Fantasies of triple cream brie.

..and cheese curds, and sour cream, and chocolate cake. Also of sashimi absolutely drenched in soy sauce.

As some of you may know, I have gone completely soy protein and milk protein free. Never did I imagine a diet without dairy. In fact, I used to joke about how ironic it would be to have a dairy intolerant baby born in the cheesehead state of Wisconsin. As irony would have it, little Miss Veda is 'MSPI'; that is to say, she is milk and/or soy protein intolerant. In it's mild forms, the intolerance can cause gas, fussiness, a little congestion. For Veda, it culminated in painful infant reflux that prevented us from nursing comfortably (or sometimes at all). Every two hours Veda and I were faced with the challenge of the not-so-simple act of getting mothers milk into her little belly. And every two hours it seemed one of us would end up in tears. I would try to nurse, it would fail, then I'd pump, then feed a hungry baby, wait two hours and repeat. It wasn't fun.

Two medications and hundreds of hours of internet research later, I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands. I needed to find the culprit. I needed something I could do, something I could control. I needed to recover my breastfeeding relationship with my daughter. So 19 days ago I began an elimination experimentation by cutting out all dairy and soy. This means the obvious no milk, cheese, butter, and the not so obvious nonfat milk, casein, and whey found in breads, sauces, taco seasoning, you name it. Soy free means leaving out tofu, soy sauce, edamame, and all things with soybean oil or soy lecithin - which is in just about every processed food you can find (unless they are allergy friendly).

In a matter of three days, she was back to nursing old fashioned style, no screaming, no pumping, no banging heads against the wall. With Veda's pain visibly reduced, I continued vigilantly checking labels, creating new recipes, finding substitutions. Eating out scrambles my mind; "What oil do you use to fry your french fries?", "Do your tortillas have nonfat milk?", "Is there soy lecithin in this ketchup?". There have been a few hiccups since then, some symptoms lingering or getting triggered by something else in my diet. We're not quite 100%. But we've come a very long way to more comfortable days for the little girl.

I believe there are a few other foods that bother little V's belly. Maybe chocolate, maybe onions, possibly nuts. I will systematically eliminate them, test them out, add them back in. Eventually I will also be able to add back soybean oil and soy lecithin, as these are fats and not proteins and likely to be digested fine. I'll also trial soy at some point, as it's possible only milk protein is the culprit. The good news is, most MSPI babies outgrow the intolerance by 9 to 12 months of age. An intolerance is different from an allergy, and so as her digestive system matures, she'll likely be able to enjoy milk and cheese as much as her mother does... ah hem, did. Until then, the elimination continues. I have moments of cheese lust, but I get through them by thinking of one simple thing: