggles with breastfeeding.  Combined with his very sensitive gag reflex(a vestige of his tongue tie), the therapist said it's a miracle that he's not underweight, as most babies with his degree of issues are.  Sometimes when I know he's hungry, he'll gag on his bottle but cry when I remove it.  When that happens, I have to calm him down and then offer the bottle again by just barely tickling his lower lip with the very tip of the bottle nipple; it has to be his idea to pull the nipple into his mouth, or the gagging and crying starts all over again.  He's outgrown his stridor, but he still sometimes looks and sounds like he's drowning while eating, waving his arms and breathing more and more frantically.  It can look like hunger, but now we know he's struggling to breathe.  Previously, we were using Dr. Brown's bottles with a preemie nipple, but the therapist gave me some ultra-preemie nipples which are slower flow and he does better with those, as he can take in less milk per suck and give himself more time to breathe in between.  He also burns a lot of calories just to breathe and especially to eat, which explains why he's not obese despite taking in almost twice as many calories per day as most babies his age.  The therapist told me to imagine I'd just run at a very fast sprint, then had to drink from a garden hose that was on full-blast while tucking my chin into my chest.  That's what breastfeeding feels like to Lochlan.

I'm a little bit upset that this wasn't diagnosed sooner, especially since he's had the stridor since birth and he was looked at by so many doctors, nurses and lactation consultants during our NICU stay.  Stridor is the number one symptom, but he's got almost every single one on the checklist to go with it.  I mentioned his reflux to his doctors and nurses in the NICU, but they all told me that it was likely from his feeding tube.  The only real difference having a diagnosis would have made was that I would have had a better idea of what our long-term trajectory would be from the start, rather than waiting for resolution to be just around the corner.  Lochlan's infancy and all the issues that have come along with it have only strengthened my desire to be a doula in the future, particularly because I know how much energy it takes to advocate for yourself when you're navigating life with a newborn baby and a postpartum brain.  Also, one million points for mother's intuition.  Two different doctors clipped Lochlan's tongue, one in the NICU and one doctor I called on a recommendation, and they both declared he didn't need any further revision.  When his latch was still painful and not improving, I took him to a third doctor and she said his tongue was fine.  She recommended that I breastfeed him 4-5 times a day.  The feeding specialist at Children's told me to breastfeed him no more than twice a day, otherwise he'll burn too many calories.  If something doesn't feel right to you about your baby, seek a second opinion.  And a third and a fourth, if necessary.

So we keep pumping and waiting.  I'm glad to know what's wrong, and to know that he is thriving despite pretty substantial difficulties.  I'm also deeply reassured in terms of gauging my own experience; I still don't feel anywhere near recovered, and it turns out that nobody in my position would be.  His sleeping patterns are still wildly unpredictable, and if he has a choking episode in the night it gets adrenaline going in both of us which makes it hard to go back to sleep in a timely fashion.  It can sometimes take over an hour for me to give him a bottle, settle him back to sleep and then pump a bottle for the next feeding.  Some nights he'll wake up to eat at two a.m. and not go back to sleep until six.  Aaron has started staying home "late" two mornings a week so that he can take the 5-8 a.m. shift and I can get a reliable block of sleep.  The therapist asked me how I was surviving with such a high-needs baby on so little sleep, and I told her that I don't do anything else.  I basically have zero social life right now, and focus on

1. Feeding Lochlan
2. Not going crazy

That's not meant to be a complaint, as I mostly lack the capacity for a social life.  It feels stressful to have anyone over during the day, as I don't feel free to go back to bed with Lochlan when he goes down for his big nap and I often need all the sleep I can get.  Going over to a friend's house is stressful because I have to pack up my pump and all my supplies, and if I forget any vital pieces(like I did when we went to my in-laws for dinner) we have to go home.  Going anywhere at night is out of the question because I'm usually so tired I can't drive safely, plus Lochlan still has his moderate-to-deep unhappiness periods from 6-9 each evening.  And then the constant pumping.  I have to pump every three hours to produce enough food for Lochlan and keep my supply from diminishing, which poses obvious logistical difficulties.  If I'm out in public, the options are to go back to my car or stand in a bathroom stall and pump manually.  Lochlan also likes(demands) to be held every second that he's not sleeping, so if we're not home I have to either enlist someone else to hold my cranky baby or let him cry until I'm done, both of which feel stressful.  He's also happy about 10% of the time, and when he's not sleeping or eating he requires constant pacing and back-patting.  He prefers that I not sit down pretty much ever, so I'm being very, very gentle with myself and cocooning at home.  We are nowhere near back to normal and won't be for a long time, so I'm giving myself permission not to do anything that isn't absolutely essential.  Laryngomalacia, in addition to its other charming characteristics, puts Lochlan at an increased risk for complications like croup if he gets a cold, so I'm even less inclined to venture out in public or hang out with anyone else who has petri dishes germ factories kids.

Despite all that, I am madly in love with this baby.  His difficulties and challenges have made me even more present to his peaceful moments, which are few and far between but getting more frequent with age.  He has started to coo and sing me love songs which reduce my heart to total mush, and I know from experience that he will outgrow everything that's hard right now.  It's just a season.

Waiting for Normal

Lochlan is ten weeks old today!  I realized the other day that, as the third child, he is getting totally shortchanged on the blog.  I know I won't remember things as well as I think I will because postpartum sleep deprivation seems to color all my memories in a haze of fog, so I'm resolved to power through even though I've only had one cup of coffee today.

Nursing is still a work in progress.  He had his fourth tongue clipping on Monday and had it stretched on Thursday, so he has been extra-clingy but no one can blame him.  On his best day, he is not exactly what I would describe as "content," and no one has used the term "easy-going" about him.  Still, we are all pretty in love with him, especially Jack.  Lately we've discovered that Lochlan has special place in his heart for Jack, and he can usually calm him even when he's especially fussy.  He also has an uncanny knack for getting Lochlan to burp, which is difficult even for us veteran baby burpers.  We call it the "Jackie magic," and Jack is quite pleased with his new-found indispensability.
Lochlan loves the shower, but hates baths.  Not a fan of his car seat AT ALL, strongly objects to lying on his tummy after eating, and has a complicated relationship with his binky.  He weighs almost 11 pounds, and pees and poops constantly, especially when not wearing a diaper.  He loves to look at lights of any kind, though he clearly prefers white twinkle lights to colored(he's his mama's son).  He's on the verge of being able to "talk;" I can tell from the intensity of the faces he makes while he's staring intently at me, and his breathing gets really fast and he purses his lips and sticks out his tongue.  His eyes are very, very blue.

