My New Adventure: Homeopathy, Butter, and Getting Healthy Again

I went to a local dairy farm today. All the dairy comes from grass(not treated with pesticides)-fed Jersey cows that are not given any extra hormones.  It isn't pasteurized or homogenized.  I bought 2 gallons of raw milk, a quart of cream, a quart of yogurt, and a pound of cheddar cheese.

Bella, Balian, and Isaiah got to see a bunch of calves, one of which was very vocal with his mooing.

Before you start getting hysterical on me about how I'm going to end up in the hospital because of diseased milk, let me 'splain.  Just FYI:

In Texas, to sell raw milk, it has to be bought on the primes is of the farm, and the farm has to have a dairy retail permit.  In order to keep their permit to sell raw milk, the milk is tested once a month for any disease that people tend to think would be in unpaseurized milk (TB, etc.).

Now, let me backtrack a bit.

My Doc put me on anti-depressants.  At the time, it was a good move, because I was a wreck. For. Real.

BUT, it wasn't something I was ok with being on long-term, or for LIFE!  I felt better for the first month or so, but then, just as I had suspected, medicating didn't get to the root of the problem, but rather masked symptoms, and my symptoms started coming back.  Not ALL of them, but most of them.

I just kept having this thought that it was a nutrition issue.  Was something I was eating, not eating, etc., causing a lot of my symptoms?

I looked into the gluten thing.  I mean I had something crazy like 14 symptoms associated with gluten intolerance, and so many people seem to be sensitive to wheat, right?  It was worth a shot.  But after trying to go gluten-free for a couple of weeks, I didn't feel any better.

I really wasn't feeling depressed.  I was anxious.  Stressed out to the point that my back was tense ALL the time.  Constant loud noise just sent me through the roof, and with 3 kids noise is inevitable.  Too much going on at once, like during school-time when I was trying to teach Bella and the boys were occupied (but still moving, wiggling, or talking), were the absolute worst times.  I just couldn't handle it.

My time with Jesus- fabulous.  I feel closer to The Lord than I ever have.  Getting into the Word.  Doing prayer-walks, journaling, writing songs, and really the most constant communication I have had with Him, ever.  Actually being able to hear those still small whispers as if they were screams, at times.

I'll admit that I haven't been running lately.  I know that's huge, but seriously.  Anyone that has 3 kids and is a night owl that doesn't like to run at night, and can't get her butt out of bed any earlier...if you are able to find a way to fit it in with little ones and homeschool...along with everything else, then by all means, PLEASE share your wealth of knowledge as to how you fit it in :)

The other thing that I have thought about is that this is the first place I have lived since I started college that I haven't been a part of a small group, or had a close-knit circle of girlfriends.  I have a few girlfriends that I know from all different places, and we also have a home church.  I usually get together (via play dates) with one of my girls every week.  But one-on-one time with these ladies has been rare, if at all.  I am so thankful for carpooling to BSF with my friend, Dani.  That 45-minute drive has been such a blessing, kids in tow and all :)

I won't always be surrounded with community.  And sometimes, even when I am, I go through times of loneliness.  But honestly, right now, I don't feel lonely.  I really think that this is one of those times that God has been teaching me that He is enough.  I can only truly be satisfied in Him anyway.  Friends, fellowship, and true community are amazing Blessings, but we won't always be in a time of plenty, and wealth has many faces.  We always tend to think about money, but sometimes it's simply having a wealth of community.  Right now, my wealth is communion with The Lord. 

Jamie is a new friend of mine.  I met her at church, when she and her family moved back to Granbury from doing missions in Germany.  She is homeschooling her daughter, Victoria, who is Bella's age, and has become Bella's BFF.  She and I seem to be very like-minded, always looking for the most natural way to do things.  Talking to Jamie about the past 3 years, she just kept saying "You need to go see Barbara."

Barbara is a classic Homeopath, meaning she practices Homeopathy, or natural healing.  It's not weird.  It's actually quite logical.  Most MDs will look at the symptoms, and when you have a lot of different types of symptoms, they tend to think they are separate things.  Homeopathy looks at the whole person- physical symptoms, emotional symptoms, life events, etc., and they try to get to the root of the problem, and find how the symptoms are somehow connected.  A Homeopath will spend hours pouring over one case, trying to fit all the pieces together.

Barbara is not only a Homeopath, but she also has a background in psychology and nutrition as well.  And she at least believes that God is the Creator, based on our conversation.

She took one look at my symptoms, and said immediately that I had a lot of vitamin deficiencies.

As we dug deeper and got into medical history, life events, diet, etc., she just kept taking notes...and kept shaking her head.  Like she was saying,"this poor girl is so messed up..."

