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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Don't Buy That Maternity Maxi!

Cute dress! But $140 to wear it once? Ugh!

As I planned for our upcoming babymoon, I cringed at the idea of buying summer maternity clothes that I'd never wear again (baby's due May 1st).

On the other hand, who doesn't want to look cute on vacation?  Or for a special dinner?

Mine for Nine is the perfect solution.  Through this site, you can rent maternity clothing for weeks or months at varying prices.  I was suspicious of both the clothing quality and the whole rental system.  I'm not the lowest maintenance person...

I'm not going to lie. I called and emailed them no less than 4 times before and after placing my order to confirm dates of shipments, deliveries, etc.  They were really nice.  But they're probably used to dealing with crazy pregnancy hormones. 

The dresses I received are beautiful.  They came in good, clean condition.  And the logistics of the rental are clear and easy.  Everything I could've hoped for. 

Baby's brain development: we only have to do a few things!

I'm a big fan of the show Modern Family.  In a recent episode, the hilarious (and pregnant) Gloria, uses headphones like these to talk to her growing baby.

But it begs the question: how much is baby really aware of?  I've been reading Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina, which I completely recommend.  The advice is generally logical and supported by reliable research.  Medina discusses how we can support baby's intellectual development through proactive decisions while pregnant (mostly regarding nutrition and stress management) and then throughout the child's early years (engaging with your child through a variety of modes).

And piping Mozart into your belly to raise baby's I.Q.?  Total B.S.

Additionally, NPR aired this segment today: Music, Multivitamins, And Other Modern Intelligence Myths.  I'd call it the blurb version of Medina's book.  With all the advice that we hear while pregnant, it's refreshing to get the boiled down basics of what really makes a difference based on solid research:
  • Take Omega-3's while pregnant
  • Engage with your child 
    • NPR says to do this through interactive reading.  
    • Medina discusses this too but also emphasizes the importance of just talking to your child, even when they're too young to converse.
That makes sense.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Weighing What We Eat While Pregnant

Nicholas Kristof compared two mice in his NYTimes column;
one was exposed at birth to a chemical that forever changed its DNA.

In the past few days, I've stumbled upon a recurring theme: what we eat (or expose ourselves to) while pregnant can have enormous and surprising consequences.

First, I read about the book Pottenger's Prophecy which deals with how prenatal nutrition affects baby's health.  (For the record, the book seems a little extreme for me, but I won't judge you if you want to check it out.  I just want to be clear that by mentioning it, I'm not necessarily endorsing it.)  It did make me look into the idea of epigenetics though. While looking at the book's website, I read this:
  • "You are what you eat, the saying goes. And, according to two new genetic studies, you are what your mother, father, grandparents and great-grandparents ate, too.  Diet, be it poor or healthy, can so alter the nature of one's DNA that those changes can be passed on to the progeny." 
Here is an old article from Time Magazine that further discusses this field of study, if you're interested.  An excerpt is below: 
  • "Epigenetics brings both good news and bad. Bad news first: there's evidence that lifestyle choices like smoking and eating too much can change the epigenetic marks atop your DNA in ways that cause the genes for obesity to express themselves too strongly and the genes for longevity to express themselves too weakly. We all know that you can truncate your own life if you smoke or overeat, but it's becoming clear that those same bad behaviors can also predispose your kids — before they are even conceived — to disease and early death." 
And then today, I read Nicholas Kristof's column, "Warnings From a Flabby Mouse" which pulled together the bits of information I'd been Googling.  While Kristof addresses some of the political issues surrounding this issue, here's the big take-away specifically for pregnant women, women looking to become pregnant, or anyone interested in the field of epigenetics (and how their environment may alter their DNA):
  • If you're in the group mentioned above, be aware of several environmental toxins:
    • BPA (avoid using plastic for food storage or preparation)
    • Pesticides on food (eat organic whenever possible)
    • Pthalates (avoid cosmetics or shampoos that contain these)
While this list of destructive chemicals isn't surprising, what I DID find notable is that steering clear of them is becoming more and more mainstream.  A few years ago, I felt a little psycho for carrying my water in a stainless steel container; now a respected journalist for the New York Times is calling out doctors for not warning their patients of BPA's risks.    

Kristof is also calling for legislation to regulate chemical use with the Safe Chemicals Act.  Perhaps the more of us who are aware--and supportive--of this act, the more powerful we can be against the lobbyists preventing its passage.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Very Flavorful Chicken Marbella

A Pyrex full of yum.

Non-perishable ingredients, easy, and delicious. All the components of my favorite recipes.  But do notice that you have to marinate it for a day beforehand...