He is a pretty decent sleeper, considering.  He generally goes down for the night between 10 and 11, and wakes up every three hours until 6 or 7, when he gets fidgety and doesn't want to go back to sleep after eating.  That's when he gets to go hang out with Jack for an hour or two while I get a little more sleep, a discovery which has been fairly life-changing.  Mornings used to be pretty crazy since Aaron leaves for work around 5:30.  Lochlan is usually ready to get up for the day around 7:30, so I give him his bottle and then would put him on the bed next to me while I pumped, with varying degrees of success/crabiness.  Now, I feed him and then take him to Jack(who has been awake for some time already) and he watches cartoons while pacing around with Lochlan.  I make my coffee and take it back to bed with me, where I pump and cruise facebook in relative comfort and peace.  It is a luxury, and I bask in it because luxuries of any kind are few and far between these days.  The other night I was praying with the boys before bed, and I thanked God for each of my boys.  When I said "Thank you God for Lochlan," Jack added "even when he's cranky."  Indeed.

All things considered, I think we're all doing remarkably well.  Aaron and I are way better at having babies together than we used to be, and are enjoying Lochlan as much as we can for two people who can barely see straight by 8 p.m.  My physical recovery from this birth was fairly rapid(pre-pregnancy jeans, baby!), and postpartum hormones have been a little gentler with the aid of progesterone.  Incidentally, I think taking progesterone immediately after birth is also protecting my milk supply.  By the time Jack was this age, pumping wasn't enough to keep my hormones at bay and my cycle came back.  My supply tanked, and actually completely disappeared for one awful night.  I pumped and pumped and Jack cried and cried, but I didn't produce so much as a drop of milk.  I sent Aaron to the store for formula, but Jack refused to drink it.  He eventually passed out, and was too tired to wake up all night.  Early the next morning, I pumped and got 9 glorious ounces.  I was able to keep my supply going for another three months, but had to start supplementing with formula after that.

Lochlan is almost three months old, with no sign yet of returning fertility.  I'm sure I would have gotten my cycle back by now if it wasn't for progesterone, and even though protecting my milk supply wasn't the intended purpose of it I'm super grateful for that side benefit.  If nursing doesn't work out for Lochlan, I'm not sure how long I'll keep pumping.  I love that he's getting all the immune and digestive benefits of my breastmilk, but my goodness it's rough at night.  It takes so much more time and effort than just lying in bed and nursing.  Since he's my third baby, I'm less of a purist about how much formula he gets and when.  I can tell you from experience that knowing your baby isn't getting enough to eat is way worse than knowing your baby has a belly full of formula.  Still, we're going to try as long as we can.  He does actually nurse, but still gets so much air that he has a tummy ache for hours afterwards.  His latch improved dramatically after his last clipping, and I'm hoping that as he matures he will learn how to nurse more effectively.  Even if he never nurses, he likely would have had other difficulties as a result of his tongue such as speech issues, teeth crowding and excess cavities.  I'm ready to be done though.  We've been home for seven weeks, and Lochlan has had at least one doctor appointment a week and most weeks two.  I just want to stay home and snuggle my baby.  I feel like we never really got a "babymoon," because we were in the hospital for the first three weeks and after that Aaron had to go back to work mostly full-time.  I know bringing a new baby into the world is always a little difficult, but we've had more than the usual set of challenges and adjustments with Lochlan.  I'm so looking forward to "normal," like being able to go somewhere without having to be back in three hours to pump, or lugging all my pumping equipment with me.  We'll get there, eventually.

When Breast isn't Best

...or, "Why we're never leaving the house again."  Lochlan will be seven weeks old tomorrow, but technically he should've been born yesterday.  All the nurses in the hospital said that eating is usually the last hurdle for preemies, and while it was Lochlan's only hurdle we are still in the thick of navigating challenges.  Within a few hours of his birth, one of the nurses noticed that Lochlan was tongue-tied.  When he was about a week old, one of the neonatal doctors clipped his tie and we tried breastfeeding again.  He was able to take a whole ounce(which, at his current size, was a full feeding), but it was excruciatingly painful for me.  We'd given Lochlan a few bottles of my expressed milk, but he seemed to be actively offended by bottles so we mostly stuck to tube feeding and nursing.

Evergreen is a very pro-breastfeeding hospital, which I love.  To a point.  One of his nurses was so adamant about protecting Lochlan's breastfeeding instincts that he went so far as to hide Lochlan's bottle so the other nurses wouldn't offer it.  After another week went by and Lochlan still wasn't taking significant amounts at the breast, I had to tell that nurse politely but firmly that I was going to get my baby home any way I could, nipple confusion be damned.  I think he underestimated my stamina, fearing that if I started giving Lochlan bottles I'd never break the habit.  Had I insisted on waiting until Lochlan could successfully breastfeed before taking him home, we'd still be in the NICU.  Eventually they'd probably have kicked us out, because even after getting his tongue clipped three times Lochlan still isn't breastfeeding.

When he was about two weeks old and there was still no end in sight to our NICU stay, I decided to try bottles again.  Lo and behold, he took almost a whole feeding by bottle!  By his third day of bottle feeding, he was taking 100% of his food by mouth and his nurse had removed his feeding tube.  I still tried breastfeeding him sometimes, but now that he was bigger and stronger he could suck a lot harder and nursing felt like I was being stabbed with 1,000 white-hot needles.  That's not what nursing is supposed to feel like.  We tried a nipple shield, we tried different positions, we tried different cushions, but everything was painful.  I made a lot of phone calls and eventually found a doctor around the corner from Evergreen who could see us a week after we were discharged for an assessment, and the following week she clipped Lochlan's tongue for the second time.  He immediately began sticking it out further than he ever had, and we went home with a list of stretches for his tongue and a follow-up appointment for next week.

Meanwhile, I scheduled a lactation consultant for a home visit.  I highly recommend this.  A lovely woman named Joy spent about an hour and a half with us, gave us some additional tongue stretches(which are really more like games) and remarked that to her, Lochlan's tongue still seemed restricted.  I chose this particular lactation consultant because on her website she mentions that her own son was tongue-tied, so she had personal experience with what I was going through.  She asked me to let her know how Lochlan's follow-up appointment went, and to call her if breastfeeding remained painful.

At the follow-up appointment, the doctor declared that his tongue looked good and said to keep doing the stretches and come back in a week.  I said that breastfeeding was still as painful as ever, but she said it would take time and not to worry.  I've done a lot of reading on tongue-ties, and although Lochlan is my first tongue-tied baby I felt like his tongue was still doing a lot of the things that tongue-tied babies to.  I called Joy and described what I was seeing, and she said she would text Dr. O'Hara for me and tell her I needed to be seen.  Dr. O'Hara is the premier tongue-tie doctor in this area, and she is very, very difficult to get an appointment with.  She's so busy, she doesn't do initial consultations.  Your baby has to be diagnosed by another doctor or lactation consultant, and her entire practice is comprised of "complex" cases.  Lochlan is a complex case.  I scheduled an appointment with Dr. O'Hara, as well as another doctor who is also a lactation consultant.  I kept both appointments, and after a thorough exam and observing Lochlan breastfeeding the doctor/lactation consultant said she didn't think Lochlan needed further clipping, just cranio-sacral therapy.

