So let’s just jump right in. Having my daughter in early 2015 really kicked off my journey to find a healthier lifestyle. After some fertility issues, my husband and I took some time to get healthier before we decided to try to start a family again. Once we were pregnant with our daughter, I knew I wanted a homebirth. My pregnancy with her was so amazing and I had never felt better. My due date came and went, but I wasn’t real concerned, just ready to meet her. Finally after we passed the period of time where our midwife was comfortable to catch our baby at home, we needed to get induced at the hospital. That was a pretty intense experience, but I learned so much through it. (Mainly, things do not always go as planned, and you have to learn to adapt to your new circumstances.) Oh, and has that been a theme with Miss Rowan!
Just before her second birthday, Rowan started having blood in her stool. After about three weeks of back-and-forth with her pediatrician, we were referred to a GI specialist and ended up in the hospital for a full week. My sweet girl spent her second birthday in the hospital, and after tons of blood draws and tests, eliminating all sorts of possibilities, she got a colonoscopy and a diagnosis: Very Early Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Ulcerative Colitis. My freshly two year old daughter has ULCERATIVE COLITIS?! A lifelong disease?! After getting the diagnosis and an in depth explanation of the disease and typical medications, we were sent home. Relieved to be out of the hospital and headed home, we were still in shock of what was going on. Our perfectly healthy two year old daughter has a chronic illness.
About a month in she had her first flare-up, which meant a trip to the ER, more bloodwork, and another round of steroids. Once her first flare-up was under control, she was doing well. Then pretty soon, her bowel movements upped in frequency again. Once she woke up in the middle of the night to poop, that was the last straw for me. The next step in her medications were immunosuppressive drugs and I REALLY was not ready for that! I called her nutritionist the next morning to get a game plan to change her diet. She was not super helpful or encouraging, unfortunately. But I went with my gut and found a diet that we jumped into with full force. We also added probiotics to her diet and have had so much success with this! (More details on her diet later!) By changing her diet and researching like crazy, I was taking my daughter’s health into my own hands. It is empowering and scary at the same time.
“With autoimmune disease, the power to turn your life around rests not with your doctor, not with a pharmacist, not in a bottle of pills, but in your own hands. That’s scary, but incredibly empowering.”
—Dr. Terry Wahls
The more I am learning, the more I am determined to heal my daughter naturally as much as possible and hoping to not rely on modern medication as much. Seeing her thrive just with diet change and adding a few supplements to her regimen has drove me into researching how food affects the body. This has led my husband and me to change our diet, in order to get healthier ourselves, but also to make it easier when cooking meals. Now that we are all basically eating the same types of food, rather than making separate meals for ourselves and for our daughter (and now for our son!), life got a lot less complicated.
So far this experience has changed the way we think about our food. We have been pretty healthy people for the past few years, but this has just really ignited my passion for food as medicine and opened the door on taking charge of my family’s health. I am now determined to be an advocate for my children in even more ways than before, and determined to get my husband and myself in the healthiest state we can be to enjoy this time with our children. I will keep you updated on Rowan’s story, which I foresee being amazing and successful!
Camp Finley 