Sweet mother of mercy I’m back to business, blogging, and babies. I took quite the hefty hiatus but I’m happy to report that our little nugget entered the world in June of this summer. A due date baby with only 21 seconds to spare, he decided to channel his mother and take his sweet precious time coming out 🙂

After 31 hours of labor, Grayson James was born. 8lb 3oz and a full head of hair, eyebrows, and ridiculously gorgeous eyelashes.

My Raw, Truthful Description of the First Few Months as a Family of 3

My entire life I’ve imagined what I was going to be like as a wife and a mother. I have one of the most insanely amazing examples for a mom who sacrifices every ounce of herself for her kids, husband, and parents so I’ve always been excited to fill her shoes. She gives to everyone around her, and when you think there is nothing left to give she gives more.

To be honest, because of that I struggled with motherhood for the first few months. It’s hard to articulate what was so hard on me (other than the sleepless nights and crying fits). Subconsciously, as the youngest child I think I’m used to being the center of attention and always taken care of. Now I’M the mom. I’M the sacrificer, and the role didn’t come as easy to me as I wanted it to. Because of that I was so ashamed of myself for crying in the bathroom when he wouldn’t stop screaming, or when I would read new mom’s posts on FB about how they’ve “never felt love like this.” I didn’t feel it yet. I loved him, sure, but it wasn’t the overwhelming “I could sacrifice anything for my child” feeling yet. I wanted to world to take care of me and felt so on my own and alone, despite the most amazing support from my husband and family. I was ashamed at myself that I couldn’t be like my mother, and enjoy putting his needs before my own.

To make matters worse, after an entire year of consulting with this new functional neurologist and his nutritionist, I had learned of the utmost important of breastfeeding and a no drug/no pharmaceutical labor. Now I wasn’t producing milk, so I was unable to breastfeed and was kicking myself for letting the hospital pump me up with Antibiotics and NSAIDS. Because of those, all of my thousands of dollars invested in this program, my 40 pounds of weight loss, and my headache-free la la land dissipated. I was continuing to gain weight post-partum, and my gut issues and headaches starting back up, and I was starting over again.

Why do I share this on a migraine blog? Mostly because it’s a public forum to get something off my chest that’s been stuck there for 7 months. But also to remind you that PPD is a real thing. And more moms suffer from it than decide to share their story. What continued to push me down was the constant highlight reels from everyone else on social media while I felt myself drowning in fear. Palmer on NCIS this week said it perfectly – “No one shares their B side on social media, they only share their greatest hits” – or something like that. – yes I still watch NCIS.

I also share this because I’m guilty of formerly behaving in ways that made my PPD worse for me – incredibly pointed in my advice and borderline judgemental. In life, but especially in motherhood, what works best for you is best for you. People are more than opinionated about almost every topic that’s out there, and everyone has the one thing they are crazy about. Some of my friends are absolutely nuts about allergies/rashes. Some of my friends are nuts about car seat safety and will not leave until it’s perfectly in place. Other friends of mine will not steer 1 minute off of their kids rigid nap and sleep schedules. I am crazy about pharmaceuticals and Grayson’s nutrition. However, what Dr Beyer and functional neurologists out there believe is against the grain. It arguably could be considered controversial, as I’ve gotten into some debates with well-educated friends. I hope that this blog helps 2, 3, 100 people who suffer from migraines, but it might suggest to do 100% opposite of what you do, and that’s ok if you do you and it works.

Just remember, in motherhood, in life, and in your health – you do you. Find what works for you and don’t look back. Don’t fear that you are supposed to feel something you don’t and visa versa.

I’m also happy to say – if you are a new mom reading this and currently feeling some of the feelings above – it goes away. I was lucky enough not to need a prescription or therapy and once my hormones re-regulated (thanks to Dr. Beyer) I quickly got back to my normal self. It also helps that Grayson is the most smiley, giggly nugget in the world. He has a HUGE personality. When he’s happy he’s screaming with joy – and when he’s mad, he’ll tell you alright!

The bond that Grayson and I have now is there. It’s real, and it’s unbreakable. My own mom could tell the moment it hit me, when I couldn’t stop staring at him in adoration and refused to let go when I had to get in my cab to leave for the airport one Tuesday. The smile he gives me when I pick him up from daycare and when he plunges his head in my neck to hug me and say thanks for coming back – I won’t ever be able to explain the feeling that gives me.

If you are a new mom and aren’t feeling like yourself, or aren’t feeling those strong “mom bonds” try talking to someone. Your hubby, your mom, your friends, a therapist, your OB-GYN. People need to know to get you the help you need, but it also just may take time. I used to feel like talking about it only made it worse, because I would cry. But once I started talking about it I had dozens of friends reach out to me describing how awful their PPD was. I wish so bad that I would have known this when I was going through it so I wouldn’t have felt like such an awful selfish person and terrible mother. (It also helped that Bad Moms came out right in the middle of my PPD days)

Also, if you aren’t feeling like yourself, you aren’t alone -and this isn’t permanent. Go get drunk (if you aren’t breastfeeding), eat some sushi, have a mom day, be a little selfish – you deserve it. You carried a child in your body, went through absolute hell to deliver that child and are going to spend the rest of your life catering to said child. You deserve all the “me time” you want 🙂

In terms of me and my health – I’m basically starting the program over again post partum because my body was shot up with antibiotics and pain killers (which we learned before can cause major inflammation, hormonal imbalances, bacterial infections and gallbladder/pancreas performance issues – all of which happened to me). I still haven’t had a migraine since July 1, 2015, but I’ve been having some regular headaches again and fatigue/gut problems!  I re-ran the stool/blood/and saliva tests and I’ll be going through the diet and detox once again to get back on track. The great part is that now I know the quick steps to fix a leaky gut and get my head back in order. Next post I will explain a little more about what they’ve found.