A few days later, we saw Dr. O'Hara.  Thirty seconds into the appointment, she confirmed Joy's diagnosis and said Lochlan's tongue was still restricted and she would clip him that day.  That was Monday.  We went back for a follow-up today and she re-stretched the incision site(awful, awful, awful), but numbed it with some lidocaine first.  She said that the way it's healing is a little "fibrous," so she gave me some steroid ointment to keep the inflammation down and we go back again next week.  She said she would likely clip Lochlan a fourth time then.  I asked her how often she has to do multiple clippings, and at what point should I accept that maybe Lochlan will never breastfeed.  She said his tie is definitely on the more difficult side, but it's not uncommon for many of her patients to need multiple clippings.  She is such an amazing doctor to watch, and if I didn't trust her so much I'd give up and go buy formula right now.  She is the only doctor I've ever met who sings to babies while she examines them, and Lochlan seems almost as comfortable in her arms as in mine.

So we'll try one more time, but after that I think we're done.  I'll continue pumping breastmilk for Lochlan as long as I can, but eventually I know I'm going to need to sleep.  I'd also like to have a social life again someday, but in the event that I eventually have to start giving Lochlan formula I want to ensure that I left no stone unturned before deciding that he's never going to breastfeed.  I pumped for eight months when Jack was a baby, but I don't think I have it in me to do that again now that I have three kids instead of one.  Aaron said he's afraid that all our friends are going to think we don't like them anymore, so just to be clear, it's not you, it's me.  I just don't have the energy to go anywhere or have anyone over.  Pumping takes a lot of time, and when I'm not pumping I'm washing bottles and pump parts and trying to sleep.  My parents haven't held Lochlan, and my dad hasn't even met him.  In fact, my mom and two sisters are the only people in my family who've actually seen him.  I'm a pretty tough cookie, but right now all I can do is take care of my baby and try to keep my head above water.  Good thing he is such a delicious baby and I am so madly in love with him, because for now he's really the only person I hang out with :)

Loch one, Loch two, Loch Lomond

Surprise!  We're having a baby today(ish).

 On the morning of Wednesday, June 17th, I was standing in the kitchen minding my own business when my water broke.  I was 33 weeks pregnant, so this wasn't great.  All my babies have come early, but this was the earliest yet.  I'd been seeing a high-risk OB, but I'd just had an appointment on Monday and he declared that I was not showing signs of going into labor imminently, and I should go ahead and start planning my home birth for approximately four weeks hence.  With my last labor, exactly 90 minutes elapsed between my water breaking and holding a baby in my arms, so it appeared there wasn't a lot of time.  Aaron was working in Ballard and the boys were with me, so I called my brother-in-law who happened to be working nearby and asked if he could drive me to the hospital.  I hadn't had a single contraction yet, but I didn't want to risk delivering on the side of 405 while driving.  I hastily stuffed some clothes and a toothbrush into a bag, grabbed a snack and a stack of towels to sit on and got in the car.

At the hospital, an ultrasound confirmed that my water had broken and the baby was very much head-down.  Aaron and my cousin Shannon arrived soon afterward with snacks, and we settled in for whatever was in store.  I was still in the triage area at this point, and soon I had a few contractions.  When I told the nurse my labor history, she quickly got me into a room and got an IV going.  I was given a large dose of magnesium to stop the contractions, and a shot of steroids to help mature the baby's lungs.  I'd never had a magnesium drip before, and although the nurse tried to prepare me for how it would feel, words can't really do it justice.  Magnesium has a relaxing effect on smooth muscle tissue, including blood vessels.  In high doses, it causes rapid and intense flushing.  What it actually feels like is something I can only imagine is similar to being set on fire from the inside.  The nurse had filled a basin with icy water and washcloths prior to administering the magnesium, and I tried to lie very still and not panic while I directed Aaron to place cold washcloths on the parts of my body that felt most incendiary: "My feet, my feet!  Okay, now drape a couple across my calves.  Now my Adam's apple, wtf?!" It was a fun game for everyone.  Luckily, the most unpleasant sensations only lasted 25 minutes or so, then the dose tapered down to one third of the initial bolus.  My contractions stopped, I sent Shannon home until further notice, and gave Aaron a list of things to go buy(diapers, a car seat...).

I proceeded to have contractions slowly and sporadically, sometimes three hours apart, never closer together than 20 minutes.  They were mild, like bad period cramps, but came just often enough to keep me from sleeping at all that night.  I was also hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor which kept slipping out of place every time I moved, so the alarm would start beeping and then my nurse would have to come in and try to re-position the monitor until it could read the baby again.  Magnesium slows the baby's heart rate and I was high-risk anyway, so taking off the super uncomfortable monitor wasn't an option.

The next morning, my OB's partner came in and checked me.  I'd had some bloody show, so it appeared that labor was still progressing albeit slower than my usual pace.  I was 4 cm dilated, so the doctor decided to keep the magnesium drip going in an effort to get a second dose of steroids into me(given twice, 24 hours apart).  Meanwhile, a neonatologist came down from the NICU to prep us for what we might expect once our as-yet-unnamed baby was born.  He told us that babies born at 33 weeks have very good survival rates with generally few complications, but they usually need to be in the hospital until they reach 38 weeks.  He went over the various forms of oxygen supplementation our son might need, and explained that some premies find touching too stimulating, so there was  chance we might not be able to hold him.  Upon his birth, there would be an immediate assessment and if he seemed stable enough, I could hold him for 20 minutes or so before he'd go upstairs to the NICU.  I told Aaron that if there was the slightest sign of trouble, I wanted him to baptize our son and made sure the doctors knew about this plan.  Then we waited.

And waited.

I made a labor playlist, and we discussed names.  I tried unsuccessfully to sleep, so instead I talked to the baby.  "Baby, mama needs a favor.  I know you're little, but I need you to be a fighter.  Daddy and I want you to be strong and healthy, and we want to take you home as soon as possible.  So I know you're not even supposed to be born yet and it's a lot to ask, but please, be our little warrior."

Around 9 p.m., I was still only have 2-3 contractions per hour, and I could still talk through them.  They felt slightly more intense than they had the day before, but didn't yet come all the way up to the top of my uterus.  However, I was beginning to feel surges of adrenaline in my legs, a feeling I recognized as transition.  I hit the call button and asked the nurse to check me.  She said they generally try to avoid stirring things up in women whose labors they are trying to stall.

