And So It Begins...

Well today I start removing the top eight food allergens from my diet... I spent a couple hours last night researching some new recipes to try. Good news! I can eat oatmeal! Easy enough… I cooked up some oatmeal with dried cranberries for breakfast, it was simple and delicious. Ok, so that was easy.

Now, what do I eat the rest of the day? Thankfully I made a trip to Sunflower Market yesterday so I had some good produce to start with. I searched the internet for a good homemade dressing to try and I found a honey garlic vinaigrette on Allrecipes.com. I ended up cutting down the recipe to about 1/4 of how it's listed below just to make sure I didn't waste too much if I didn't like it. 

Honey Garlic Vinaigrette

1 c. olive oil

1/3 c. apple cider vinegar

3 Tbsp. honey

2 cloves garlic, minced

I threw some lettuce on a plate and topped it with shredded chicken (which I had previosuly cooked up in the slow cooker and froze), strawberries and dried cranberries. It was pretty tasty! The garlic in the dressing was a little different but over all not bad.

I can't resist putting up a picture of my little man today, isn't he adorable?! Hehe :)

 

Here We Go!

Hi, my name is Jen Kendall, mommy to a sweet little baby boy, Sawyer. He has been an amazing addition to our family and I quickly fell head over heels in love with him from the moment he was born! I’m writing this blog to document my journey in eliminating the top eight allergens from my diet, which include; dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish, to track down what Sawyer is allergic to.

Here’s a little background on why I'm chosing to take on this crazy challenge. My little guy’s entrance into the world on March 29 was not as we had expected, he was admitted into the NICU for trouble breathing just minutes after he was born. I was shocked, sad, angry… that wasn’t supposed to happen! But God was so gracious and after a week of care in the NICU we finally got to take him home!  Having him in the hospital for a week posed quite a few feeding challenges for us so I ended up pumping, bottle feeding and supplementing with formula. We noticed he was a super gassy baby but we just figured his gas was from the bottle feeding and the different formulas we were trying. After attempting to nurse several times over the next month I was finally able to get Saywer to latch and anticipated all his gassy problems would go away.

We saw some improvement over the next couple weeks, but he still seemed to be overly gassy, always farting and burping which was also interrupting his sleep. Then we started noticing small amounts of blood in his stools which definitely raised a concern. We had Sawyer’s pediatrician take a look at one of his dirty diapers at his appointment on May 30 and it tested positive for blood, an indication of an allergy. The pediatrician recommended trying to make some changes to my diet or try a hypoallergenic formula. I wasn’t thrilled about giving up nursing which took so long to finally get it down so he said to take out one thing at a time from my diet, starting with dairy. He said after three weeks, reintroduce the food and see if there is any reaction. I went home, did some research and also talked to another mom who is going through the same thing with her little one who is about Sawyer’s age. She took her son to a GI specialist and was told to eliminate the top eight allergens from her diet. It could take months to eliminate one thing at a time, so to get down to the bottom of this allergy problem I decided to cut out the top eight allergens as well.

Hope you enjoy my adventure as I figure out what healthy but delicious foods I can eat for the next few months! It’s going to be a challenge to cut out lots of the foods that have always been a regular part of my diet. After two months I plan to reintroduce these eight foods over time and find out what his body is negatively reacting to. I know it’s extreme, what am I thinking? Well, to be honest, it’s going to be tough but I’m determined to use what little cooking skills I have to help Sawyer become a healthy baby!