3 years ago, my labor with Balian was pretty traumatic.  Induced with Pitocin, without pain meds. They broke my water.  Fast delivery without pushing. Cord wrapped around his neck.  Body went into shock after.  Had to give me a shot to stop me from hemmoraging.  Insane, really.  For those that don't know labors otherwise, this really isn't normal.  It isn't natural.  My body rebelled.

Because of losing a lot of blood, I became deficient in vitamins and minerals necessary to deal with stress.  Add to that, not only the stress of the labor, and adjusting to a new baby, but also getting out of the Navy, moving twice in 2 months and ending up halfway across the country, the unexpected future because of Neil not having a job lined up yet, finding a home...and you get the picture.  I just couldn't handle it all.

My deficiencies continued.

The ironic part is that Barbara said that I was showing a lot of B-vitamin deficiencies, and my blood work, via the MD, came back normal, and my B12 looked amazing on paper.  Barbara explained to me that it can take up to 30 years for b-vitamin deficiencies to show up in blood work, because the body takes from vitamin stores...meaning the skin, the gums and teeth...other places in the body that need those vitamins as well (think pregnancy gengivitis, for example).  So...when symptoms show up, it is the body's way of saying it needs more nutrients.

Then, we went on a vegan diet.  Healthiest thing you can do, right?  Apparently not.  

I not only left that appointment with 3 raw vitamin supplements (you don't want to know what's in them), and a homeopathic remedy, but I also received a very different lesson on nutrition than what I have ever been taught.

When you hear "if you don't do anything else, please eat coconut oil and REAL, full-fat butter", you kinda do a double-take.

Barbara recommended that Neil and I read this book:

Interesting, huh?

Raw milk.  Culturing your own milk. Soaking flour before using it.  Sprouting grains.  Grass-fed cows.  Organic free-range eggs.  No chocolate.  Only (true) natural sweeteners.  Nothing processed.

And I thought cooking would get easier...

Pretty much the book takes nutrition back to the way that cultures have eaten traditionally, forever.

It goes so much more in depth than I have ever read about nutrition.  And that says a lot.  I've read a lot.

We typically hear that animal fats cause blocked arteries.  But we never hear that the reason behind it is not the animal products themselves, but rather the processing of them, or the way that animals are raised.

In brief, if we just consume things the proper way, the natural way that God created them, and stop mucking everything up, we would all be much, much healthier.

Not just in the way things are processed, but even the processes we use to do our cooking.

Pretty eye-opening.

But so far, I'm feeling pretty good because of the supplements, and hopefully changing my diet will help keep me from being deficient in the vitamins I need.

When I have "accidentally" forgotten to take my Rx, I've felt better, and had much better days than when I have taken it, if that says anything.

Only time will tell.

In the meantime...I've got a quart of pure cream sitting on the counter so it will sour...so I can turn it into butter and buttermilk in the morning.  Butter to cook with, and buttermilk to soak my flour in so my body digests it more easily.

Food for thought, huh?

I'd love to see your comments on this one ;)

What I'm Reading Now: The Engine 2 Diet

I know.  It sounds like every other diet plan out there.  But it isn't.

Those of you that know me know that I am NOT a dieter.  I am all about health as a way of life.  The more natural, the better.  I've always been a fan of preventing or dealing with sickness with diet as much as possible.  I want to know how to get rid of a physical ailment without taking medicine.  The holistic approach.  

This is the ultimate in holistic medicine.

Whole foods, plant-based awesomeness is contained in these pages.  

It's written by the son of Dr. Esselstyn, the doctor who has done a TON of research on the affects of the American diet and disease - as well as the opposite - a whole-foods, plant-based diet and the affects on preventing AND (in some cases) REVERSING disease.  Heart disease.  Diabetes.  Stroke.  Alzheimers.  Cancer.  Erectile dysfunction.  High blood pressure.  High cholesterol.  Arthritis.  Osteoporosis. 

Just to name a few...

This book tackles it all in laymen's terms.

Rip Esselstyn is a tri-athlete and a Firefighter - hence the name of the book.  There's lots of firefighter and triathlon race stories.  

There is a special section on dispelling the myths associated with whole food, plant-based eating.

Protein.  Oils.  Omega 3s.  Being satisfied.  Nutrient deficiencies. 

No meat (not even fish).  No animal by-products (gasp!  no milk, cheese, eggs, yogurt, butter, etc.).  No processed foods (like "vegan" processed meat substitutes).  No oils (not even olive oil).  No refined sugar.  No simple starches (vs. complex - like Whole wheat, oat, etc.) 

We aren't there yet.  Our refrigerator is still loaded with milk and yogurt and cheese...and I just bought a huge thing of Extra Virgin Olive Oil...

but we're learning.