"I know, and I appreciate that, but I have two concerns: one is that I'm still 4 cm and contracting just often enough to prevent sleep, and I'm coming up on 40 hours without sleep.  If I'm still 4 cm, I want an epidural so I can actually rest before having to birth a baby.  My other concern, the one I suspect is more likely the case, is that my lame contractions are, in fact, accomplishing something and I'm further along than anyone suspects."

She agreed to check me.  I was 7-8 cm.  Sneaky uterus.  The on-call OB came in and said "You don't want an epidural; you're going to deliver this baby within the next four hours, and your recovery will be so much better without one." (spoiler alert: he was right)

 My doctor arrived around 11 p.m., and we talked birth plan.  He wasn't on call that night and had already worked a full day at another hospital, but he'd promised me that he would come to my birth no matter what.  I love him.

Chatting, like you do.

 After a while, I felt the urge to push but my contractions were still so-so.  When I did push, I could feel the baby ramming into my pubic bone.  After a few pushes I declared that I felt like I was being hoisted by my own petard; the harder I worked, the worse it felt.  It was 11:45 p.m., and we all wondered if this baby was coming on the 18th or the 19th.  Then my contractions stopped.  Just disappeared.

"I need a chair," I said.

"For what?" my nurse asked.

"For lunges," I replied.  "I'm going to do lunges and get this baby under my pubic bone."

I actually said the words "Pants-off Dance-off!"

 The comparison was too obvious.  "Got a little captain in you?" I said.  I did, in fact, have a little captain in me, and I wanted him out.  The fact that I had not yet lost my sense of humor was an indication to me that labor was not yet fully underway.  So I did lunges for a while, then tried getting on all fours on the bed, then asked for and was brought a birthing stool(which, inexplicably, was bright purple and had actual glitter in it).  After a while I decided to just lie down again.  My doctor offered Pitocin, which I declined at first but after realizing that the magnesium was hamstringing my uterus I agreed.

 And then s*** got real.  Not as real as my other labors, but real enough to make a little progress.  I told my doctor that my contractions still felt pretty ineffective, so he asked if he could put his hand on my stomach for the next one.  The next day, he told me that he'd seen women have stronger Braxton Hicks than the contractions he felt in me.  I pushed, but I wasn't in a good place mentally.  I actively felt ambivalent about getting this baby out, knowing that my body was the safest place for him and that if I did succeed in getting him out, he was going to be taken from me.  Labor wasn't painful enough for me to want it to be over, and my contractions weren't really helping.  I decided to just get it over with, and started pushing hard.

That was a mistake.

I should've waited for the Pitocin to kick in more, because once I got the baby's head approximately halfway out, I ran out of steam and didn't have contractions to help me.  So the baby just paused there, head halfway out, not moving.

And that's when the screaming started.

With Jack, I remember grunting a lot during the pushing phase.

With Matteas, I was quiet and focused and barely made any noise at all.

With this baby, I felt like I was going to lose my mind if I didn't getsome relief from the terrible burning that felt like my entire body was being ripped open with a dull butter knife.

"Don't push," my doctor said.

"Then cut me open and get him the f*** out!!" I screamed.  "I can't not push, I need him OUT!"

 And then he was.  Pink and screaming, with the cord wrapped once around his neck, he arrived at 1:26 a.m. on June 19th.  He weighed in at 5 lbs. 1 oz., and his apgar scores were 8 and 9.  I don't remember Aaron cutting the cord, I just remember being so happy that he was screaming(functioning lungs!) and out of me.

World's Best Doctor.  Seriously.  He was so calm even when I swore at him, and went above and beyond so I could have continuity of care during a very stressful pregnancy.

Other than needing a few weeks to figure out how to eat, our baby didn't have any issues.  He never needed any oxygen support or meds, maintained his temperature consistently and gained weight well.  Every doctor who looked at him declared him mature for his age.  After 18 days in the NICU, we brought him home.

We named him Lochlan Rafael.  Lochlan means "warrior," and Rafael means "God has healed."

What a Girl Wants

When people found out I was pregnant with Jack, I received a broad range of responses.  Most of them were polite-if-reserved congratulations, some were wildly optimistic and supportive, and an unfortunate few were judgmental and cruel.  Some people seemed to feel a pressing need to let me know just how disappointed they were in me, and how very much they disapproved of my choices. This may come as a huge shock to those who offered them, but not a single one of those critical moral sermons was helpful. When I look back at the hard parts of that period in my life(and oh, it was hard), there was never one time when I thought "You know what would be a huge help?  If people were more judgmental."  

Why is it that we feel we have permission to offer moral commentary on the lives of people we see as sinners, when we don't do the same to the people we see as morally upright?  Never once in my entire married life has someone come up to me and said "Hey, I think it's really great that you and Aaron have sex.  Just so you know, you've got my approval." I know the circumstances are different, but I can't help but notice how context-dependent some people's responses have been to my first vs. my third pregnancies.  Without exception, everyone I've told has expressed excitement and support of this pregnancy.  Excitement and support were the exception with Jack.  What it highlights is not that people feel differently about this baby, but that they feel differently about me.  It strikes me as singularly anti pro-life to be kind and gracious to a married pregnant woman, but shaming and critical to an unmarried pregnant girl.  Isn't the baby the same?  (Spoiler alert: yes, the baby is the same.)

I think part of the challenge to practicing compassion is that we like a good old-fashioned conversion story, one with a clear Rescuer and a clear Convert.  We're comfortable with the story of the Wayward Girl who sleeps around, gets pregnant, meets a kindly priest or warm-hearted housewife and is rescued from the clutches of Planned Parenthood and her own ignorance.  The main plot point of that story is one of ignorance or misinformation: she didn't know better.  Now that we've set her straight, she can live a life of virtue and holiness.

What tends to make people uncomfortable is when the pregnant girl doesn't need rescuing, informing or converting.  I was, and still am, a practicing Catholic when I got pregnant with Jack.  Conversion wasn't an option, so the only path left that would ensure I knew I'd done wrong was to shame me.  I think what simply didn't occur to most people was that I was not wildly thrilled to be in my position, but no one asked me how I felt about it.  No one asked me much of anything, I was simply told.  I was told, among other things, that I most certainly had to give the baby up for adoption, that I had humiliated my family, that I clearly didn't have the sense to feel ashamed of myself, and, when I asked for discretion, that I didn't have the right to ask anyone to keep my "dirty little secret." By the way, these were all super helpful things to hear and brought me a sense of hope and encouragement in my darker moments.  

