Diet update

We are still working our way through the food challenges.
Since my last post about the diet we have tested
* Goats milk
* Amines
* Nitrates

I think the goats milk had a mild reaction, but it just made her a bit spewy. So I'm not completely sure that it was the goats milk. But I hated the taste so much of the goats milk that I couldn't be bothered continuing the test.

The amines seemed OK, but again the test required eating 3 bananas a day and I don't like bananas. I'm now eating foods with amines but monitoring it carefully. I must admit there wasn't that much I could add that had amines but not Salicylates, so I'm not to worried about them.

In the last few days we have tested nitrates, this has meant eating bacon and ham. YAY!!! I've really missed these. Thankfully they don't seem to have reacted, but I'll keep monitoring for the next few days.

I'm not sure what I will test next, it will either be milk or soy. I'm thinking soy as I'm pretty sure the milk will react and we'll need a few days afterwards to recover.

Flavours in Breastmilk

I found this article very interesting. The fact that their research showed that it only takes at the most 8 hours for the taste to disappear is interesting in relation to Saana's response to food I've eaten.
When doing the food challenges I can always tell if there is a problem with the food within 12-18 hours. IF she hasn't reacted after 24 hours I can pretty much be assured that the food is not a problem for her.
I must admit I've always suspected that breastfeeding helps develop a babies tolerance to flavours. I also think that a broad diet while pregnant help to develop the babies tolerance to different foods, but I don't know how you would research that idea.

Diet update

I've lost track of exactly how long we've been doing the diet now. Miki has been very grateful for all the foods I cooked and froze before Saana was born, I don't think he would have coped on the diet. Each time he eats my food he comments how bland it is. But that's life.
We have tested several different foods
She no reaction to
• Wheat
• Yeast
• Eggs
Her nappy rash flares up if I have lots of yeast, but generally OK.

But last thursday I tested Salicylates and we knew about it by that night.
Over the day I ate
• 150gm of canned peaches
• 1 granny smith apple
• Pumpkin soup (cumin & onion)
• 150 ml of freshly squeezed apple juice
• Half a mango

Approximately 10 hours after first food was consumed she started to react. Our evening and night ran like this
• Noisy reflux sounds but very little vomit
• Started making her “I’m in pain” cry
• Would start to fall asleep then wake up with a jerk and start crying again
• The strong reflux occurred for her evening foods on the 10th and her overnight/morning feeds the next day.
• Her day feeds on the Friday still had reflux, but wasn’t as intense.
• Friday afternoon and Saturday she appeared to have colicky tummy pain
• On Friday her stools had blood in them
• By Saturday evening she was pretty much better.

So now I've accepted that for now I'm not eating anything with even moderate salicylates> After we have finished all the other food challenges I will test her tolerance levels.

Diet update

oday I had an appointment with a nutritions, after the MACH nurse recommended I see her to check that my diet is OK while on the elimination diet.
Well the nutritions suggested I go the whole hog and do the complete elimination diet recommended by the Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. I was pretty overwhelmed by it all when I left. The diet combined with what I have already eliminated doesn't leave me with that much to eat. As I was driving home I was sure I wasn't going to do it, but I've changed my mind now.
If I'm going to do this it is worth doing well. So now I'm learning all about Salicylates (I can't even say it yet), Amines and other natural food chemicals. I've found at lot of information and resources at Sue Dengates website. So we'll see how it goes.

Sling, Pappose or carrier

Hi. My name is Sally and I'm a sling-o-holic!

I now have 3 slings and I love them all. Let me tell you about them.

When I was pregnant my mum brought me a baba-sling.
I used this when Saana was very little and she could lie in it. She would often fall asleep while in it and it was so easy to get on and off while she was tiny. I must admit that as she became bigger it became uncomfortable to wear and she didn't seem to like it much either. I now keep it in the car for when I want to duck into a shop or something and I want at least one free hand.

Then my dad brought me an ergo. I think this one will be a favourite for a long time. It is great for walking and outside things. The only time it is not perfect is for around the home which brings me to my third sling.

I brought myself a hug-a-bub. This one is for around the home, while wearing Saana is the HAB I can cook, clean, deal with washing etc. I think this is Saana's favourite because she can face outwards and see everything that is going on. It took me awhile to get the hang of putting it on, but it gets easier pretty quickly.

