What a year!

I feel like it's been the longest year of my life. The best and the longest. For those of you that followed my health journey at one point or another, you know that I had been juggling lots of different issues. But in August of last year we found out we were pregnant! We were so ecstatic! We weren't sure it would ever happen and had been told we had a very small window of time to make it happen following my surgery. We felt so blessed and that sense of gratefulness carried us through some really trying times throughout the pregnancy. We were on constant pins and needles because of some complications, I was on bedrest for 5 months and had more ultrasounds than I can even remember (actually, it was over 20 ;). There were a few times we didn't think she was going to make it but we just kept loving her and trying to keep the faith. On the night of May 1, after 28 hours of labor, we finally got to meet our supergirl. Words cannot express the joy, relief and love that followed. I had my family by my side and my best friend Sarah, who came from Atlanta to be there.  I'm a lucky girl. Even though we had some bumps in the road, there are people who have much bigger problems to get through with their little ones. So at the end of the day, I know how lucky we truly were that she ended up so happy & healthy in the end.
So without further sappiness, I'd like to introduce Faith Novelle Maglothin. Yes, we named her Faith and we couldn't think of a name more fitting. I'm not going to publicly share the details of my pregnancy or her birth story here but I'd be happy to talk about it with anyone who might be having similar issues and need encouragement.
Here's our sweet girl:

and here's a sneak at her nursery! I'll be doing a blog post about it soon! And of course I have to make a shameless plug for my friend and former student, Kelsey Freeman, who shot our family photos! You can check out more photos of Faith and see Kelsey's work at: http://kelseyfreemancreative.tumblr.com/

Well - I'm in the middle of a break from making gluten free boston creme donuts so I better go check my dough. Look for that post to be up soon!

Gluten Free in Helen Georgia

Every-other year my family makes the short trip to Helen Georgia for their Oktoberfest celebration. It's always too short but we get plenty of good time in with each other. Obviously, one thing was different this year (I'm pregnant) so there would be no consumption of my favorite German beers. It would also be my first year in Helen eating gluten free.
Now, if you don't know anything about Helen or Oktoberfest, go here: http://www.helenga.org/oktoberfest. It's basically a mini germantown with great food & shopping. It's kitschy, definitely a mountain town & our family loves it! We stay at the Hampton Inn on the square and walk everywhere! The Hampton is also a necessity for me as it has a mini-kitchen in each room. There's a sink, cabinets as well as a mini-fridge & freezer.
Being the OCD planner that I am, I googled "gluten free in Helen Georgia" as many different ways as I could. Nothing good. Not a thing. I started to get worried. I mean sure... going to a town who prides themselves on sausage, beer, pretzels, etc would be hard but surely I'm not the first person to go and have to eat gluten free? Apparently I'm the only one who's blogged about it. I did find one person's blog who said

A new addition

So it's been a few months! After surgery and a few updates it seems like I went AWOL on the blog. It happens... we all hit those parts of the year that we can't possibly blog as much as we'd like. Life started going so fast after my two week follow up from surgery.
If you've followed my medical journey at all you know I've had some trouble with my health and specifically the girly kind. We weren't sure what it would mean for our family & the potential of having kids. Well, one thing I left out of the updates was that our doctor told us at the two week check-up that we needed to start trying for a baby immediately. Although it wasn't a complete shock, it was a bit of reality. She said I had a small window of time after the surgery to take advantage of some things she did to improve my chances. After that, she wasn't sure how possible it would be. We always knew this was the case but it definitely put the pressure & prayers into effect.
Well... we're lucky! She was right. She did a great job setting us up for success and I'm happy to report....

We're due in April of 2012! I have no doubt that this baby is the result of a gluten free diet & the work of my amazing new doctor. We're so excited and feel so thankful to have supportive family, friends and doctors who helped make this possible.
I'm hoping to post more often but this is the busiest time of my year. I'm working full-time, teaching at the university at night & juggling a few awesome freelance clients (and wanting to be asleep or eating 24/7). So the posts may be few and far between but I promise to try and keep up! There have been so many fun food discoveries to share & I miss my blogger/twitter peeps!
I hope everyone had a great weekend! If anyone out there has some good tips to handle pregnancy sickness on a gluten free diet, please share!!! I've been living off of a prescribed anti-nausea medication and Udi's bagels with peanut butter but it doesn't always work. I really wish I could just eat saltine crackers! But hey - it's temporary right? :)

Surgery Update

Hello all! I'm overwhelmed by all of the support I've been given over the last few weeks through email, twitter, real life :), etc about my surgery so I wanted to make sure I gave you an update. Here's where you can stop if you don't want to read on!

Strawberry Pie Please! Pie Party fun!

So we all know I've been stuck with liquid "medical food" and supplements for a week to get my liver back in shape. I made a meal plan for the week with healthy, wonderful meal options. But my one vice is baked goods. I knew I would want a sweet treat for the Fourth of July and with Pie Party coming up why not?
Whole Foods has organic strawberries on sale so a strawberry pie it is! I found a great strawberry & cherry pie recipe on www.glutenfreegirl.com and went for it (minus the cherries... dont crucify me.. I dont like cherries). Since going gf almost two years ago I havent made a pie. So for this challenge I needed a friend. I'm lucky to have friends who love to bake and this time Alex was up for the job :)
Alex and I have been friends for about 4 years. We fell in love with traveling musicians who were on the road together. When we met, she was already married to her awesome hubby and they had been together for years, dating back to high school. Tim and I were just starting to date & had only been talking for two weeks before the guys got sent out on the road together for several months. Even though things were new, I just knew :) After about 5 or 6 weeks of missing Tim, I decided I was going to drive to Virginia to surprise him for his birthday! And after thinking about it, I remembered meeting Alex briefly & thought... surely she misses her husband... she might want to come too! I'm sure it was out of desperation to see her hubby, but she called and said she'd love to come. And boy am I glad she did! We started out an 8 hour drive as strangers and ended up amazing friends. Her and her husband were both in our wedding and they've since had a precious son! Here we are at Easter:

For the last four years we've spent a lot of holidays together from New Years & Easter to the Fourth of July. And through it all I'm thankful that with every new medical revelation and food intolerance discovery, they've been supportive and adaptable with every meal. Alex has even made me gf pierogis to go with everyone else's gluten filled ones. Seriously - anyone who knows pierogis knows that's love.
So this Fourth of July we had a great time baking this strawberry pie. You can find all of the ingredients and instructions here at http://glutenfreegirl.com/ I made a few substitutions which I'll list below. I'll also give you a quick photo overview but no one can walk you through an entire recipe better than Shauna Ahern herself so if you haven't been to her site before - Go!! You won't be sorry! She's the queen of delicious gluten free food.
My substitutions:
• Instead of regular butter, I used Goat butter. You can find it at Whole Foods!
• Instead of arrowroot & cornstarch in the gf flour, I used tapioca starch/flour
• Instead of the regular sugar, I used raw coconut sugar
Despite these changes it was amazing! Even the husbands wolfed it down and then leaned back in their