This is a great article that brilliantly illustrates the hierarchy of feelings in a trauma situation.  While not ever pregnancy is traumatic, every pregnancy requires hard work and every pregnant woman deserves support, period.

The whole experience has served as an overwhelming affirmation of my desire to become a doula.  I've experienced a wide array of circumstances and feelings surrounding pregnancy throughout my childbearing years, all of them helpful in cultivating the empathy and non-judgment that make a good doula.  Without my own suffering, I wouldn't understand as deeply the need for compassionate, non-judgmental support. I realize now that judgment has nothing to do with what you want for the other person, and everything to do with what you want for yourself.  If you're not the one who's pregnant, your personal feelings on the matter are neither central to the situation nor helpful to the woman actually experiencing the pregnancy.  Your negative feelings or righteous judgment will not serve her.  Your kindness will.  Be really honest with yourself about what your goal is: to let her know how wrong you think she is, or to help her move toward the best possible outcome?  Responding to her, not demanding that she respond to your feelings, is the only productive path. 

Thankfully, there were more people in my life who offered loving support than criticism, and I am forever grateful for them.  The thing that set them apart from the neutral or non-helpful responses was that they each extended their own version of the question my midwives ask me at each appointment: how can I best support you?

I want to issue an unconditional invitation: if you are pregnant and find yourself in need of support for any reason, please come sit on my couch and have tea with me.  I don't care if you're married, divorced, single, religious, or vegan; I want you to know that you deserve good things, that you are beautiful and loved, and that there is support available to you.  If you come sit on my couch with me I will most likely be in my pajamas, there will be a few dirty dishes in my sink, and my kids will have at least three fights while we're talking, but I will welcome you with open arms, whoever you are.   

Time to write that novel...

So everything was going along swimmingly until my 20 week ultrasound, which showed some premature shortening of my cervix.  This is likely something that happened with my two previous pregnancies, and is probably the reason I had both boys so early(Jack at 34 weeks, Matteas at 36).  While it wasn't a huge shock given my penchant for preterm labor, it's disappointing because now I have to be one of those careful pregnant ladies.  My prenatal care has been transferred from my beloved midwives to a wonderful OB/GYN who is taking excellent care of me, but what this means is that if I go into labor too early, I won't be able to have a home birth like I'd planned.  Jack was born in the hospital, Matteas at the birth center, so I was really looking forward to rounding out my birthing resume with a home birth.  If I make it to 35 weeks(and my doctor thinks I will), I will resume being a midwifery patient and carry on as planned.

In the meantime, I'm on a carefully crafted medication regimen and I see my OB once a week for ultrasounds.  While not on strict bed rest(which hasn't been shown to improve the outcomes for women with cervical shortening), I'm on a "couch potato light" program and for the time being am not supposed to indulge in so much as a walk around the block.  I can go about my daily business, just nothing extra.  Good thing I already chopped down the freaky stumps in our backyard during my last pregnancy, because anything involving an ax is on the no-no list.

It's been interesting to observe how I've absorbed this information.  At first, I was devastated.  I drove home from the ultrasound and crawled into bed, where I proceeded to cry and nap alternately for the next few hours.  I've been anxious about a lot of things in my life, but never anything related to pregnancy or childbirth.  Those were things my body knew how to do on its own, and I could trust my body to do those things largely unsupervised.  Now I can't.  It's an odd sensation, to feel betrayed by one's own body.  It's also sort of frustrating to not know why; there are a number of things that can contribute to cervical insufficiency(the medical term for what my cervix is doing), but I haven't had any of them.

I was pretty depressed about the whole situation for a while, but this week it occurred to me that I finally had a reason to do the kind of low-energy projects I usually find myself putting off, mostly because I told myself I didn't have the time.  Now, all I've got is time.  Four months of it.  I got some drawing books from the library, and dusted off my sketchbook and art supplies.  I'm currently reading and loving Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone, and am currently taking suggestions for books I should read next.  Nothing scary, sad, sinister or stupid, but I also don't want to have to work too hard for my entertainment; I want it to scoop me up in its nonjudgmental arms and suddenly it's two hours later.  I've mostly recovered my taste for food, so now seems like as good a time as any to finally perfect a sticky bun recipe.  They never come out chewy enough for me.  Got any good recipes?  I made Smitten Kitchen's sticky buns last night(minus pecans, which Jack can't have) and they were tasty but they failed to knock my socks off.  I want a sticky bun the texture of a doughnut, with a dark, toasty caramel that you pour between the layers before rolling, not just soak the bottom half of the roll in(which I did, and I have no regrets about that part).  For my next batch, I'm going to use a dough recipe I found for actual doughnuts and omit the honey in the caramel sauce.  And then I'm going to gain 100 pounds because I'm cooking again and not exercising.  YOLO.  If I can maintain four weeks of "cervical stability," my OB says I can go back to yoga.  If my yoga pants still fit by then.

If anyone needs me, I'll be lying on the couch reading and eating leftover sticky buns.

Some random thoughts on being supported

Tomorrow, I will be exactly 18 weeks pregnant.  Almost halfway.  Sometimes it feels like I've been pregnant forever, other times I feel like the next time I blink I'll be in labor.  Even this far in, I still get nauseated at night if I don't take Diclegis(miracle drug!).  While this has physically been my hardest pregnancy, overall it's been my easiest.  I am so much better at asking for what I need, and Aaron is so much better at giving it.  Do you ever do that thing where some small thing happens or doesn't happen, and you immediately start telling yourself stories about it?  I am really, really good at telling myself stories, and a lot of the time they turn out not to be true.  I used to tell myself that I didn't need help while pregnant(or really, with most things), and if Aaron didn't help me in the exact right way that I wanted, I would tell myself stories about how he didn't love me and he was so insensitive.  I was so afraid of being seen as needy that I was constantly trying not to have any needs.  Then one day, my wise therapist asked me this question: how do you think Aaron would feel if you looked him in the eye and said "I don't need you for anything."  Whoa.  I don't want to be in a relationship like that.

That's not to say that the journey to getting in touch with my needs and allowing my husband to support me has been smooth sailing.  My therapist told me that sometimes, the thing that rocks the boat most in a relationship is when one person begins to have healthier standards for relationship.  Even though you are becoming a more whole person, you are suddenly totally changing things up on your partner.  The way you relate to each other has to change in order to accommodate the new, expanded definition of relationship, and change can be hard.

