Welcome to the World, Reis! (6 months belated)

On May 8, 2013 at 7:19pm, after 19 hours of labor, our world changed forever. Reis Chamberlin Smith weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces and was 19 inches long.

So, what is life like now? Pretty chaotic, as I’m sure you can tell. It’s been almost 8 months since we have written anything! Reis is almost 6 months old now and he seems to grow and learn new things daily. We are lucky that he is a very happy baby!

Unfortunately though, Reis is not vegan right now. I started out trying to breastfeed him. I won’t go into all of the details, but it was quite the ordeal. Reis was considered to be underweight and they had to check his blood sugar regularly to see if he was getting anything. His blood sugar stayed low and they had to supplement with formula. Not a single drop of colostrums or breast milk ever came out. We tried it all, and nothing worked.

For the first 4 weeks, he was a pretty miserable little guy. We ended up figuring out that he has a milk protein allergy. So, we went to soy formula. He also developed an allergy to that. He is now on a formula that is made of milk, but the protein is broken down so that he is able to digest it. He has become a totally different baby since starting this. The crying stopped within days. Thank god for science!

Reis’ doctor thinks that he will outgrow these allergies by the time that he is a year old. I have a suspicion that he will always have a tough time with dairy. He recently developed bronchiolitis and I have read that this can also be a result of a milk allergy. It is also a sign that he could develop asthma. Avoiding dairy is a common thing for asthmatics. So, Reis will become vegan as soon as we can manage it.

I am going to request that allergy testing be done on Reis once he is old enough. We will move forward with food choices for him after that. We have agreed that Reis will eat vegan as much as we can control it. We won’t get upset if he has something that isn’t vegan (as long as it isn’t causing a reaction). We are hoping that educating him about why we eat this way will help him to make choices of his own when he is older. Basically, our plan is just to try our best.

As for me, I’m still a work in progress. I’ve been mostly vegan since Reis was born. However, I haven’t been the healthiest lately. Since Reis was born, I’ve lost 35 of the 38 pounds that I gained. The last few pounds seem to want to stick around. I’m working on not making excuses and getting back to a whole foods, plant based diet. I just purchased the Eat to Live Cookbook by Dr. Fuhrman and it’s been inspiring me to get back on track. I’ll write a review of some of the recipes shortly.

Are there any mommies out there who need to get back on track, too? Maybe we could start our own little group to support each other and give ideas. Leave a comment if you are interested!

Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, September 2013

Confession Time!

Because we haven’t posted anything in ages, we haven’t had a chance to announce that we are expecting our first child in the beginning of May! We do not know if it is a boy or a girl. So far, it has been a fairly easy pregnancy, but here is where the confession comes….

Hello, my name is Jessica and I’m a cheese-a-holic.

For the first two trimesters, I fell off of the Vegan wagon. I cannot explain in words the exhaustion and nausea that I felt in the first trimester. I didn’t want to eat anything at all, but just the thought of vegetables made me sick. Of course, that’s the worst food aversion possible for a vegan. If I didn’t eat, the nausea just got worse. Thankfully, I never had any actual morning sickness. Some days I thought it might have been better, though.



I used all of this as an excuse and started eating dairy and eggs again. Am I mad at myself for this? Of course I am. However, I refuse to beat myself up over it. That isn’t going to help or change anything. I know myself well enough to know that if I do that, I’ll never get back to veganism.

I started to feel better in the second trimester, but the addictive properties of dairy had their hold on me. Also, by this point, our friends and family knew that I had gone back to a vegetarian diet. It was hard to tell them that I changed my mind… again. So, I continued eating this way and feeling guilty.

A funny thing happens when you’re pregnant. The opinions and concerns of others seem to make you worry more, especially if it comes from a medical professional. For example, I asked my doctor at my first appointment if I could continue running. I had heard from other runners that it was okay as long as you were already running regularly. My doctor actually told me no! He said that I would be putting the baby at risk for having a low birth weight. I now know that this isn’t true and I should have trusted my own instinct and research. When someone tells you that you will hurt your baby, and that person is a doctor, you will believe them.


