Hello from a newbie who's anxious about trying post-intro legal foods

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Hi there!Glad to be joining the group. My background: 26 yo, Day 14 on SCD, diagnosed with CD 5 weeks ago, currently on 4.8 g/day asacol, 6 mg/day entocort, 850 mg/day iron, and my regular multivitamin (Women's Symmetry). Remicade suggested by doc but he respects my desire to take a more conservative approach (just asacol/entocort) and has been supportive of my decision to try the SCD. He has another patient who "swears by it". Thank goodness for excellent doctors who don't pressure you and support your decisions.Right now, I'm experiencing a problem with which I'm sure every newbie grapples-- figuring out what to add to my diet beyond the intro. I'm feeling anxious about this stage of experimentation. Actually, last week I had a bad experience with my first "new food intro" - baked acorn squash. I experienced 1.5 days of off/on abdominal pain after eating about 1/4 or less of a small squash. I did read a thread on the SCD recipes group in which a woman mentioned that she can't handle any squash, even after 6 years on the diet.... perhaps I just can't handle this particular veggie. I have been keeping a food diary and have learned from the many awesome SCD websites/blogs/forums that I must introduce a little bit of one new legal food, then observe my reaction and wait 1-2 days before trying another legal food. I'm committed to being very meticulous with this! I've read the book, but obviously the book can be a little confusing so the web has helped fill in the gaps.I'm still strictly on the intro-- or, at least, what I've understood to be the intro. 14 days on the intro is too long, I know! My diet is limited to homemade gelatin made with welch's, homemade yogurt with lots of honey, cheese (friendship farmer cheese, cheddar, havarti or provolone), the SCD cheesecake, a few egg/banana 'pancakes' per day with a little honey syrup, and a hefty amount of baked tilapia - seasoned with fresh ground pepper, salt and paprika. I was eating chicken soup with pureed carrots for the first week, but it just isn't appealing any more.I would like to try more foods, but quite honestly I'm scared of the stomach pain that came with the acorn squash. And as an aside, cutting out dairy doesn't seem like it's much of an option... I would like to avoid losing more weight and I've relied heavily on the yogurt/cheese to get calories in.Today, my big goal is to boil some string beans. String beans never seemed so intimidating! --Any suggestion for how to add in variety - which foods might work and how best to prepare them to be easy on the stomach? And any words of wisdom for how to get over this "nervous" feeling when trying new foods? --Also, I seem to get the impression that, for some people, cheese (besides farmer cheese) and homemade yogurt are actually advanced foods that shouldn't be tried until later. Is it possible that I'm relying too heavily on dairy right now (either the cheese or the yogurt)? Grace26 yo, CD, SCD NewbieMore about my journey so far: After 3 months of crippling pain (and a total of 13 months of indigestion/bouts of bloody diarrhea which would last a few weeks and then disappear for several months) I finally ended up in the hospital with a sed rate of 102, wbc 17,800, internal bleeding/severe anemia, severe dehydration (it took 15 tries by 6 nurses over an 8-hour period to finally get an IV in me-- they put a back-up in my foot just in case the successful IV in my arm didn't last! What an introduction to the hospital...), a fistula/perforated small intestine and colon, and an ileum that looked like it had just emerged from a "blender" and that had a major stricture. Not fun!The fistula/perforation were gone after 3 weeks of cipro/flagyl. My sed rate as of three weeks ago was down to 42. My iron is improved, up to 11.9 from a low of 7.6. It was after this that I started SCD - because it just didn't seem correct that my diet wouldn't affect my future symptoms, as the hospital dietitian said. Furthermore, I've always had a sensitive stomach. In college, I experimented with no-sugar diets (all refined sugar out, all fruit out), the raw food diet, and various other dietary manipulations to try to "feel better". Usually, these changes helped for awhile, but then I would feel sickly again (mostly fatigue and malaise), sometimes for months at a time. Once during my sophomore year of college, I became extremely sick and had a sed rate in the 80's. My abdomen was never checked, and they never figured out what was wrong after a myriad of tests. I was freaked out enough to go on the raw food diet-- which, by virtue of cutting out anything that is cooked, is a grain-free, refined sugar-free and dairy-free diet. The diet was super hard to do- way more restricted than the SCD! But a few months after starting it, voila... my sed rate came down and I felt better. Once I went off the raw diet, the roller-coaster of fatigue and general ill-health began again. In retrospect, maybe all this was Crohn's operating at a less symptomatic level....who knows?That acorn squash experience last week led to a bunch of anxiety-riddle SCD questions, like... what if all intermediate and advanced foods I try give me stomach pain? What if I'm doing the intro wrong? What if I have something like candida overgrowth or stomach acid problems or dairy intolerance or something else that would require more meds - or for me to cut out the "usual" SCD foods like honey or dairy? I know that I will only figure all of this out with lots of experimentation. Sometimes it's just tough when you're drained and discouraged and overwhelmed. With a lot of hard work, I've learned that allowing yourself to feel discouraged - really, fully discouraged - doesn't mean you're not going to kick yourself in the butt and keep moving forward soon after.For full "bodily disclosure"...I also went on hormonal birth control last week. I am using the Nuvaring, after being off any hormonal bc since 2007. I do believe that hormonal bc can throw our bodies off balance, but I also truly need the assurance it provides me that my boyfriend and I won't get pregnant-- so I'm tentatively trying it again. It's nice that that aspect of my life has become a possibility with my improving health!The fatigue is my worst symptom as of today... the last few days, my bm's have reduced to 1x/day - I'm constipated, but at least the poo isn't soft and the food isn't going right through me. This is a huge improvement over the last 2 months. But, especially the last 2-3 days (the same amount of time since the diarrhea went away and constipation or 1 hard bm every 1-2 days took its place), I've been experiencing nausea, headaches, spacey-ness, and the fatigue that I've become so used to over the last 7 months. I can't complain about the lessened cramping and diarrhea, though. I'm glad to have a diagnosis and to have found the SCD diet. I love to cook and already bought 3 SCD cookbooks. It makes so much sense, and I really believe it will help tremendously-- though I know it will be a bumpy journey.