My Miracle Baby
This post was written by Lisa Markley, MS, RDN, who, along with Jill, co-authored the #1 best selling Essential Thyroid Cookbook.
You may have recently heard from my Facebook or Instagram posts that my miracle baby, Lilah Rose, was born three weeks ago, on August 22. She was exactly 8 pounds and 20.5 inches and is perfectly healthy. We’re over the over the moon and blissfully readjusting to life with our new daughter.
Today I want to share a little bit about how Lilah became my little miracle in hopes that my personal story may offer a glimmer of hope to any of you struggling with similar health issues.
In March of 2016, I spent most of my 40th birthday in bed trying to save up my energy to host a small gathering of friends at my house that evening. I distinctly remember fighting back the tears when a friend asked me what my hopes and dreams were for the next year. I felt like the thing I wanted the most to happen that year – to have another child – was completely out of my reach.
Because of my age and my health challenges, I felt like the window for me to have another baby was quickly coming to a close and I needed to start facing my reality that it wasn’t in the cards for me. I had been struggling with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, muscle weakness, hormonal imbalances, and a slew of other symptoms related to Hashimoto’s, mycotoxin illness, and Lyme’s disease for more than five years.
While I had been working for a few years with various functional medicine practitioners and had experienced some significant improvements in my symptoms since my initial diagnoses, I still couldn’t seem to get my health turned around enough to where I felt like I was healthy enough to get pregnant again. That night, I told my friend that I probably needed to start grieving the loss of being able to add on to my family and try to move into complete acceptance of the beautiful family and amazing son I already had.
Shortly after my birthday, my health had continued to deteriorate. In addition to the symptoms I already mentioned, I was frequently sick with severe sinus infections that would last more than 2-3 weeks. I went to my doctor and learned that my mycotoxin levels were the highest they had been, which I suspected was due to frequent exposure to a water damaged building that I thought could be contaminated with black mold.
Other lab results indicated that my immune system was severely compromised. I realized the only way I was going to get better was to take some time off work to focus on my healing.
During that time, I continued to work with my functional medicine practitioners and really ramped up my efforts to clear the mycotoxins from my system. In addition to eating an anti-inflammatory diet, I followed a therapeutic supplement regimen including intravenous glutathione. I also used my infrared sauna at least three days a week, received frequent acupuncture and massage, and moved my body gently through restorative and yin yoga.
In just four short weeks, my health started improving immediately and I had successfully brought my mycotoxin levels down to zero. My pain levels decreased and energy levels increased, and when my immune function was retested, my doctor said my immune response had rebounded back to normal.
Fast forward nine months, to December of 2016…I went out to lunch with a friend who had just found out she was pregnant with her first child. Over lunch, I happily shared stories with her about my pregnancy with my son and his birth story. Although it never once occurred to me while I was telling her my story that I could be pregnant, after lunch I immediately had this strange feeling that I might be pregnant and went straight to the pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test. Two tests confirmed it right away and I was in shock…we hadn’t really been trying.
I felt an intense swirl of emotions. I was completely hopeful and elated one moment, then overwhelmingly anxious and freaked out the next. My mind was racing with negative thoughts.
“Am I healthy enough to maintain this pregnancy?”
“Am I too old and too chronically ill to have a healthy baby?”
“Are my pain and fatigue going to worsen while pregnant?”
“Is my body strong enough to go through labor?”
My husband took my hand, squeezed it tight, looked deeply into my eyes, and reassuringly said, “Honey, this is what you always wanted.” He made me feel that I deserved for my wish to come true and that I could trust everything was going to be ok.
Fast forward through a healthy, blissfully beautiful and relatively uncomplicated pregnancy to three weeks ago when we finally got to meet our sweet little bundle. Lilah came into this world fully awake and alert with her eyes wide open. Everything about her is perfect and it’s been a surprisingly easy adjustment to having a newborn again…it’s so much easier the second time around!
I still have moments of disbelief that she’s perfectly healthy and this is my new reality. My heart is full and I’m incredibly grateful to be her mama.
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