Our Story

On November 26, 2008, my husband Michael and I welcomed our first daughter, Audrey Rose Hess into the world. She was 6 lbs 12 ounces, and was perfect in everyway. After taking Audrey home from the hospital, she quickly became a very fussy baby. She rarely slept, and she spit up a lot. On the weekend of December 14, the spitting up became even worse. On Monday, December 16, Audrey was lethargic, only waking twice during the day to eat, and throwing up yellow and green vomit each time she ate. Our doctor's office sent us to the emergency room, where we were immediately referred to Dayton Children's Hospital. It was thought that Audrey had condition called Pyeloric Stenosis, which is basically a bowel abnormality that would require surgery. However, after x-rays and an Upper and Lower GI series, it was revealed that there were no abnormalities. Audrey was kept over night and given IV therapy to rehydrate her. The diagnosis was reflux, and she was sent home on medication. This medication made Audrey scream and did not help the spitting up. What followed were probably the worst 4 months of our lives. In and out of the doctor's offices and emergency rooms, our sweet baby girl had constant diarrhea, along with bloody stools, and excessive spitting up that would lead to vomitin. She couldn't gain weight, and was miserable a lot of the time from stomach pain. Having had medical training, I knew all of the things that could be wrong, yet no doctor seemed to know what was wrong with her. As a parent, that is the worst, because you feel completely helpless. Finally in March of 2009, we were referred to a gastroenterologist at Children's Hospital, who performed a small bowel biopsy and diagnosed Audrey with a dairy-protein intolerance, and a soy-protein intolerance. We had two options. I could either go dairy and soy free and continue nursing Audrey, or I could stop nursing and put her on a $40 per can formula called Neocate. The latter was not an option, so as of that day, my diet was dairy and soy free. This meant that I not only could not eat the obvious sources of dairy, like milk, cheese, butter, sour cream, etc, or soy, but also the hidden sources that we find in many packaged foods. Dairy and soy have over 50 different names, so I had to memorize each and every one of those names so that I could read every label of every item I bought. I had to start baking my own bread, because you cannot find bread in the stores without soy. For Michael and I it also meant absolutely not eating out, and rarely could we trust others to cook for us. But the payoff? Our sweet baby had a complete turn around in just a a few weeks. We actually rejoiced the first time her stool was semi-normal looking! However, the damage that all of those milk proteins had done to her little intestines would affect her the entire first year of her life. Audrey really didn't grow out of her fussiness until she turned 1. She also grew out of her soy intolerance. She is now a happy and vivacious 2 1/2 year old. She is a bundle of energy and a ray of sunshine and laughter in our life. Her little sister Maria joined our family in March of 2010, an the two are best buddies. Thankfully Maria has no problems with tolerating dairy. As for our family, we live dairy free primarily, and that is why I created this blog. When we were going through this in the beginning, we knew no one who had been through it, and so we had to learn on our own. My hope is that someone who may be going through this can gain from what I share, as well as the recipes and meal ideas that I share. My goal is also to educate people on food allergies and intolerances. We are so grateful that our little girl is healthy. Please enjoy the recipes and the information, and pass it on!