In all of this, I keep reminding myself to keep a level head and that allergies are pretty rare, and even if he has a food allergy he will most likely outgrow it. Plus he is obviously thriving, so I don't have to worry about that! I am just really hoping that the results of this elimination diet are conclusive and we feel like we get a good "yes, he has allergies" or "no, he doesn't have food allergies." Believe me, I will have a bunch of questions for his 6 month appointment!!

It is a little high maintenance to think about everything I put in my mouth, and I certainly miss bread (wheat is out for now!), but really this diet is healthy if a little limited. I mean, anything that has me snacking on salads and sweet potatoes instead of chocolate can't be bad for me! I have had to cut out all processed foods, another healthy step. My guess is that if he has another allergy besides dairy it will be soy since I increased my soy intake when I cut out dairy and I think that might be when his congestion started.

In the middle of all this, Truett got a cold!!! So now I am just sticking to the diet and waiting out his cold so we can tell if his "regular" congestion is better. I felt like his breathing was better right before he got the cold so I am cautiously optimistic. Monday was 2 weeks for me on the diet, and tomorrow will be two weeks for him (I had to send milk with him to school for the first couple of days that I pumped before I started the diet), so hopefully he will get over his cold soon and we can get some answers! We stopped rice cereal while we are figuring all this out, but we might start cereal again soon, and then maybe some other low allergen foods like sweet potatoes, or millet, or squash.

The other major nursing concern was that right after I started the diet my supply dropped suddenly, and I got to the point one night where I did not have enough milk to send with him the next day, even though I had pumped two extra times that day. I didn't know what to do, I have a bunch of frozen milk but with being on the diet I didn't know whether to send milk containing a possible allergen and set us back on figuring out about all of that, or get a hypoallergenic formula. We decided to get the formula, since I was planning to use formula to thin his food anyway, so we will use it one way or the other, but I got really sad and was worried that this was the beginning of the end for nursing. I had been wondering if I would get to a point where I decided that the hassle of pumping was not worth the health benefits and enjoyment we both get from nursing, and this "scare" showed me that I am not emotionally ready to be done with nursing. I ended up being able to pump enough the next morning to send to school and we haven't used the formula yet, and after drinking tons of water, fenugreek tea, and nursing as much as I can get him to nurse, my supply is almost back to normal. Besides all of those things, I am also trying to remind myself that God is in control, not me, and that he will take care of me and my baby and that I should give thanks every day for nursing going well that day. (I would like to put in a little disclaimer here, I do not think formula is a bad choice, lots of things can make it the right choice, I think think you have to make the decision that is the best one for your family at the time. For us right now, that is still nursing but we might move to formula at some point if nursing is no longer working for our family before his 1st birthday).

I also keep trying to remind myself that these nursing issues that seem so huge right now, will probably seem like distant memories this time next year.

I know I have written a long, long post and my 2 readers have probably already quit by this point, but here is one (sorta) funny story: We have communion every Sunday at our church, and we walk up front where we tear off a piece of bread from a loaf and dip it into either the grape juice or wine. Anyway, I went through the whole process this past Sunday, and I was back in my seat in the act of raising the piece of bread to my mouth when it hit me that I can't eat bread right now! So then I was faced with the dilemma of what to do with the communion bread, I mean, can you throw away communion bread?!?! I ended up slipping it to Chris and asking him to eat it, but that seemed weird too. I am not sure what else I could have done though.

As awesome as the trip was though, after almost a full week back at home I still don't feel like we have totally recovered. There is still a suitcase waiting to be unpacked (it is full of all the projects I brought with me, foolishly thinking I would have time to work on them) and we still have laundry to do from our vacation. Truett is down to wearing the Christmas bibs, always a sign that we are behind on laundry! Traveling with a baby is certainly different than traveling with just the 2 of us, but it was a fun trip and definately worth it.

I still have flickr pictures to upload from the trip, I am slowly working through them.

Have a great weekend!

Also, we had a couple outfits when he was smaller that buttoned up the back, another no no for baby clothes! Also, if your baby has a big head like ours does (99% in head circumference), shirts with a round neck should also be avoided. They either need to unbutton, fasten in the front or have laped shoulders like a onesie.

And at the end of the day, he prefers wearing no clothes. He gets so excited and grins like crazy whenever we take his clothes off. Crazy baby!

