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Hi. My name is Kate.
This is the story of our second daughter, Alafair. |
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Did anyone ever tell you breastfeeding is HARD? This was a lesson that came as a surprise to me when my first, Alice, was born in 2015. Those first 5 weeks were filled with toe-curling pain ("breastfeeding is not supposed to hurt," except for when it does in the beginning), bleeding nipples, thrush, clogged ducts, so many latch issues. It. Was. Rough. But somewhere around that 5 week mark we turned a corner and went on to nurse for another 20 months.
So when my second was born in the fall of 2018, I was braced for the battle. I had supplies on hand and support people lined up in advance. I was no amateur this time around. So what a glorious surprise it was then that when Alafair was born, she just latched on like we'd been doing this thing forever. No problems, no pain, no struggle. For 3 whole days, we basked in the light that was born from the confidence of experience, smug even, at our success. And then my milk came in and our world exploded.
Suddenly we were having problems with latch. Our easy second baby turned into a constant fusser, almost overnight. A small fever landed us in the ER on her 5th day where I met with a lactation specialist to determine what was going on. She helped us correct the latch and got us back on the right path... until we left the hospital and it all fell apart again. We had countless more meetings with the same specialist who was flummoxed by our seeming decline in latch skills. She had witnessed for herself that Alafair could nurse well, so why were things getting worse? In the meantime at home, Alafair got even more fussy. She refused to let us put her down. Ever. When she was being held at anything other than a 90 degree angle, she screamed. She nursed every 45 minutes around the clock.
We sought help from three different physical therapists.
One doctor diagnosed her with tongue tie. But why then was she able to latch so well in the beginning, we asked. No one had an answer for us. We reluctantly had her treated for tongue tie out of a sense of desperation. It was Halloween. The surgeon was dressed as Buzz Light-year.
We put her on multiple reflux meds, one of which was recalled after she'd been taking it for a year.
We had many medical professionals declare this was the most difficult baby they'd ever encountered in their long careers. We were told she was just colicky, to wait a couple months.
They did a swallow study where she ingested some kind of bizarre glowing liquid and drank a bottle under an x-ray (while every cell in my body shrieked at exposing my baby to so much toxicity).
I went on a TED (total elimination diet) in an effort to reduce any reactions she might be having to whatever I was eating. For four straight months, I ate nothing but turkey, millet, sweet potatoes, pears, avocado, and salt. This diet is nearly impossible to maintain, for obvious reasons, but I was determined. It's a badge of honor that I stuck to it without cheating for such a long time. But the reality is that I slowly lost a lot of weight, and my mind.
After 6 months of trying to keep it together for our older daughter, I broke. Something wasn't right and I knew it. I called the doctor and demanded that they do something immediately. The nurse patiently explained to me that she understood how hard having a new baby could be. And I patiently explained that if she didn't figure something out by the end of business that day, she was likely to read about me on the news after I drove myself and my kids into a lake. (Whoa. That's a bold statement, and I am NOT making light of anyone suffering from postpartum depression. Would I have actually driven into a lake? I don't think so. But let's be glad we didn't have to find out for sure.) We had an appointment with a gastroenterologist lined up by that evening.
There's a post I referenced on the homepage about this time period. I wrote it when Alafair was about 7 months old. To say that we were still in the depths of trauma at the time is putting it lightly. There is nothing worse than not being able to feed your child, in any capacity. To bear witness to such suffering and be powerless against it is a burden I'd not wish on anyone.
And so here we find ourselves, two years later, with a thriving toddler. She is vivacious, highly intelligent, and is markedly advanced on all the physical milestones. I want to acknowledge that many kids with these gut allergies are different than Alafair and have a host of other medical issues as well. We are profoundly grateful for her overall good health.
Luck with good genetics aside, it wasn't arrived at easily though. Skipping back two years, our brilliant GI specialist had us sleep train our baby (something we eschewed with our first and had no intention of doing with the second). This allowed her gut to get some rest and start healing overnight. She also switched us off of breastmilk to a highly specialized, protein-free formula. We saw an improvement in her demeanor overnight. It broke our hearts that we hadn't seen this specialist months before.
But that was only the beginning of a long, sometimes bumpy journey. After our FPIES diagnosis, a year before the pandemic hit, Alafair was classified as immunocompromised, which adds a particularly harrowing element to living through a pandemic. We've been told not to let her get covid-19. It could have permanent negative effects on her gut.
I still feel like I am doing a crash course on feeding my kid. Everything I knew about food was completely irrelevant. Our first food trials at 7 months were a complete failure. She had immediate and severe reactions. We paused all trials until after her 1st birthday. There was no cake smash. We mixed up her strange chemical baby cereal, stuck a candle in it and let her smear it all over the place. I cried when no one was looking.
But over the last two years we've started to have many more successes. Her doctors have credited my diligence with her food trials to her excellent health, and I'm not ashamed to take the credit, because it's been a constant uphill battle. Alafair has many more hurdles to cross with food, and I'm still learning every day, but she's also come so far.
Her gastroenteritis diagnosis was initially devastating for me. All I could focus on were the losses. And I had absolutely NO idea where to start. So that's why I'm starting this website. I would have given anything to find something like this somewhere on the internet. Our doctor is great at suggesting recipes that seem to just be stored in her head, but where was all of this on the internet? Or in a cookbook? How do people manage this? I hope this website provides a resource for other struggling parents or even those just working their way toward better health with alternative diets.