Here is the original recipe.  Don't compare the photos!  Mine looks like a 3rd grader made it by comparison, but it still really tasted good.  (Also, I used drumsticks and a few boneless, skinless chicken breasts because that's what I had.) 

Ingredients:
  • 3 drumsticks, 3 chicken breasts (or whatever chicken you have that fits into a 9 x13 dish)
  • ¼ cup red wine vinegar
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 7 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tablespoon oregano
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • ⅓ cup halved or quartered prunes
  • ¼ cup capers w/ juice
  • 8 green olives – halved
  • 2 bay leaves
 Directions:
  1. Puree (I used the Cuisinart) red wine vinegar through the sea salt until the garlic is smooth.
  2. Pour mixture into a large Ziploc bag (big enough to hold all your chicken pieces).
  3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix to blend marinade ingredients.
  4. Add your chicken pieces, and make sure all pieces are evenly coated.
  5. Place in the fridge and marinate 24 HOURS.
  6. When you are ready to cook, remove the pieces and place them in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish with all the marinade.
  7. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  8. Bake the chicken for 50-60 minutes until well cooked.
Adjustment: When I make it again, I will reduce the sea salt to 1 teaspoon.  With all the capers and olives, it gets pretty salty.

Ew...hilarious...promising?

Desperation will drive us to extremes.  And here's a prime example of that...

This article was in the NYTimes today: When Pills Fail, This, er, Option Provides a Cure

It discusses the use of fecal transplants in C. Difficile infections.  The basic idea behind the procedure is that if you take a healthy person's poop--with all their good intestinal flora--and put it in a patient's infected digestive tract, the good flora will take hold and cure them. 

And the craziest part is...it works.

I've read about this for use in IBD, but it always seems way too gross to even think about.  But after reading this article, I looked it up again.  While I haven't found anything definitive, there are many small studies that show this seemingly far-fetched procedure working.  (Here's a clip from Huffington Post where they actually show how the procedure is done.)

Is this the future of IBD therapy?  Many of us are trying to get off meds; could this be our answer?  (And what's worse, months and months on prednisone and years on biologics, or an enema using someone else's poop?)

Just keeping my ear to the ground on this one... 
 ***
And on a sidenote, I cannot hear about fecal transplants without recalling Miranda July's film, You, and Me, and Everyone We Know.  When I first saw this scene, I just thought it was a super weird idea.  I guess this kid was onto something...

(This clip isn't for everyone--it's strange! You've been warned.)

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Glucose Test: If You're On Prednisone...

(Photo courtesy cardinal.com)
Yum! Who's excited??

Every doctor is different and will give different advice, but I thought I'd share my experience with the glucose test which we typically get between 24 and 28 weeks.

Bottomline: You know how everyone complains about that sugary orange stuff?  It might be pointless for you to drink it.

My doctor told me that when you're on high doses of prednisone, you often have problems metabolizing sugar anyway.  Instead of having me use the sugar drink, she had me just do a fasting blood test.  (We were both also concerned about how the high levels of sugar could affect my tenuous remission.)

I fasted for 8 hours before the test.  Then they tested my blood.  I ate my typical breakfast in the office, and then an hour later they tested my blood again.  The doctor was confident that this was enough, and I was happy to get out of dealing with the infamous orange drink. 

It's worth asking about if you're on prednisone or a sugar-free diet (like SCD)!

Growth Ultrasound: Phew!

Some peace of mind in case you're worried about meds and lack of weight gain affecting your baby:


Last week, I went in for my 24 week appointment, and the doctor actually was concerned that I haven't gained weight.  I thought I was in the clear after my meeting with the physician's assistant where she calmed me down about that issue.  (Of course, I'm still eating like a crazy fiend.  No kidding, people comment about it.)  But the doctor recommended an additional ultrasound to check baby's growth, so back we went to the office today.

Turns out he's been growing just fine, as the physician's assistant had assured.  Baby is measuring exactly the size he should be for the due date. 

I'm relieved, and I hope this offers others in similar circumstances relief too.  You know I've been on mega-doses of prednisone, which can cause low fetal weight, and I haven't been gaining weight the way I'd like.  But, as everyone says, the baby takes what he needs.  Thank goodness.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Best. Grapefruit. Ever.

I could eat 10 of these in one sitting.

Word of warning: check your meds before eating grapefruit.  (I couldn't eat it when I was on Cyclosporine for a vicious flare awhile back.)
But whoa.  This sweet grapefruit recipe is delicious and takes about 7 minutes total.  