Aaron and I have had so many conversations about needs this pregnancy.  Some of those conversations have been inspiring and amazing, and a lot of them have been hard, confusing and uncomfortable.  One thing I have learned to trust about my husband is how committed he is to understanding me, and while that certainly doesn't guarantee that he's going to achieve that on the first try(or second or twentieth), I know that he will keep showing up until he does.  I love that about him.  One of the stories I used to tell myself was that if I was too needy, Aaron would quit showing up.  I don't even know what I would have to do to him to really get him to not show up.  He is the showing up-est husband I know.  I read some birth horror stories the other night about husbands going out to buy video games while their wives were dilated 9cm, or husbands who fell asleep while their laboring wives were out in the car waiting to be driven to the hospital.  I loathe the husband-bashing game and don't find it helpful, but I read things like that and I think "those couples have a lot to learn about how to support one another."  Someone would have to put a gun to Aaron's head to keep him away from me if I was in labor, and even then, Aaron would find a way to get to me.

Did you know that having continuous support from just one person(whether it's a doula, husband, mother, friend) reduces a laboring woman's chance of a c-section by 30%?  Think about that for a minute.  What that means is that there are non-medical reasons a woman might end up with a c-section.  Labor can be long and hard, but being well-supported can totally shift how a woman experiences it.  I'm not saying that all women who need c-sections do so because they didn't have good labor support, but I am saying that having good labor support drastically increases the chance that a woman won't need a c-section.

It's sometimes hard to practice what I preach, because leaning into support, trusting that it's there, takes a lot of vulnerability.  I do just fine in labor, because labor is so overtly and obviously work that I don't bother judging myself for needing support.  But being pregnant is work too, and mothering and married life and really, just being human; it all takes work.  My problem is that I get really self-critical and tell myself stories, like "What you're doing isn't so hard; you have two healthy kids and a nice husband, what could you possibly need support for?"  Well, all of it, really.  Just because life is good doesn't mean it isn't also incredibly hard sometimes.  Likewise, just because something requires a lot of hard work doesn't mean it isn't really, really good.  My experience of most of the best things in life is that they are both: marriage, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, parenting.  All a lot of work, all deeply good.

I still have a long ways to go in the self-compassion department, but I've made huge strides in being kinder to myself.  One of the big things that helped me move toward that shift was hearing someone say that children don't practice self-care based on how well their parents take care of them, they practice self-care based on how well they see their parents practice their own self-care.  Want your kids to be forgiving of themselves when they screw up?  Let them see you practice forgiving yourself when you screw up.  Want them to be strong advocates for themselves in relationship?  Let them see you be a strong advocate for yourself in relationship.  Want them to know they deserve to be really well taken care of?  Let them see you take really good care of yourself.  Want them to have healthy boundaries around toxic people?  Let them see you have healthy boundaries around toxic people.  Want them to be open to receiving support when they need it?  Let them see you practice receiving support when you need it.

I think part of this automatic suspicion/judgment of our own needs comes from the fear that if we get what we want, it will make turn us into selfish people.  Think of a laboring woman; does feeling respected, loved, heard, and supported turn her into a selfish person?  Not by a long shot; it enables her to get in touch with that which is best in her, and to do really, really hard work.  It's true of non-laboring women to, and not just women, but human beings in general.  I think my son Matteas put it best: looking out the window into the forest behind our house, he mused that people are a lot like trees.  When I asked what he meant, he said "When we get what we need, we grow."  Amen little teacher, amen.

Back in the Saddle Again

It's hard to know where to start after a nearly three-year hiatus.  Life got really busy there for a while, and I realized that I don't like blogging about things I haven't figured out yet.  I plan to talk about it all someday, but the short version is that my kids and my marriage needed absolutely all of my attention.  We find ourselves in a different season of life these days, so different that we even decided to have another baby.  I'm nine weeks and four days pregnant today(11 weeks 4 days if you count like the doctors), and I want to start keeping some records about this pregnancy.  It's been so different from my pregnancies with the boys in every possible way, and I want to remember.

First and foremost, we planned this pregnancy.  Aaron has always wanted at least four kids, but after having the boys I honestly felt like I could never do it again.  Not the pregnancy or birth part, the intensity part.  I felt like kind of a wimp sometimes, but then people(including my sisters) would tell me that my oldest child was more work than all five of their children put together, and I found that reassuring.  I didn't stress or agonize over having "only" two kids, because our days were so full-on all the time that there really wasn't room for anything else.  I felt like I was living on the front lines and I could only deal with what was in front of me right that minute, and the idea of taking on more of anything seemed absolutely impossible.  In the words of Jim Gaffigan, "just imagine you're drowning, and then someone hands you a baby."

Well, I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore.  I spent a lot of time figuring out what Jack needed to flourish, and while it literally took years of appointments and therapies and trial-and-error, we finally have a protocol more or less dialed in for him and I'm thrilled to report that he's doing a pretty good job of winning at life.  As things started improving for Jack and we were able to lower the DEFCON level of daily life, Aaron and I started talking about the possibility of another baby.  I kept thinking that if we ever had another baby, I would wait until I really really wanted one.  So we talked about it and I waited for Baby Fever to strike, and I even considered becoming a doula because I like supporting women and babies so much, but I kept waiting and no Baby Fever was forthcoming.  I still don't have it, and that's okay.  I'm just not a Baby Fever person.

What I do have is a desire for a bigger family, and there's no getting around the fact that to have a bigger family, you have to make some babies.  I don't regret the break.  Jack will be 10 and Matteas will be a few weeks shy of 8 by the time this baby is born, which is a pretty big gap.  I can't imagine going through what we've been through the past few years with a baby to take care of, and a pregnancy at almost any other time would have felt really overwhelming.  Now, I feel prepared and happy.  Joyful.  I did not feel like that with my first two pregnancies, and even though I love my boys more than anything in life, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to experience such a well-supported pregnancy this time around.  I had to skip a lot of the fun stuff with my first pregnancy, and this feels kind of like a do-over only better because now I'm older and wiser.  I've been buying myself cozy sweaters and leggings, taking naps when I need them, appreciating the fact that Aaron does the dishes every night, and taking long baths while reading pregnancy magazines(which, by the way, have vastly improved in the eight years since I've been pregnant).  With the recent and miraculous addition of Diclegis to my self-care regimen, I'm not even nauseated anymore.  Sleepy, but not nauseous.

So that's where life is at right now.  I have my first appointment with my midwives on Monday, which is one of my favorite parts of being pregnant.  Very soon I hope to have a more substantial baby bump, so that I actually look pregnant and not like I have a tiny beer belly.  People get more excited about baby bumps than beer bellies.

Recap

 This Fourth of July, we took the boys to a firework show.  They loved it.

 I also took them swimming at the same beach I went to almost every day of the summer when I was their age.  It smells exactly the same.

 We ate meat on sticks.

 I said goodbye to the family that's lived next door to my parents for 18 years.  They are good people.

 We had Sibling Brunch, which is sometimes Sibling Dinner instead. 

 We met our friends' beautiful son.

 We went to a wedding.

