Part 4: A look at how I believe my changing diet with each pregnancy has affected my children and the pregnancies themselves. (pregnancy #4, baby due in May)

Well, I certainly meant for this post to go up a couple of weeks ago. It turns out trying to buy a house, getting ready for a move, taking care of kiddos and everything else under the sun that is going on has kept me away from blogging. I do believe that my posts may be pretty intermittent for a while, so bear with me as my family and I make some pretty big transitions in our lives. All our awesome, but all take time and there is only so much energy and only so many hours in a day. 

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This is the fourth part of this series. To read about my other pregnancies check out the links below.

Pregnancy 1

Pregnancy 2

Pregnancy 3

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Pregnancy, birth and the life that is brought forth into this world is amazing, scary, empowering, difficult and in the end a true learning experience, that is, if you want it to be.

I am over halfway through my fourth pregnancy and this one has been a journey all of it's own. I chose the route of learning from past experiences and applied that knowledge to this pregnancy. I've known since having my daughter that I truly desired to have a natural birth, without any tests and ultrasounds. I didn't want to be back in a doctor or midwife office feeling pressured to do things I wasn't comfortable with, nor feeling supported by my view points and research. So this time around I've chosen to go the route of having a home birth and seeing a certified professional midwife (CPM). This child, thus far has had about the most natural life that anyone can have, seeing as how we haven't so much as taken a pregnancy test, although the ever expanding belly and the regular kicks tells us our little one is growing healthy and strong!

Part 3: A look at how I believe my changing diet with each pregnancy has affected my children and the pregnancies themselves. (pregnancy #3)

This is the third post in this series.  To read about my other pregnancies check out the links below.

Pregnancy 1

Pregnancy 2

Pregnancy 3

Pregnancy 4

Pregnancy #3

My daughter who is almost 2

After my son was born I made some drastic changes in my diet. Falling in love with a brand new baby and realizing that they completely rely on you for everything and you are essentially the starting block for their health for the rest of their lives, can do that to you!

I started on the road to making my food from scratch and began spending a great deal of time researching nutrition. The Weston A. Price Foundation was a huge help in the beginning part of that journey. At the time they were one of the only organizations who stepped away from typical Western medicine and diet to look at how much our eating habits have changed over time and whether those changes have actually benefited us. I'd highly recommend reading up on Dr. Price and his research. While I think it's important to state that I do not adhere to all of the WAPF beliefs, it has been a very helpful guide. I also learned quite a bit from the book The Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin. An excellent read and to this day has caused me to evaluate my eating habits through the Word of God. The Bible has a lot to say about what is wise to eat and not. Some of the information involves the laws given to the Jews in the Old Testament. While in the New Testament Jesus did away with those laws, that doesn't mean there wasn't a truly good reason that God had the Jews eat in a certain way. They were known for their good health and strength. I don't believe God gives laws and rules just to make life difficult. Instead I think they are always because He knows what is best for us, as the truly perfect Father that He is. This pregnancy was the beginning of me recognizing that eating God's way, with food, made by Him and not altered by man through genetic modification, commercial processing, over planting causing for the need of pesticides, herbicides and so forth, was the way that would make my family and my body healthy and strong. It frankly came down to recognizing that God does know best and man doesn't.

Part 2: A look at how I believe my changing diet with each pregnancy has affected my children and the pregnancies themselves. (pregnancy #2)

Yesterday I shared part 1 of this little series. My first pregnancy was a miscarriage, but thankfully the pregnancies going forward have all been far better, but not without their bumps in the road. 

To read about my other pregnancies check out the links below.

Pregnancy 1

Pregnancy 2

Pregnancy 3

Pregnancy 4

Pregnancy #2

My son, who is now 4.

Feeling "huge" at about 4 months.

After having a miscarriage with my first pregnancy, I wasn't too concerned about getting pregnant again. If it happened, it happened. A part of me really wanted to be pregnant as I was trying to cope with the loss of our first child. Well surprise, surprise that little want was satisfied sooner than I would have thought... turns out about a month after miscarrying I found out I was pregnant again. I was pretty thrilled and headed back to the same doctors office that I had gone to for my first pregnancy. They were not quite as thrilled as I since I had been told to not get pregnant, but I didn't care.

This pregnancy turned out to be harder on me than I had thought it would be. I had a ton of cramping in my first trimester with my son and was overwhelmed with the feeling that I was going to lose him too. I remember sitting on the floor of where I worked bawling because the cramping was bad and knowing that there was nothing I could do. I was an emotional wreck and started wishing that I wasn't pregnant again because I was so stressed out about the whole thing. I was just coming back to walking with the Lord and was still not able to really put my trust and faith in Him to know that whatever happened I would be okay. Thankfully, since I now have a healthy four year old, the pregnancy progressed.

Around 10 - 12 weeks I went in to hear the heart beat. After about 10 minutes of trying the doctor couldn't find it. I tried to not panic. The doctor wanted me to have an ultrasound to make sure the baby was okay, but from the little I had heard about ultrasounds, I wanted to avoid having one if I could. So she grabbed another doctor and had her try and find the heart beat and low-and-behold after about a minute of trying we heard a healthy beat. Turns out the first doctor hadn't been pushing hard enough or searching in the right place (the second doctor showed the first what she was doing wrong). I'm glad another doctor had come in before I got sent to get an ultrasound. After hearing the heart beat I began to relax, especially as I headed into the second trimester.

Part 1: A look at how I believe my changing diet with each pregnancy has affected my children and the pregnancies themselves.

With this pregnancy in full swing, I am in nutrition mode, trying to continue to figure out and research the best diet for myself, the growing child in me, as well as, how to best feed my growing children. I'd like to share some history about my other pregnancies, because (in my opinion) I have seen direct correlations to me changing my diet and the outcomes of each pregnancy, birth and overall health of each child there after. I'm splitting it up into four segments, since this is my forth pregnancy.

Check out the things that have changed and the outcomes of each pregnancy and see if you think that food may have played a more vital role in my children than what most Western medicine obstetricians, pediatricians and nutritionist understand or share with us.

To read about my other pregnancies check out the links below.

Pregnancy 1

Pregnancy 2

Pregnancy 3

Pregnancy 4

Pregnancy #1

Miscarriage

As a mid 20 something I was living life to the fullest. My husband and I ate out regularly, enjoyed a very social life, stayed up to the wee hours of the morning and I drank to my heart's content. Drinking was my release point and my way of socializing. I was always far more relaxed after a drink or two. My eating habits were fairly terrible in comparison to today, although I did try to eat organic as much as I could. At this point in my life I never ate breakfast, for lunch I'd try to down a fruit smoothie from a nearby grocery store and for dinner I often ate a pasta dish of some sort accompanied by several glasses of wine. I was suffering from my eating habits. I often felt ill and shaky by mid morning from skipping breakfast, so the quick, easy solution was the fruit shake which would boost my sugar levels, except that I couldn't actually drink much before not feeling good again as my sugar levels would sky rocket (at the time I didn't know that I was struggling with hypo- and hyperglycemia.) I'd keep a protein bar in my purse or some nuts to snack on to get me to dinner. Pasta was always one of my favorites and I'd try to eat a "healthy" dinner, but I just didn't understand what my body was really telling me it needed.