Ingredients:
  • 1/2 grapefruit (But, to be honest, you'll eat both halves.  Just double the recipe...) 
  • 1 Tbsp honey  
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 
  • Pinch of cardamom 
  • Pinch of cinnamon 
  • Pinch of nutmeg
 Directions:
  1. Position your top oven rack to 4" below the top of the oven.
  2. Preheat your oven to high broil.
  3. Cut your grapefruit in half, and also cut all segments (like a pie) for easy scooping/eating later.
  4. Drizzle grapefruit with honey first--this holds all the spices nicely.
  5. Drizzle vanilla extract over grapefruit.
  6. Sprinkle all the spices over the grapefruit.
  7. Set grapefruit in a baking dish (use one with edges because the honey mixture does run)
  8. Broil for 5 minutes. 
Enjoy! It's impossible not to.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Grain-free meatfloaf, for cold winter days

Hmm...how to make a photo of meatloaf look good...?

I've never eaten meatloaf before.  I did not come from a meatloaf family.  My parents are both excellent cooks and never really made anything so...1950's.  But I was having a major comfort-food craving, so when I found a meatloaf recipe that was SCD friendly, I thought, "Why not?"

My first taste of this made me wonder what the real difference is between meatloaf and meatballs, besides the shape.  But I like meatballs, so whatever.

Here's the original recipe, which we really enjoyed, though I did modifiy it to remove some SCD-illegal stuff.

Ingredients:
  • 2 lbs grass-fed ground beef
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 8 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp dried minced onion (from the spice aisle) 
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp sea salt 
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg 
  • 1/2 tsp ground mustard
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
  2. Grease your loaf pan.
  3. Dice onions and mince garlic. Saute the onions in butter until they are translucent and then add the garlic for a couple of minutes, careful not to burn it.
  4. Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl.  (I gave up and used my hands for this.)
  5. Form into a loaf and place in the loaf pan.
  6. Bake for 30-40 minutes 
  7. Slice and serve. (Mine fell apart a bit, probably because I greedily dug into it the minute it emerged from the oven.)
If you like ketchup here is an SCD-friendly recipe.  I'm not a huge ketchup fan, so I can't say I've tried it.  I ate mine with pico de gallo, and it was pretty delicious.  My husband ate it with Siracha sauce, which made me a little jealous.  

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The nursery is painted!

 Yes, I made them pose with a paint roller after they were done.  
I never said I'm not cheesy.

This was our week of feeling grateful for our parents.

My husband's parents drove up here to Chicago from Florida to paint our nursery.  We were incredibly grateful for several reasons: I was relieved to be able to avoid the fumes, and my husband and I are the worst painters in the world.  And most of all, painting is such a long and tedious process, and they were amazingly cheerful about it--and did the most perfect job.

We used Behr Premium Plus paint (Reflecting Pool) at Home Depot.  It's allegedly low-VOC, but I don't know how much I believe those claims.  I stayed at my parents' home all week while my in-laws painted, just in case.  So we owe both sets of parents big-time after this week.

The light fixture is the Adler Pendant from Restoration Hardware Baby & Child.

(No furniture til April.  I'm still superstitious about that.)

And yes, our poor child's view from his nursery is of a brick wall.  Oh, the joys of city living...


Sunday, January 6, 2013

Lemon Shallot Chicken Paillard. Way better than it looks.

Looks pretty bland in the photo, but it's surprisingly lemony and savory

Because you pound this chicken to smithereens before cooking it, this is a super fast poultry recipe.  And, despite the overwhelming beige-ness of it, the chicken really is very flavorful.

HERE is the original recipe, from Martha Stewart, but I changed it a bit.
Ingredients:
  • 4 chicken breasts, pounded thin
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1-2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1 cup chicken stock*
  • 2 shallots, sliced
  • 2 lemons
  • salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to broil (high)
  2. Heat one tablespoon olive oil with one tablespoon butter  in skillet
  3. Season front and back of your first pounded chicken breast with salt and pepper
  4. Fry chicken in skillet, cooking each side so the chicken is cooked through, about 2 minutes.  Each side should be golden-brown.
  5. Transfer chicken to Pyrex-style baking dish and repeat process to cook all meat. (If you can fit more chicken in the skillet, go for it.  Once mine was pounded, it was way too big to fit multiple pieces.)
  6. Add oil and butter as needed to the skillet.
  7. Once all meat is cooked and removed, saute shallots until golden in the oil and butter.
  8. Add chicken stock, remaining butter, and the juice and fruit of both lemons (I scraped the entire insides out of the fruit--more lemon is better!)
  9. Simmer for about 3 minutes
  10. Pour the skillet mixture over the chicken in your baking dish and broil for about 5 minutes.
I decided to broil it because I don't feel like the meat is getting the seasoning from the sauce unless I see it actually simmering...probably doesn't make a huge difference!  