And Matteas turned five, which is old enough to light your own candle.  I'm glad there is a little Summer left to fill with barbecues, cocktails, and fans in the windows.  I'm not ready for Fall.

Crazy-ass Diet, Challenge: Eggs

 Well, I made it: fourteen days without wheat, corn, dairy, eggs, caffeine, alcohol, yeast, soy, or citrus.  I didn't cheat; not once, not even a little.  Today when I woke up and realized that today is the day I get to do a food challenge, I immediately decided I wanted to make muffins. 

Making muffins without wheat can be tricky, and making muffins without wheat or eggs is damn near impossible.  Avoiding dairy is the easy part, as coconut oil can be used in baked goods instead of butter with a fair amount of reliability.  So this morning I made a batch of muffins with grated apples, lots of cinnamon and nutmeg, and some pretty stinking delicious honey coconut spread.  Maybe it's my deprived taste buds being easily stimulated by any amount of sugar, but to me these were the perfect breakfast muffin: not too sweet, hearty but not heavy.  The boys loved them.  If you leave out the brown sugar topping, these muffins are SCD compliant.

Almond and Apple Muffins with Honey Coconut 'Butter'

2 1/2 cups almond flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3 eggs
1/3 cup apple sauce
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 honey
2 apples, grated
Brown sugar for sprinkling(optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg and whisk until well blended.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk the eggs well.  Add the apple sauce, vanilla, coconut oil, honey and grated apples.  Add egg mixture to almond flour mixture and mix until thoroughly blended.  Divide between twelve muffin papers.  If using, sprinkle a few pinches of brown sugar over the top of each muffin.

Bake for 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Let the muffins cool at least five minutes before serving.

Honey Coconut 'Butter'

1 TBS coconut oil, melted
2 tsp. honey
Pinch of sea salt

Blend all ingredients and season to taste.  I like it salty.  You can use it warm, but it takes on a buttery texture if you let it cool to room temperature.  Store any leftovers in the fridge in a sealed contained.

Crazy-ass Diet, Day 6

I'm super excited to be on day six of this experiment, because tomorrow that means I'm halfway through the hardest part!  I'm already planning carefully what recipes I want to use for my challenges, which can be kind of tricky because you have to isolate a single potential allergen.  For example, you can't use bread for a wheat challenge because it also contains yeast.  During an egg challenge, you can't cook scrambled eggs in butter because then you'd be introducing dairy as well.  Aaron mentioned looking forward to Caprese salad last night, and I find myself fantasizing about the texture of mozzarella.  So milky and smooth...

Aside from coffee, what I miss the most on this diet is variety of texture.  Nuts and raw vegetables have a different kind of crunch than the shattering kind of crunch you get from biting into a tortilla chip or a crouton; six days of meat and lettuce and you really start to notice. 

Yesterday my energy level was really feeling the lack of complex carbohydrates and I really wanted to work in the garden, so I made some roasted sweet potatoes to go with my lunch.  While I was at it I roasted a second chicken breast to save for later; I can't emphasize enough the importance of having ready-made protein on hand while doing this kind of diet.  It would be easy to fail simply out of desperation, so if you're trying something like this make sure you have plenty of food on hand that you can actually eat.



Oven Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
1 bone-in skin-on chicken breast
1 medium or two small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400. 

Toss the sweet potatoes with a good drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and half the garlic and rosemary.  Arrange flat in a roasting pan large enough to accomodate all the potatoes and the chicken breast without crowding. 

Place the chicken breast, skin side up, in the pan with the potatoes and season with olive oil, salt and pepper, and the rest of the garlic and rosemary. 

Roast everything together for 30-40 minutes, until the chicken breast registers 160 degrees on an instant-read theremometer.  If the potatoes need longer, remove the chicken to a plate and cover gently with foil.

Crazy-ass Diet, Day 2

 I thought the hardest part of this diet would be giving up coffee, and I was right.  I've never been a morning person, but now they just seem downright pointless; something to get through in order to get to something better, like lunch.  It's been super tricky trying to come up with things that both Jack and I can eat so that I'm not making two separate dishes for every single meal, and although coconut aminos aren't SCD legal I'm cutting corners a tiny bit so I don't go crazy.  I served this chicken to the boys with cucumbers and clementines on the side, and put it into a salad for me.  It was so good, I ate it for lunch two days in a row and will probably have it again today.  It tastes like a really light spring roll.

Honey Teriyaki Chicken

Four boneless, skinless chicken thighs, sliced into 1" thick strips
1 tsp. fresh ginger, grated
2 tsp. coconut aminos
1 tsp. honey
1 clove garlic, minced
Oil for pan

Drizzle a large non-stick frying pan with a little oil over medium-high heat.  Use a pan large enough that the chicken won't crowd, or it will steam and not brown nicely.

When the chicken is brown on one side, turn the strips over, add the grated ginger and cook until chicken is almost cooked through. 

Add the coconut aminos and honey and stir to coat the chicken, then let it cook without moving it around for a few minutes so the honey caramelizes a little. 

When the chicken is cooked through, add the garlic and cook for 30-40 seconds, stirring constantly so the garlic doesn't burn.

Serve over mixed greens with sliced cucumber, carrots, chopped cilantro and green onion or chives, and toss with rice wine vinaigrette.  If you're not on a crazy-ass elimination diet, squeeze a wedge of lime over the top.  Bean sprouts would also be delicious.

Here We Go

We are now fully embarked on our search for food allergies/the source of Jack's abdominal discomfort.  For Jack, I decided to put him on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet because he's had stomach upset and digestive problems(read: diarrhea) for the past four weeks.  You can read more about his diet here if you're interested, but the short of it is that it eliminates all sugar and starch except for honey and fruit.  No grains, potatoes, corn, or milk(aged cheese and clarified butter are okay).  It's challenging to feed a growing boy this way, but we're learning and after only a few days we're seeing an improvement in his digestion(read: less diarrhea). 

I'm doing a more severe version of the diet, as I suspect that I might be allergic to eggs and dairy. Today was meant to be my first day without coffee, but Aaron and I went out for cocktails last night and I'm such a light weight when it comes to alcohol that after two drinks I need a little help waking up this morning. Avoiding caffeine had better do wonders for my PMS, because I have serious concerns about my coping abilities sans caffeine and dairy. I have a plan, which I'm calling Alternative Pleasures. Coffee is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and not much happens in our day until I'm well into my second cup of piping hot legal drugs laced with half and half. I've been through enough dietary changes to know that I'm going to need a way to replace not just the foods I used to eat, but the pleasure I derived from them. Coffee was my way of front-loading my day with pleasure, and starting tomorrow that will be gone. I imagine I'll get up tomorrow morning and sit on the couch, holding an empty mug that is slowly being filled my tears. I don't handle deprivation well.