Thank you to my amazing mom, who I blame for being so hard on myself. Not because she is hard on herself, but because she has created such incredibly hard shoes to fill. I will strive to fill and outgrow those every day.

This year has been a rough year for my family. My grandmother, my grandfather, and my mother have all been hospitalized with heart-related issues.

My father has a history of heart disease in his family – his mother had multiple by-pass surgeries and he’s had to have his carotid artery stented too.

Why is this happening more and more in our country today? I’m a firm believer that outside of heredity, it’s our DIET that is causing most of these issues. And we are being fed incorrect information from standard medical practitioners.

If you remember, I’ve spoken before about the pre-WWII era and how we used to cook with all traditional saturated fats like butter, lard, coconut oil, etc. Think about the health of our society then versus now. Obesity rates, heart disease, etc. After WWII – some joe decided to start promoting Vegetable oils and margarine spreads and said they were “healthier” and “lower in fat” for us. Little did they realize they were loaded with free radicals that murder our insides.

Functional medicine tries to stay as close to primitive eating habits and earliest practices because it worked! Then we started trying to get fancy with GMOs, replacement fats, etc and started hurting ourselves.

So let’s talk Cholesterol.  Cholesterol is GOOD. We need it desperately in our bodies. When you have the right kind, it can PREVENT heart disease!

My family all has “atherosclerosis” going on right now. What does that mean? It means that they have plaque buildup that happens over time in the arterial walls.

When not taken care of, atherosclerosis can lead to:

• Heart Disease
• Stroke
• Peripheral Vascular Disease
• Kidney Failure
• High Blood Pressure
• Digestive Abnormalities

So my favorite part about going to Dr. Beyer is the education I receive there and how much I LEARN about my body. So let’s get a brief biology lesson right now on Cholesterol.

Cholesterol has 2 main functions:

1. To act as a healing agent – when your artery lining gets damaged for one reason or another (eating bad foods, smoking, pathogens, toxins, etc), cholesterol from the liver sends LDL to fix the damage. After the wound is healed, cholesterol returns from the healed lining back to the liver as HDL.                  
2. To act as an antioxidant – we want all cholesterol strands to be Oxidized – meaning they have all their electrons and no air gaps for free radicals to get in. But sometimes when we smoke or eat dumb things, our body has unoxidized cholesterol in there (missing an electron).  When this happens, a good cholesterol strand will give the unoxidized strand one of their healthy electrons and neutralize the free radical. Oopsies! This makes that one then unoxidized, so it heads back to the liver to get another electron and become oxidized again. This is incredibly important because the body cannot use unoxidized cholesterol for anything but harm, so too many unoxidized cholesterol strands is when cholesterol becomes an issue. 

ATHEROSCLEROSIS AND CHOLESTEROL:  

When atherosclerosis occurs, 3 main this happen:

1. Phase one: Inflammation:  Toxins, pathogens, and inflammatory foods damage the artery lining. White blood cells step in and know what to do, they send free radicals to destroy whatever’s causing the damage, but this process causes inflammation.
2. Phase two: Repair: Like we just talked about, the antioxidant behavior of the cholesterol neutralizes any free radicals out there, then goes back to the liver to get oxidized again. However, in many instances of a lifetime of bad diets, smoking, toxins, etc – since so much damage is happening, this can’t happen fast enough, so the LDL healing agent piece of cholesterol acts as a plug to any nicks in the artery lining.

Buildup happens when inflammation overpowers the repair phase

1. Phase three: Rupture: over time, these plugs form an absess, and block the airway through the artery. If that was an artery to the brain, it can result in stroke. If that was an artery to the heart, that can result in heart attack.  

The TRUE cause of atherosclerosis  = chronic inflammation

1. Lack of fiber (unrefined grains) – if you have a lifetime of eating refined grains, it strips the fiber out, leads to slow transit time, and reabsorption of toxins and hormones from your stool.
2. Refined salt and refined sugar – lead to mineral deficiencies. It’s all about unrefined everything. Get used to that word.
3. Oxidized fats – lead to plaque buildup (i.e. heating up olive oil, vegetable oil, etc)
4. Lack of phytochemicals and unoxidized cholesterol – lead to antioxidant deficiencies – eat your greens and coconut oils people

SO WHAT CAN I DO, YOU ASK?

Eat MORE: avocados, coconut oil, salmon, and eggs.

Eat NO Mcdonalds, heated olive oil, vegetable oils, or refined things.

Ok, great 🙂