On a side note, one plus size of having him in day care is that I go days (sometimes a whole week) without changing a poopy diaper. He tends to have only one a day, sometime in the middle of the day (that might be more info than you were interested in hearing!), and twice this week has had a huge blow out at day care involving a change in clothing. I am pretty sure he gets his clothes changed more than any other baby in his room.

For the last couple of weeks or so (not counting Monday night!) he has been sleeping for at least 6 hours at a stretch at night and sometimes as long as 8 hours. I am soooooooo thankful that he is such a good sleeper, especially since I am going back to work in just over a week. I am not taking any credit for his sleeping habits, just feeling very blessed. Tonight is the first night we are trying to put him down in his crib by himself in his own room. Up until now, he has been sleeping his Amby Baby bed and I LOVE it, but we will have to change to the crib in the next couple of months and I would rather do it now while I can still take naps during the day, just in case we have some rough nights.

In other baby news (I will have other things to talk about someday-right now my life is pretty much focused on him) I have had to give up dairy because it was giving him gas. We were at that point that we were giving him milacon a few times a day, and gas was waking him up at night so when a friend suggested I try avoiding dairy I decided it was worth a try and cut it out for several days. Then one day last week I had two pieces of pizza for lunch and I was up with him in the middle of the night because he had gas. That taught me my lesson! I am not 100% dairy free, I still have margarine on my toast (which has dairy in it) and I eat baked goods that contain dairy, but these things don't seem to bother him. We are now pretty much gas free, and an unexpected side benefit is that his umbilical hernia seems way flatter now that he isn't straining all the time.

My big, exciting news for this morning is that Truett slept for 8 hours last night!!! He fussed once and I had to resettle him, but other than that he slept from about 8:30 last night to about 4:30 this morning. Whoo Hoo! What a way to celebrate his 2 month birthday. It was also nice to get the extra sleep since I have a cold and feel like crap. It also totally makes up for the 3 very interrupted nights we had this week while we were at my grandma's house.

I didn't intend for this to be a pity part entry, I wanted to document some of what he is doing at one month old-for my self and for any friends and family that might be interested. I have heard so many people tell me how quickly you forget these things so I want to try to record some of it. It is crazy how much difference a month makes . I am demand feeding, and while we are certainly not on any kind of schedule yet, I can see his sleeping and eating falling into more regular cycles. He generally goes 3-4 hours between feedings at night and usually sleeps pretty well between feedings (I think we ended up with a pretty easy baby!). During the day he takes 2 or 3 long naps usually, but his eating is really unpredictable during the day. He sometimes will eat 3 times an hour apart and sometimes go much longer. I am pretty sure he is getting enough food though- we weighed him this past weekend and he was 11 pounds! Today I noticed that he is getting elbow dimples, and rolls in this thighs and wrists. He likes his car seat as long at it is moving, either in the car or in a grocery cart, etc. and he seems to like being carried in a sling as well. We have seen smiles for a couple of weeks now, but they are still pretty rare. Truett has really strong neck muscles, he can hold his head away from your shoulder for several seconds when you hold him, and can pick up his head and turn it over to lay facing the other way when he is on his tummy. Today I laid him down on a play gym on the floor and the next time I looked at him he had rolled all the way onto his side. I know it was just a fluke, that he was writhing around and somehow got enough momentum to roll part way over, but I was surprised that he was strong enough for that! He hates pooping and gets really mad about it, he grunts and cries the whole time he is trying to poop. He also is pretty sensitive about being in a dirty diaper, he gets very fussy until you change him. He is generally pretty content though, and when he is fussy and crying it is usually because something is wrong. It is only in the last couple of days that he has had any tears when he cries, up until now his crying has been totally dry eyed. We have given him bottles of milk a couple of times, he seems to switch between nursing and drinking from a bottle just find-which will make the transition easier when I go back to work. I don't enjoy pumping, but it isn't as bad as I thought it might be. His hair is wavy and is usually pretty crazy looking, sticking up on the top and growing into a mullet on the back. I still think he favors Chris, but after looking at his baby pictures this past weekend to compare, I can see more of me and my family in there-at least in his hair line and mouth and maybe his build (although it is kind of early to tell what his build is going to be).

We took him to North Carolina this past weekend so that his grandparents could get see him and also so that he could meet his great grandma Muriel and his Uncle Nathan. He traveled really well, sleeping most of the drive and didn't seem to notice he was in a different place. This trip means that he has now been in 3 states (Georgia, of course, South Carolina and North Carolina). The Goseys spent the weekend "fighting" over him and arguing about who got to hold him next and who would get to change his clothes, or his diaper or give him a bath. It was a good weekend, and we ate lots of yummy food.