That's where Alternative Pleasures comes in. I'm going to start planning bribes for myself, like buying myself a novel(fiction even!) or new art supplies, something that will inspire me to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. Really, nothing motivates me quite like coffee, so I'm not sure how this is going to go. Also, I might not have any extra cash for things like books and paints because I'm currently giving all of my money to Whole Foods. I'm also not very good at the whole wait-and-see approach to healing, mostly because it's hard not to be able to offer my son instant relief but also because I don't want all this effort and expense to be for nothing(read: ongoing diarrhea).

So just what are we eating? The short answer is meat, fruit and vegetables with the occasional almond meal confection. I had thought that I would come up with all kinds of crazy recipes during this experiment, but it feels kind of fraudulent to call something a recipe that is really just "eating these foods at the same time."

We have, however, stumbled upon some easy combinations that both boys love which are precious to me because we're doing this diet as a family.  Food is about so much more than just eating, and I don't want Jack to feel isolated in his deprivation.  So we all eat our cheeseburgers with a knife and fork instead of a bun, any bread in the house has been banished to the freezer, and I make one Specific Carbohydrate compliant dinner for everyone to share. 

So far, the biggest challenge has been breakfast.  Jack wakes up hungry, and doesn't like eggs first thing in the morning.  His breakfasts now alternate between a banana with peanut butter, and homemade Lara Bars. 

 
These are just equal parts nuts(almonds, cashews, pecans, or any combination) and dates, sometimes with other flavors(cinnamon, ginger) added.  So far, Jack's favorite is almond and peanut butter.  The resulting paste needs to be refrigerated in order to make cutting it into a bar shape, so I usually resort to rolling them into balls.  In either ball or bar form, there is no way around the final product looking like poop.  Embrace your inner toddler.

Homemade Lara Bars

1 cup toasted almonds
1 cup pitted dates
1/4-1/3 cup peanut butter(optional)
Pinch of salt

After the nuts have cooled, pulse them briefly in a food processor fitted with a blade attachment.  You don't want to turn them into nut butter, so pulse in small bursts until you get a consistency you like.  Remove the chopped nuts to a mixing bowl.

Blend the dates, salt and peanut butter in the food processor until a chunky paste forms.  Add the date paste to the chopped nuts, mix with your hands, and form into balls.

A Preview

We are on the verge of some changes around here, changes which I anticipate will be challenging but will hopefully result in the improved health and well-being of our whole family. 

 It is becoming more and more evident to me that my family doesn't digest grains well, and I find this both limiting and challenging my cooking skills.  I feel a lot of gratitude for the timeline of events which has led to the gradual eradication of grains from my pantry, because too much change all at once is overwhelming.  I'm also grateful that we met success early on, completely healing first Jack's skin and now his chronic migraines by removing wheat from his diet.  I know this stuff works.  I believe that what we put in our bodies matters, that it is not magically and invisibly transformed into our skin, our hair, our blood pressure, our energy levels.  I have experienced first-hand that changing your food can change your life, and so it is with a lot of optimism and a healthy dose of determination that we embark on the next phase of what my friend Josh calls a 'crazy hippie diet.'

Josh was my best friend growing up.  We were both eleven years old when his family moved into the house next door, and we saw each other almost every day.  He would come home from school and play basketball in his backyard, and as soon as I heard the familiar thud-and-swish of his playing I would drape myself over the back fence and we'd talk.  One of our fantasies was to become millionaires by inventing something genius, something that would revolutionize the way an ordinary task was done because then everyone would want it.  Our plan was to get rich and then move to Polynesia, where we imagined we could be free of the stresses of school and parents and adolescence.

In high school, Josh was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.  At first, his doctors tried to manage his disease through medication and for a number of years it kind of worked, but more recently Josh and his wife have changed the way they eat in order to heal Josh's body from the inside.  As fate would have it, Josh's style of eating overlaps with a lot of the changes I've already begun implementing.  Through the blogging world I was introduced to Roost, and was affirmed in my belief that healthy, healing eating doesn't have to feel like restricted eating. 

Now I'm going to take things a bit further, as Jack and I are about to embark on an elimination diet.  Jack suffers from periodic tummy trouble, and I've recently begun to suspect that he has Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.  I feel kind of devastated by this possibility, as we've only recently experienced what life can be like without five migraines a week; however, I also feel quietly determined.  The last time my first-born suffered debilitating symptoms, the remedy was in my kitchen.  I feel hopeful about trying again, making more changes, finding some answers. 

Over the next few weeks, Jack and I will be eliminating all grains, dairy, eggs, yeast, citrus, corn, soy, caffeine, and alcohol(more me than Jack) from what we eat.  After two weeks of eliminating those foods, we will then re-introduce one food at a time in large doses(three servings a day for three days in a row) in the hopes that there will be some kind of reaction.  I say that I'm hopeful for a reaction because that would give me a way to control Jack's discomfort through food, which is my favorite way to fix everything.  More importantly, it would give me a way to control Jack's discomfort, period.  The last time I tried working with doctors about his migraines, the discussion involved putting Jack on anti-depressants.  Not satisfied with that 'solution,' I turned to food and chiropractic care with great success.

While healing my own child is incentive enough, I couldn't help but remember my thirteen year-old ambitions to come up with a genius invention that would make me and Josh rich and famous.  My ambitions are a little different now, fame and fortune having been replaced by the desire to feed the ones I love well.  I bought a blank recipe book and will be taking careful notes about everything Jack and I eat, and my hope is that this little experiment will evolve into something that might benefit people beyond my own kitchen table.  I know how daunting it feels to consider making radical changes in the way we eat, and I remember feeling that for all of my experience, suddenly I no longer knew how to cook.  I know now that there is a way through that, and that there are two ways to see this: I can see it as something being taken away from me, or I can see it as an opportunity to get to know food in ways I have not yet imagined.  I know there will be times when it will feel like both.

Jack and I are both in the thick of nasty colds, so we won't be starting just yet.  I'm thinking the first of May seems like an appropriate day, and in the meantime I'm collecting ideas and testing new ingredients.  Those waffles up there?  Grain-free.  They do, however, contain eggs and there is quite obviously whipped cream on top, but I'm already coming up with ways around that.  I've been sneaking more honey and less sugar into the boys' meals to acclimate their taste buds, and so far it's going well.  Poor Jack is motivated to try anything if it will give him some relief.  I'll write more on the science behind the changes we're making, but right now my head is so full of congested nastiness that a discussion on monosaccharides vs. polysaccharides seems totally incomprehensible.  I just wanted to write an introduction of sorts by way of a preview of things to come, and also to get back into the habit of blogging which I hope will provide both accountability and community. 

Stay tuned.