Alafair and I wish you health and happy eating.
So when my second was born in the fall of 2018, I was braced for the battle. I had supplies on hand and support people lined up in advance. I was no amateur this time around. So what a glorious surprise it was then that when Alafair was born, she just latched on like we'd been doing this thing forever. No problems, no pain, no struggle. For 3 whole days, we basked in the light that was born from the confidence of experience, smug even, at our success. And then my milk came in and our world exploded.
Suddenly we were having problems with latch. Our easy second baby turned into a constant fusser, almost overnight. A small fever landed us in the ER on her 5th day where I met with a lactation specialist to determine what was going on. She helped us correct the latch and got us back on the right path... until we left the hospital and it all fell apart again. We had countless more meetings with the same specialist who was flummoxed by our seeming decline in latch skills. She had witnessed for herself that Alafair could nurse well, so why were things getting worse? In the meantime at home, Alafair got even more fussy. She refused to let us put her down. Ever. When she was being held at anything other than a 90 degree angle, she screamed. She nursed every 45 minutes around the clock.
We sought help from three different physical therapists.
One doctor diagnosed her with tongue tie. But why then was she able to latch so well in the beginning, we asked. No one had an answer for us. We reluctantly had her treated for tongue tie out of a sense of desperation. It was Halloween. The surgeon was dressed as Buzz Light-year.
We put her on multiple reflux meds, one of which was recalled after she'd been taking it for a year.
We had many medical professionals declare this was the most difficult baby they'd ever encountered in their long careers. We were told she was just colicky, to wait a couple months.
They did a swallow study where she ingested some kind of bizarre glowing liquid and drank a bottle under an x-ray (while every cell in my body shrieked at exposing my baby to so much toxicity).
I went on a TED (total elimination diet) in an effort to reduce any reactions she might be having to whatever I was eating. For four straight months, I ate nothing but turkey, millet, sweet potatoes, pears, avocado, and salt. This diet is nearly impossible to maintain, for obvious reasons, but I was determined. It's a badge of honor that I stuck to it without cheating for such a long time. But the reality is that I slowly lost a lot of weight, and my mind.
After 6 months of trying to keep it together for our older daughter, I broke. Something wasn't right and I knew it. I called the doctor and demanded that they do something immediately. The nurse patiently explained to me that she understood how hard having a new baby could be. And I patiently explained that if she didn't figure something out by the end of business that day, she was likely to read about me on the news after I drove myself and my kids into a lake. (Whoa. That's a bold statement, and I am NOT making light of anyone suffering from postpartum depression. Would I have actually driven into a lake? I don't think so. But let's be glad we didn't have to find out for sure.) We had an appointment with a gastroenterologist lined up by that evening.
There's a post I referenced on the homepage about this time period. I wrote it when Alafair was about 7 months old. To say that we were still in the depths of trauma at the time is putting it lightly. There is nothing worse than not being able to feed your child, in any capacity. To bear witness to such suffering and be powerless against it is a burden I'd not wish on anyone.
And so here we find ourselves, two years later, with a thriving toddler. She is vivacious, highly intelligent, and is markedly advanced on all the physical milestones. I want to acknowledge that many kids with these gut allergies are different than Alafair and have a host of other medical issues as well. We are profoundly grateful for her overall good health.
Luck with good genetics aside, it wasn't arrived at easily though. Skipping back two years, our brilliant GI specialist had us sleep train our baby (something we eschewed with our first and had no intention of doing with the second). This allowed her gut to get some rest and start healing overnight. She also switched us off of breastmilk to a highly specialized, protein-free formula. We saw an improvement in her demeanor overnight. It broke our hearts that we hadn't seen this specialist months before.
But that was only the beginning of a long, sometimes bumpy journey. After our FPIES diagnosis, a year before the pandemic hit, Alafair was classified as immunocompromised, which adds a particularly harrowing element to living through a pandemic. We've been told not to let her get covid-19. It could have permanent negative effects on her gut.
I still feel like I am doing a crash course on feeding my kid. Everything I knew about food was completely irrelevant. Our first food trials at 7 months were a complete failure. She had immediate and severe reactions. We paused all trials until after her 1st birthday. There was no cake smash. We mixed up her strange chemical baby cereal, stuck a candle in it and let her smear it all over the place. I cried when no one was looking.
But over the last two years we've started to have many more successes. Her doctors have credited my diligence with her food trials to her excellent health, and I'm not ashamed to take the credit, because it's been a constant uphill battle. Alafair has many more hurdles to cross with food, and I'm still learning every day, but she's also come so far.
Her gastroenteritis diagnosis was initially devastating for me. All I could focus on were the losses. And I had absolutely NO idea where to start. So that's why I'm starting this website. I would have given anything to find something like this somewhere on the internet. Our doctor is great at suggesting recipes that seem to just be stored in her head, but where was all of this on the internet? Or in a cookbook? How do people manage this? I hope this website provides a resource for other struggling parents or even those just working their way toward better health with alternative diets.
Alafair and I wish you health and happy eating.
Please note:
I am not a medical professional and I am not offering medical advice. The information provided on this website is information I have gathered from talking to doctors, PA's, functional medicine specialists, physical therapists, ayurvedic specialists, and reading, reading, reading! These are practices that I have also incorporated into my professional life as a birth doula in Boise, ID. There are things here that have worked well for us but may not be the best choice for others. Where possible, I quote sources.