So, then came the nutrition lecture. At my doctor’s office, they require all pregnant women to sit down with a Registered Nurse to discuss nutrition, things to avoid, family history, etc. They also weigh you at this visit which made me mad, but that’s another story. Josiah didn’t come with me to this appointment. When I told the nurse that I didn’t eat meat, I thought her head would explode. So, to make up for it, I told her that I drank milk. I still haven’t drunk any actual cow’s milk, but I figured that she didn’t need to know that this was of the plant variety. She immediately sent 100’s of doubts into my mind. I should have known better because I am aware of how little education they receive on nutrition. Funny enough—despite the pressures she laid on me to eat meat—when she went on to explain all of the foods that I should avoid most of them were meat and seafood. I wanted to make a smart comment, but I kept my mouth shut.

What has gotten me headed back towards veganism? An old friend of mine contacted me with questions and needed advice after watching Vegucated and Forks over Knives. This girl was the queen of bacon and cheese. She seemed really motivated and excited and it reminded me of why I first chose this lifestyle. Another thing was an image that I saw on Pinterest. It said “The reason people awaken, is because they have finally stopped agreeing to things that insult their soul.” What the hell was I doing!? I had gone against everything that I believed in. I consider Veganism to be like a religion to me and I had abandoned it. I have a strong desire to raise our children to respect all living things and I wasn’t doing it myself.


Then there is the health aspect. I can’t think about it too much right now, because it freaks me out. Actually—not going to lie—the whole having a human inside of me thing freaks me out. However, I’ve also been reading Happy Herbivore’s blog every day. She has always inspired and motivated me, but it seems to be more so now that I need to stay healthy for my baby. Luckily the vegetable aversion has gone away by now. I’ve also noticed that my weight gain has slowed significantly now that I’m not eating dairy and eggs.

I suppose I should mention that I never went out and bought gallons of milk, dozens of eggs, or pounds of cheese. I was consuming these things in foods at restaurants or foods that were already prepared. In other words, crap that I shouldn’t have eaten anyway. I can make all of the excuses in the world, but I will never say that it was out of laziness. I honestly did not feel like myself. My whole body felt out of whack and it was as if I wasn’t even in it anymore. I was lucky to stay awake for an entire day. Feeling that tired just made it seem okay to reach for the first food item that sounded even remotely appetizing.

I’m going to face a few struggles going forward. They are all social issues, which are the hardest for me. Right before finding out that I was pregnant (7 days before to be exact), I accepted my dream job. By the time that I started, four weeks later, I was eating as a vegetarian. This job is in a less rural area than the last one and the way that I eat seems completely alien to everyone there. I’ve had to remind people who try to get me to eat something with meat in it numerous times that I’m vegetarian. It’s gotten to be almost awkward. Yesterday I lied and said that I had errands to run on my lunch break to avoid the conversation of why I couldn’t eat the subs that someone had brought in. I’m such a chicken sometimes. I obviously need to work on my backbone again.

Another thing that I need to remember is to plan better! Just the other day we went to a family event and I hadn’t planned anything to bring. I brought some vegan blueberry bread, but that wasn’t enough for a whole meal. I ended up eating a very small quantity of the vegetarian foods just to be polite. Next time, I’ll remember to make some more food. I blame pregnancy brain.

Josiah and I have every intention of raising this child as vegan as we possibly can. I’ll even be that mom who brings a separate cupcake to parties if I have to. Luckily, the day care we have chosen has an excellent vegetarian menu and it should be easy enough to avoid the small amount of dairy in it. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. We have decided that we will not freak out if our child eats something that isn’t vegan. As we have mentioned before, we live in a relatively small town and not many people know what vegan means. Adults around here also LOVE to give children treats. I’m sure that’s everywhere, but I’m just starting to notice it. So, it’s bound to happen. I’m sure that this is going to be a huge learning process and our philosophy may change along the way. This is where we are starting and I’m really excited about it.

It feels good to be back.