Now I've written all this, I'm going to go and put Saana into the HAB because she is sik of playing on the foor or sitting in my lap.

sally

Diet & Breastfeeding

I have decided to do an elimination diet to try and see if what I'm eating is triggering Saana's reflux. Before her UTI and kidney infection were diagnosed I stopped eating anything with caffeine, including chocolate :( and tomatoes.
We've now cut out
* dairy
* wheat/gluten
* soy
* rye
* eggs
* Plus all the original things.
I'm planning to do this for at least 2 weeks and then I'll start testing foods.

feeling a bit better

Well 24 hours on and we are all feeling much better.
DD slept for 7 hours last night, I woke up with milk running every where but feeling much rested.
I tried the 2 hours between feeds and I do think it has helped a bit. I posted on the ABA forum and one girl made the suggestion that maybe I was over-stimulating her when I thought I was settling her. I had a thought about this and I think it might be right. Instead of doing lots of things I just held her tight on my chest while sitting in the rocker, she slowly stopped crying and went to sleep, that happened twice today.

My big realization today was how the 45mins sleep cycle works. Because I was tracking time for the 2 hourly feed breaks, I noticed that on her first sleep today she woke after a 45 min sleep.
On her 2nd sleep she stirred after 45 mins, but settled back to sleep, I suspect before I would have gone to her and she would have woken up. this happen twice and she ended up sleeping for 3 45 min cycles before waking for a feed.
I'm waiting with baited breath to see how it all goes tomorrow.

Breastfeeding & returning work

I'm breastfeeding at the moment and wondering what I'm going to do when I go back to work. On the whole I"m enjoying breastfeeding even though it has meant changing my diet.

The questions I'm asking myself are
* Will I try and express
* I'm trying to find out as much information about expressing as possible.
* Not sure if I should if i should buy an electric pump or just stick to my manual pump.
* How will I feel if expressing doesn't work

Baby discussions

This blog has been running around in my head for the last few days. Until I fell pregnant I was doing my gardening blog. The garden has been in standby mode now for nearly 12 months, I will get back to it, and the blog but for now I need to start writing about learning to be mum.
I find myself going to mothers group and generally talking to other mums and when I walk away I find I'm questioning what I'm doing with my beautiful daughter. I have always found writing a good way to sort my thoughts and if I blog then someone else might also gain a benefit. So for the moment this blog is going to have a baby focus as that is what is going on in my head.

I'm feeling lost

We had our 6-8 week check today, it was actually 9 weeks. I have had trouble getting Saana to sleep during the day if she has one short sleep usually between 10 mins and an hour in the day I"m happy. We have tried so many different things to try and get her to sleep and I really wanted some new ideas. The things we have tried are
* ergo
* holding her on our outdoor swing
* fit ball
* feeding to sleep, this works in the evening eventually
* bouncer
* baby swing

When I asked the nurse about this she suggested the following
* Not feeding again until 2 hours from the start of the last feed
* Putting DD into her cot while she is still awake (Both DH and I heartily disagree with this, it might work for some, but it just doesn't work for us. )

I don't really understand what the benefits might be of waiting 2 hours between feeds and it seems like such an arbitrary number.
I'm going to try it until Friday when I can go back, for one reason only. I think Saana might have reflux and the nurse indicated that babies become upset about 20 mins after a feed if they have reflux and if I actually record the time she stops feeding and wait I should be able to check if this is happening.

Mostly she is happy being held, but doesn't sleep and then get crankier & crankier over the day as she gets over tried, if she drifts off, she seems to wake as something hurts, sorry to off load here, but I'm feeling very hopeless & overwhelmed tonight.
I went for help and came away feeling worse.
Sally

OH and I think most of this advice stems from her wanting to stop me feeding her to sleep. I really don't think this is the problem I just want her to go to sleep in general.
This post feels really garbled, but I'm going to stop now before I start crying again.

Sick baby

Things have been a bit crazy here. 3 to 4 weeks ago Saana started to get cranky and crying lots. At first we thought it was just 3 week crying as we had been told by lots of people that babies change at 3 weeks. Then we thought it was colic, tried all the treatments suggested, even went to an osteopath.
It was the osteopath who insisted that we go to the doctors, he even rang my GP and got us an emergency appointment.
The GP thought everything was OK, but did a urine test as a precautionary method. The test came back sort of positive so we did 2nd test. That came back positive and last friday Saana ended up in hospital to have antibiotics through an IV. She was in hospital until Sunday afternoon and she is now home on oral antibiotics.
She now has to have an ultrasound to see if there is anything wrong with her kidneys.
I got to stay in hospital with her which meant I could keep breastfeeding.
While she is now on the mend I would not wish our experience on anybody. We sat in emergency for most of friday and I had to hold her down so they could take blood and put in the IV while she screamed the house down. I'm hoping the worst is over and the ultrasound doesn't show any problems with her kidneys. Because if they do, she will have to have a test done with a catheter.
She is on the mend now, the only time she cries now is when the antibiotics give her a tummy ache.