*I have never found SCD-legal chicken stock in the store, so I do use illegal chicken stock.  I haven't noticed that it causes me any problems; I suspect the sugar in it is pretty negligible.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Flu Shot...it's not too late.

This MSNBC article highlights the risks of this year's flu season, and as part of the immuno-suppressed population, I can't help but have a position on this sometimes controversial issue. 

I've seen a lot of information online about how the flu shot isn't effective (or that it can cause the flu), and I'm not a medical expert, so I'm not even going to get into that.  But I do feel pretty strongly that we should follow the advice of our medical experts (when it's logical), and my doctors at University of Chicago and Northwestern insisted on the importance of the flu shot. 

I am sometimes suspicious of advice from pharmaceutical companies, and I often doubt my doctors and do my own research or seek second opinions.  I am a supporter of questioning things that seem like facts.  But given the information out there from the CDC--and the unverified research that counters it--this one seems like a no-brainer.

Banana "Ice Cream"

Looks like ice cream, but it's JUST bananas! (...and, in this pic, peanut butter)

This recipe is all over the place, but if you haven't tried it, I really recommend it.  Couldn't be easier, and even if you're not on a restricted diet, it's delicious.

All you do is slice a couple bananas, freeze them (at least for a few hours, but I'd suggest overnight), and then blend them in a Cuisinart/blender.  Something magical happens, and it turns into the consistency of ice cream.

If you eat chocolate, you could add chocolate before blending.  I like to top mine with peanut butter (as you can see in the picture).

And it can stay in your freezer for months...but with how tasty it is, it probably won't.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

"Make this once a week"

You know a recipe is pretty decent when your husband says this while eating it.

Sorry, no pics of this recipe because we ate it up like crazy animals.  I'll edit it in next time I make the recipe...

Since you have no image, here's what this one is: chicken drumsticks with a great spice rub.

Got this recipe from a Paleo site, and she made hers with turkey drumsticks--which sounds awesome--but were tough to find.  (My Whole Foods is still claiming that turkeys are in short supply after the holidays.  C'mon...)  So I made mine with the chicken drumsticks.  Still awesome, though not quite as Medieval Times-y.  Also, if you compare the original, I added cinnamon and took out coriander.  Just preference.

Ingredients:
  • 10 chicken drumsticks
  • 1/2 cup of olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground mustard
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • black pepper to taste
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Mix all spices in shallow bowl.
  3. Pour olive oil into a different shallow bowl.  One by one, cover drumsticks in oil and then spice rub.  
  4. Rub the spice rub in under the skin, and then return the skin to cover the drumstick.  It'll get deliciously crispy, so don't remove it.
  5. Place drumsticks on a lined baking sheet (I use a silpat).
  6. Bake for 50 minutes.
  7. Turn the oven to broil for 5 minutes to make them crispy. Flip and broil for 5 more minutes.  Done.
Seriously, yum.  And so easy.

Today I spazzed.

Happy New Year, by the way!

Yesterday we announced the pregnancy on Facebook (with the photo above).

Then today I experienced a perfect storm of anxiety:
  • A 3 lb drop when I weighed myself (despite my obsessive quest for calories)
  • Multiple people (in real life, not Facebook) commenting on the small size of my baby bump
  • A really busy day where I didn't feel baby kick as much as normal
So...yes.  I had a meltdown.  Self-diagnosed myself with IUGR.  (IUGR does affect IBD pregnancies, so it is important to be aware of it as a possibility.) Called the OB.

They were kind enough to see me.  Here's what they said, in case anyone else has a similar freak-out: 
  1. "Big movements and small movements 'count' the same.  Just because you feel really big kicks one day and then light flutters the next does not mean you're feeling decreased movement.  Count and make sure you're feeling a total of 10 movements (big or small) per day."
  2. "The baby takes the nutrients he needs.  Maternal weight doesn't measure fetus size.  Your uterus height, however, does indicate fetal size." (Which they checked in the exam.)
  3. I was really worried about this ongoing cough I've had.  Don't make fun of me, but I asked if the baby could catch a virus from me.  The answer is no.  
So that's my embarrassing moment of the day.  I share so you can avoid your own (maybe...)  After all, there's nothing as comforting as hearing the sound of that heartbeat on the doppler!