I can't believe Truett is 3 weeks old now! It seems like it hasn't been that long and it seems like it has been way longer all at the same time. I think we have been very blessed with a content baby so far. He has his fussy moments but we haven't had to walk the floor with him at night or anything. He is sleeping really well at night for a newborn, 3 or 4 hours at a stretch sometimes. We had a several fussy nights that I was blaming on something I ate (I was trying to figure out if it was tomatoes, beans or onions) but we figured out that he just needed to be burped way more during the day-more on that later. Nursing is going really well too, we are still learning and figuring it out, but he is a really good eater and the whole process has been a lot easier than I was expecting. Every day I feel like I notice something new, he is focusing on objects more, his movements are becoming less jerky and I am pretty sure we have seen a few real smiles in the last couple of days. It is amazing how he is already his own little person with his own personality.

We stopped at Chick-fil-a for some food on our way to the hospital since I knew they wouldn't want me to eat once I checked in. Hunger was one of my biggest complaints during the early stages. I started the Pitocin at 3 pm on Saturday and had contractions all day. They were harder than the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been having, but they weren't super intense. Chris and I spent the day hanging out in the hospital room, reading, listening to music and watching TV. (On a slightly cheesy note-we watched most of Shrek, which was also the movie we saw on our first real date (ok, that was really cheesy)). At 1:30 am the midwife decided that my body and I needed a break from the Pitocin and she turned it off to let me try to get some sleep. I was a little frustrated that we weren't making any progress and I wanted to keep going, but she was encouraging and told me that sometimes a little rest after a day of Pitocin would be enough to let me relax and get things moving along. We sort of dozed (as much as you can when you are in an uncomfortable bed with things strapped to you taking your blood pressure every 15 minutes and the alarm on the fetal monitor going off every time the baby changed positions and it couldn't sense the heartbeat as strongly). We started the day with the Pitocin at 2 ml and ended at 14 ml. The next morning we started it again at 6 am, starting at 2 ml. Immediately the contractions were harder than anything I had felt the previous day and I thought that was a great sign. In the meantime there was a shift change and we had a different midwife, both of the two midwives we had were my two favorite at the practice, so I was fortunate in that. However at 9:45 the 2nd midwife checked me and I was only at 1 cm, which was actually less than the midwife the day before had told me in the afternoon. I don't know if you can go backwards, or if it is just such a subjective measurement that you can't have any consistency, but the news that we had made no progress at all in the past 18 hours was so discouraging and I broke down at this point. I was so tired and so hungry and thought that a C-section was inevitable and felt like my body was broken in some way since it wasn't going into labor. The midwife brought in one of the doctors from the practice and he decided that breaking my water might move things along, something I had wanted to avoid since the baby is more protected from germs before the water breaks, but at this point I felt like we we should try whatever might work. He broke my water at 10:30am and right away the contractions got pretty intense. At 1 pm the midwife checked me again and said I was at 3 cm and definitely in active labor, all of which was good news. I was still just trying to relax through the contractions and trying to move around and change positions as much as possible while hooked up to an IV, sitting on an exercise ball worked for awhile but eventually I was just too tired. By 2 pm I was falling asleep between contractions, which meant that I would wake up after they had already started and I couldn't stay on top of the pain. They were also getting more and more intense. When the midwife checked again and I was only at 2.5 cm and realized I had only moved along .5 cm in an hour, I asked for an epidural. The time between deciding I wanted the epidural and actually getting it was pretty hard, but the anesthesiologist came and it was not bad at all. Going into this process I think I was more scared of the epidural than the labor-the idea of a huge needle in my spine freaked me out. I got the epidural at 3, and was able to doze off for a while. I never completely lost sensation, I could still feel pressure on the hardest contractions and was able to wiggle my feet and toes. By shortly after 6 pm I was at 10 cm. I think that the epidural is what made the difference, and helped everything move along much faster. I started pushing at 7pm and he was born right at 8pm on Dec. 30th. We were laughing afterwards because we went against pretty much everything on our birth plan, but I knew as soon as we agreed to the induction that we were headed down a different path than we originally planned, and I am totally fine with that. Going into it, we both felt that the pros of going drug free outweighed the cons as long as the baby was fine and I could deal with the pain, but we also agreed that we would be fine with pain medicine if I felt like I needed it. I will probably try to go drug free with the next one, I still feel like the pros outweigh the cons, and maybe next time I will actually be able to go into labor on my own!