Announcing Murch Baby #4!

We are expecting our fourth baby, due October 15, 2015! After battling with my health for many months and often wondering if I'd ever be healthy enough to carry another baby, I am truly overcome with joy and gratitude that the Lord has restored my health and opened my womb once again. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

My bump on Friday--at 5 weeks, 1 day

The Back Story (which contains some details probably only ladies would be interested in):

As I have mentioned previously, I started struggling with my health in a major way about a year and a half ago when I started having gallbladder attacks. I spent many months with no energy and frequently in severe pain. I had a hard time keeping up with basic household duties and caring for my husband and children. I was the recipient of much help, and by God's mercy, and with the help of a wonderful doctor, I am doing SO much better (and I do still have my gallbladder!).

Throughout the months of dealing with my gallbladder, I was still nursing Joshua (I realize I could have stopped, but I really didn't want to--a discussion for another day!). I was eating a diet of little to no saturated fat for many months and I lost a tremendous amount of weight. I also hadn't had a menstrual cycle since January of 2012 when I got pregnant with Joshua. 

Joshua weaned in September of last year and I went right into GAPS Intro. I had been doing the full GAPS diet for about 6 months and still had lingering issues with my digestion. Doing that made all the difference for me. I was able to eat animals fats liberally and tolerate them well for the first time in over a year--beef, eggs, chicken with skin, ghee. I also added nuts back into my diet. Finished with the intro, I was feeling really good. I was eating plenty of fat, carbs, and protein and not having any pain in my gallbladder! I gained some weight back and eventually had a cycle again about 4 months after Joshua stopped nursing.

During the months of feeling really bad, I had prayed that the Lord would close my womb until I was healthy enough to be pregnant, and for the first time I really felt like I was healthy enough. I was mentally prepared for it to take a while to conceive since my body had been through so much and since it had been so long since I had a cycle, but I truly wanted to be pregnant.

A few weeks after my period, I started to have some pregnancy symptoms, but I brushed them off as other hormonal stuff since I didn't want to get my hopes up. I was super hungry and drinking a lot more water, among other things. I tested at 28 days and it was negative. Same at 29 and 32. Then on the afternoon of Day 35 (at church, after the service--a little bit impatient!) I took another test and almost immediately there were two pink lines!

I am so thankful for this sweet babe. I'm tired and hungry and already feeling a bit round, but truly, I am SO thankful. With my other children, I never had to wonder whether I'd be able to conceive again. I think going through what I went through with my health and then praying that the Lord would restore my fertility and praying that He would bless us with another child has given me a whole new level of gratitude for the privilege of carrying new life in my womb.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord,And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden...
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation." ~Luke 1:46-50

The Gallbladder Saga (and how I ended up on GAPS)

Back in September of last year, I had a gall bladder attack. The next day, my chiropractor referred me to a naturopath, I did the cleanse she recommended, started taking some digestive enzymes, and went along my merry way assuming all would be well. Until I had another attack...and another...and another...and so on. Though I did have some improvement in that my attacks were less frequent, less severe, and shorter, after experimenting with diet and supplements (and repeating the cleanse 5 times) and continuing to have attacks, my naturopath recommended that I visit a licensed doctor.

I knew a conventionally-minded MD would probably just want to remove my gallbladder and that wasn't the route I wanted to go unless a life-threatening emergency presented itself. Yes, attacks are very painful, in some ways more-so than unmedicated childbirth. But, I'm convinced that in most cases the gallbladder is not the underlying issue and removing it may (or may not!) help with symptoms, but you'll be left still with a very compromised digestive system, which it was gets you to the place of gallbladder attacks in the first place. After a lot of research and phone calls, I found a DO [what is an osteopathic doctor?] about an hour and a half from me who was able to fit me in the following week. That was in November.


Now it's March and I'm still not completely better, though I am doing much better than I was. I am eating some fat with every meal (olive oil and avocados) and after taking a close look at my diet while I kept my fat intake very consistent for a month, we finally figured out that it was the type of carbohydrates I was eating rather than the type of fats that trigger my symptoms. This was not something I had expected!

With that piece of information, we were able to conclude what I stated before: my gallbladder is not the problem, but rather a compromised and dysfunctional digestive system that can't digest more complex starches. Those starches, in turn, sit in my stomach so that when I eat fat, my body needs extra bile to digest it because all the enzymes are being used to digest the starches, and then my biliary system goes into panic mode and I have an attack.

So, what next?

Enter: The GAPS Diet.

At my doctor's encouragement, I officially started the GAPS Diet today. Because I'm still nursing, I'm skipping the introduction and going straight to full GAPS, which is basically a diet consisting of lots of meat stock, meat (in my case lean chicken and turkey for now), vegetables, fermented foods, and after the first few weeks, fruit and honey, and then eventually fermented dairy products. No grains, no sweet potatoes or potatoes, no sugar/sucanat/maple syrup/etc, no beans except for lentils and navy beans. For 1.5 to 2 years. Challenging? Yes. But worth it if it works.

I have a whole host of autoimmune diseases in my family, and the more research I do, the more firmly I believe that autoimmune issues begin in the gut. Hopefully in addition to taking care of the problem I've been dealing with over the past six months, this GAPS diet journey will help me to avoid those.

For the curious, I'm not planning to put my family on this diet for now. My husband absolutely does not want to do it, and my children aren't showing any real signs of needing it right now. Hopefully it says that way. Thankfully, while I enjoy really good food, I don't mind terribly much eating the same thing several days in a row, so I plan to stay sane while cooking two sets of meals by making myself large batches of things and eating them over and over again. 

I think I'll keep a journal of sorts on here about the process, largely for my own records, but also because I know I enjoy reading that sort of thing on other people's blogs. So, if you care to stick along for the ride, you're more than welcome!