Birth of DD

Saana was born on the 4/3/08 by Caesarian because she was breech. Below is the account I wrote of her birth about week after she was born.

Mum dropped us off at the hospital at 11am and we went up to day surgery. We were quickly taken into the main section where we had to change into hospital clothes and scrubs. I got to wear paper undies, hospital gown and hospital dressing gown. Plus those special booties and hat. Miki had to put on the blue scrubs over his clothes and shoes etc. I wanted a photo, but he wouldn’t let me.
The doctor then sat and went through all our details and put the bands etc on my wrist.
We then had to wait in another waiting room until it was time for the surgery. I ended up sitting there until 1:45 in paper underwear.
At 1:45 they took us through to the “holding area� where I got put on a bed and they checked my paper work again. Miki had to stay there while they took me around to the theatre. I remember thinking he would never find me as we seemed to wind through about 100 corridors.
The anesthetist came and explained what would happen and I was then left in the theatre waiting room, while they finished the girl ahead of me and cleaned up the theatre. Finally I was wheeled into the theatre, I had to sit on the edge of the bed, curled over while an orderly or ward clerk (or someone similar, Sascha probably knows) held my shoulders so I couldn’t squirm or move. The anaesthetist then put in a local and then the spinal block. I was surprise how little it all hurt and I had no problem staying still for the spinal block ( I think it took two goes to get it in straight).
They then helped me line down and started to put in the other drips on left hand and the monitors on the right hand.
IT was then that they let Miki come into the theatre. And I must say I was really glad to see him, and he said the same. He said it was really hard waiting in the holding area not knowing what was happening.
They sat him down on a chair next to my head and he was allowed to hold my hand. They then started cutting, but I didn’t know that. I then started to feel sick, I founded out later that my blood pressure dropped and that combine with the pressure on my spine from the baby made me feel sick. I ended up throwing up (quite scary when you are flat on your back), but then I felt much better.
It was at about that point they were trying to get her out, but she kept pulling away and pushing her head up high into my chest. I could actually feel that and the dr told us what was happening.
The next thing miki said “She’s blue.� As he saw her feet as she was pulled out. But it turned out only her feet and hands were blue. They showed her to us over the curtain and then took her to be checked etc. Miki went with her and the midwife, but they stayed in the theatre.
While they stitched me up, they put Saana next to my head. I was too scared to move at first but the nurses helped me move both hands so I could touch her and almost hold her next to me. Then they gave her to Miki to hold for a while.
Once they were nearly finished stitching the midwife took Miki and Saana back to post-natal so they could weigh and measure her. They wheeled me to recovery and started setting up the next lot of drips and attaching a personal pain control thingy.
One of the nurses asked where my baby was and I said I hoped with my husband and she teased me about losing my baby already.
Then the midwife and Miki came back to recovery with Saana and she was put on my chest and I was encouraged to try and feed her. I don't remember if she actually feed, but it was a wonderful experience just lying there with my new daughter on my chest.

They then wheeled me to post-natal (Saana stayed on my chest the whole time). Once we got to post-natal she was put in the crib while they checked me and changed the sheets because I had bled all over the sheets. Miki went to make phone calls to family and send text messages.

My mum and Miki's parents came in that night to see us and have a hold of our precious daughter. I started to feel sick after everyone had left and before I knew it, I had thrown up in the bed and the nurses had to change the sheets again. I kept throwing up for the first half of the night and I know Miki was very torn between helping me and looking after Saana who kept crying every time I threw up. I had to feed Saana several times while I was sick and poor Miki was on standby to grab her when I needed to throw up. I finally started to feel better about midnight and we then settled down to have our first night together as a family. The room had a sofa bed for miki to sleep on, but I don't think it was very comfortable and he didn't have a pillow.

By the next morning I was feeling better and was allowed up to have a shower and get dressed in real clothes. After that I felt we really started our time as a family.