The more we learn, the more grossed out we get with the way we (and everyone else in America) is eating.

And it's especially making us conscious of what we're feeding our kids. 

The last part of the book has actual recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so that you can put it into practice.

It's a lot easier than it sounds, and there are more and more cookbooks coming out that are not just "Vegan" but whole food, plant-based, because really, vegan isn't good enough...Vegans typically still eat a lot of processed foods and a lot of oils...so a lot of vegans are still unhealthy.

For more on whole food, plant-based eating, watch Forks Over Knives (the research), and Forks Over Knives presents: The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue (application).  

The more we read, the more sold we are on this as a way of life for prevention, and reversal of whatever in lurking in our bodies at the moment (ahem...IBS, acne, eczema, and who knows what blockage or free radicals...).

Once we're on the other side, I'll tell you all about it. 

For now, I'll keep reading and learning, so that I'm motivated to never buy butter or yogurt again!

Or maybe even re-lactate so that Isaiah can get human milk awesomeness (vs. cow milk) for another year...

Who knows.

You already think I'm crazy.  Why not be just plain weird? :)

10 Months Already?

I'm wanting to push the stop button, or at least the pause button.  My baby is getting so big so fast and I'm left wondering where the time has gone.

I weighed Isaiah the other day with his clothes on, and he was about 16.5 lbs.  So probably more like 16 is accurate.  He's our petite one, for sure.


We are still successfully breastfeeding, although I'm starting to re-evaluate the word "successful".  For a while there, I thought we were going to have to stop nursing all-together, because Isaiah is just so curious about EVERYTHING going on around him.  Nurse for 2 seconds, off for 5 minutes.  Nurse until I have a let-down, then immediately come off  to look at something, and get sprayed in the face with milk.  He gets distracted by the smallest, most insignificant things.  A noise.  A toy he sees.  The phone or TV remote catches his eye.  Daddy is somewhere in the room, he just knows it!  He comes off to flirt.  He comes off to play.  It's definitely been a battle the past couple of months.  This month, it's gotten a bit better, but we had to throw nursing in public (or around other people) out the window.  For those situations I have to pump and give him a sippy cup.  Otherwise, I'd be flashing everyone around me about a million times in one feeding, or he would be too distracted to eat at all.  Heck, we have that problem at home sometimes!  So the pump has become a very close friend of mine.

Isaiah is definitely loving table food right now.  I've been giving him some finger foods, but I'm also using the food mill more than I have for either of the other kids.  I love it!  He's eating a lot of the same things that we are now, which makes preparing food for him a snap!

His favorite foods right now: meat sticks, yogurt, bread, crackers, applesauce...but he really eats anything we give him.

Isaiah is still taking his time in the movement department.  He is on the floor playing ALL the TIME.  We don't put him in a jumper, walker, or any other contraption, and yet...He still isn't crawling on all fours.  He does his scooting version of the Army crawl.  I noticed today that he totally has the crawling down except for his left knee.  If I help him move his left leg, he does the rest himself.  Maybe something is out of line?  He's getting on hands and knees and rocking, moving into a sitting position, and even trying to pull up on things (only successful on his knees at this point.  No pulling to a stand yet, although he's trying).  He likes to stand and hold on to things, like his play-table and the ottoman in the living room, but we definitely have to be right behind him, because he isn't very steady on his feet yet.  It'll all happen in time.  Right now I'm kinda glad that he's taking it slow...more time to cuddle with mama instead of running away :)

In other milestones, Isaiah has reached the point of loving books for other reasons than eating them.  He actually looks at the pictures, touches the textures, and gets excited about book time.  He loves turning the pages as well.  And he loves turning off lights now.  Before naps and bed I let him turn his light off before putting him down in his bed.  Makes him happy.



And speaking of bed, Isaiah has a new thing with sitting up in his crib, taking out his binky, and throwing it over the side and onto the floor.  Sometimes it isn't a problem, but sometimes I'm wondering why it's taking him more than his usual 5 minutes to fall asleep...turning into like an hour...I'll go in and yes - he's done it again.

Isaiah officially has 4 teeth now.  He just cut his top two teeth at the same time, and you would never have guessed it, thanks to a Baltic Amber teething necklace.  The day before we got it, Isaiah was starting to get pretty fussy.  I put that necklace on him, and within a couple of hours he was back to himself.  seriously.  I never took it off, and you never would have thought he was cutting 2 teeth.  no fussing, no nothing, except a bit of drooling.  Amazing!

What I love most about Isaiah:
1. His beautiful eyes.  He has the longest eyelashes of any of the kids, and his eyes are brown and blue.  They are brown in the middle and blue around the edges.  All the time.  Just beautiful.  I've never seen anything like it.
2. His smile.  It takes up so much of his petite face.  I love it.
3. He is a happy, go-with-the-flow baby with a no-quit attitude.  Happy, persistent, and patient.  That's hard to find.

36 weeks (part 2)

Not the best "Belly" picture...but a picture nonetheless...I've pretty much had to take all of them myself...I'm running out of ideas.



So Tuesday, I had another midwife appointment.
* I gained about 2 lbs. Same scale.  different floor.  My weight has been going up and down for like a month now...I don't think I've really had consistent weight-gain in a while.  o-well...
* My GBS test came back NEGATIVE!!  yeah!!  It's the first time that's ever happened.  So, I have to keep taking my probiotics to keep it that way, so we don't have to worry about doing anything special during labor.
* I'm slightly anemic (like, just under the border-line), so they put me on another herbal supplement called Floradix herbs + iron - a liquid all-natural supplement that doesn't have the constipation side-affects that most iron supplements have.

It's kinda crazy.  I feel like I'm taking more stuff being pregnant than I ever do NOT pregnant.  No medicines, so to speak...everything is all-natural, but for real - it's kinda hard to keep up with it all.
Breakfast - iron supplement, prenatal vitamins, 5-week formula
lunch - 5-week formula
Dinner - iron supplement, 5-week formula, pro-biotics.
But hey - if it is going to make me and my baby healthier for labor and delivery, I'm all for it.

* I had an exam to check for dilation....and I'm already at 3cm and 70% effaced.  Usually at this point I MIGHT be about 1cm (if that), and effaced about 25%.  Apparently, the 5-week formula is doing it's job to get my body ready for labor.  One thing it supposedly does is aide in dilation before labor starts so that labor itself is easier.  It also says it brings the body into balance - so people with longer labors have shorter ones, and those who have really short labors have more average-length ones.  I'm a little worried how fast this labor will be if I'm dilating more before-hand though.  We'll just have to see.
And I know that this doesn't mean labor could happen tomorrow.  I could be walking around like this (or even more progressed) for weeks before labor starts.  Again, we'll just have to see what happens.

* In the meantime, I've been having a LOT of Braxton-Hicks contractions, that are apparently doing something... and I've been having a lot of back pain too.  I saw the pregnancy chiropractor Tuesday as well, and she aligned my back, hips, pelvic bone, neck - the works.  She also used pressure points on my sinuses to help open them up so I can breathe more easily - and my nose was running like crazy on the drive home!  She did the same for Bella's sinuses, and gave Bella and Balian "mini" adjustments.  Bella has been fighting a cold, and not only did her sinuses need help, but her neck and back were a little bit out because of coughing a lot.  so interesting...Bella seems to be feeling much better today though - I don't think I've heard her cough once.  Oh, and just FYI, here's a list of some homeopathic decongestants that she told me about:
1. Put Apple Cider Vinegar in a humidifier.  smells bad, but she says it works great.
2. Onion.  French Onion Soup, or boil an onion for a couple hours, then take 1-2 tsp. of the juice every couple of hours.
3. Peppermint.  Pretty much just keep the Altoids coming, drink peppermint tea, or put some peppermint oil on your chest to breathe it throughout the day.
4. Xclear - an all-natural nasal spray that has Xilotol, saline, and grapefruit seed extract in it.  Tastes sweet if it goes down your throat, and you can use it as many times as you want throughout the day.  I've actually used this before, and I do like it - it just doesn't really work when you reach sinus infection status.
5. of course, there's the Netti Pot, but I'm kinda hesitant to try it out right now, simply because my gag reflex is so bad right now...maybe after the baby is here, if I still need it...

I think that's it for now....

27 weeks

I can't believe I'm 27 weeks already! Time is flying by so quickly!

I had an appointment with the midwife today, and everything looks good.

* I actually gained about 5 lbs.

* I'm not measuring large anymore...I'm right on track.

* The baby appears to be head-down

Now I start going every 2 weeks for prenatal visits.

I had some discomfort last week because the baby was trying to continue to lie transverse (sideways) but was running out of room! luckily it only lasted for about a day before it decided to change positions :)

And speaking of baby positioning - I checked out a book from the birth center about how to tell what position the baby is in. it's called "The Belly Mapping Workbook: How kicks and wiggles reveal your baby's position" by Gail Tully. I'm excited to get into it.

Now, the biggest thing is getting rid of this stubborn head-cold that I've had for about 3 weeks. I haven't been able to run because of it (running with a cold just makes it worse for me). The midwife suggested I get on some pro-biotics (grapefruit seed extract, etc.) to build up my immune system. Hopefully it works. My go-to stuff (Claritin-D) just isn't cutting it this time. so sad.