Ironically, this past year I have finally gotten really good about having a full breakfast every morning, and at the center of that breakfast has been cereal and milk. I grew up absolutely hating milk, so adding it to my cereal has been a big move. Now that I am finally into a routine of getting up even earlier than I used to and having cereal, milk, fruit, orange juice and usually tea/coffee/hot chocolate, I have to adjust again. Cereal doesn't keep with the gluten-free diet I am trying to keep. So, I am learning to love eggs.
When you cut out bread and cereal, that really reduces the number of breakfast foods you can eat. It basically leaves eggs, meat and fruit. So, I am still eating the blueberries I started adding to my cereal, just sans cereal, and I am still drinking my hot chocolate, just with whole milk rather than skim milk, and now I am trying to give myself a few more minutes each morning to scramble up a couple eggs. If we have any bacon in the house, which we sometimes do, depending on our dinner menu for the week, I might make a couple strips of bacon as well.
To keep up the protein kick, I am also eating almonds and walnuts as part of my daily lunch. These aren't my favorites, but they're good for me and they keep me from snacking on something gluten-filled that I really like, such as Cheez-Itz, which ultimately have limited if any nutritional value.
Finally, although my husband and I have become what I would call flexitarians -- we've been known to eliminate meat from about two or three meals a week -- I've moved us back to having meat with every dinner we make. I am even trying to get him to add a little more red meat to our diet, no more than once a week.
It's hard to go against conventional wisdom, it's hard to give up pasta and pizza and alcohol, but my digestive system is thanking me (it's in GREAT shape these days -- sorry for the TMI, but it's worth noting). So, I hope that the more seriously I stick to my new food habits, the more my body will start to change soon.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A vitamin store in my bedside table
After doing some more independent research, I officially decided to up my vitamin intake this week. Even though the prenatal vitamin that I've been taking for a year claims to give me 100 percent of everything I could need for baby-making purposes, I've read enough/heard enough about other people's experiences with pregnancy and vitamins that I figure more of a good thing can't be bad. (Yes, I realize this is sort of a self-diagnosis, but you don't exactly need a prescription for vitamins.)
So, now in addition to my prenatal vitamin, I am also taking separate helpings of vitamin B6, B12, D and E. For what it's worth, my regular physician actually encouraged me to take more vitamin D at my appointment last year. I did not heed her advice because it was 1) generic advice that she gives everyone because she believes everyone in modern America is vitamin D deficient (her words) and 2) the appointment was in the summer when I was always in the sun, so I figured this didn't apply to me.
As my period got started last week I also promised myself that I would exercise daily. So far, so good. It's becoming a bit of a game for me, a competition with myself in a way, to see if I can keep up with this routine. I'm doing a combination of long walks with the dogs and my husband (and even a buddy of mine who wants to join me in my efforts to get more exercise! Hooray for healthy girl time!), as well as 30-minutes of aerobics each day with 30-minutes of strength exercise a few days a week.
I've also decided with the start of this new cycle to entirely stop drinking caffeine and alcohol. Although I drank both in total moderation (aside from one party I was at in January when I was getting my period and decided to drink rather heavily), I figure I can make the sacrifice. So, that one cup of coffee I drank about three times a week is no more, and I am not drinking any soda (though I did that rarely if ever). I had my last alcoholic drink at my friend's birthday party last weekend, and I'm happy to give that up entirely now as well.
Finally, I am going to give the gluten-free diet a shot. I bought a book about going gluten-free over the weekend. Although it's geared toward people with Celiac's disease (because those are the main people who would purchase such a book) I think I can make it work for me. This means giving up pizza, which my husband and I would probably eat once a week or every other week (almost always homemade on the grill) and whole-wheat pasta we would also eat with the same regularity. I think it would be nearly impossible to be entirely gluten-free, seeing as gluten exists in incredibly small amounts in products even such as soy sauce, I am at least going to cut down all bread, pasta, and cracker products (as well as beer, which falls in both the gluten and alcohol categories).
Oh, and because several studies suggest it is good for fertility, I am now drinking whole milk. Yes, whole milk. After a childhood spent with 2% milk, I learned to love skim as a teenager, and now I am going hardcore all the way past 2% to whole. I wouldn't pick whole milk, but I'll try anything.
I plan to keep this up at least until July. If I don't see improvements in my ovulation dates within four months then I probably won't see any changes from these lifestyle choices after that. By July we will have been trying for one year officially. Seeing as how I ovulated last cycle on CD39, I am really hopeful at this moment that I can bring that ovulation date down even further. CD35 would be amazing, CD30 would be absolutely divine.
So, now in addition to my prenatal vitamin, I am also taking separate helpings of vitamin B6, B12, D and E. For what it's worth, my regular physician actually encouraged me to take more vitamin D at my appointment last year. I did not heed her advice because it was 1) generic advice that she gives everyone because she believes everyone in modern America is vitamin D deficient (her words) and 2) the appointment was in the summer when I was always in the sun, so I figured this didn't apply to me.
As my period got started last week I also promised myself that I would exercise daily. So far, so good. It's becoming a bit of a game for me, a competition with myself in a way, to see if I can keep up with this routine. I'm doing a combination of long walks with the dogs and my husband (and even a buddy of mine who wants to join me in my efforts to get more exercise! Hooray for healthy girl time!), as well as 30-minutes of aerobics each day with 30-minutes of strength exercise a few days a week.
I've also decided with the start of this new cycle to entirely stop drinking caffeine and alcohol. Although I drank both in total moderation (aside from one party I was at in January when I was getting my period and decided to drink rather heavily), I figure I can make the sacrifice. So, that one cup of coffee I drank about three times a week is no more, and I am not drinking any soda (though I did that rarely if ever). I had my last alcoholic drink at my friend's birthday party last weekend, and I'm happy to give that up entirely now as well.
Finally, I am going to give the gluten-free diet a shot. I bought a book about going gluten-free over the weekend. Although it's geared toward people with Celiac's disease (because those are the main people who would purchase such a book) I think I can make it work for me. This means giving up pizza, which my husband and I would probably eat once a week or every other week (almost always homemade on the grill) and whole-wheat pasta we would also eat with the same regularity. I think it would be nearly impossible to be entirely gluten-free, seeing as gluten exists in incredibly small amounts in products even such as soy sauce, I am at least going to cut down all bread, pasta, and cracker products (as well as beer, which falls in both the gluten and alcohol categories).
Oh, and because several studies suggest it is good for fertility, I am now drinking whole milk. Yes, whole milk. After a childhood spent with 2% milk, I learned to love skim as a teenager, and now I am going hardcore all the way past 2% to whole. I wouldn't pick whole milk, but I'll try anything.
I plan to keep this up at least until July. If I don't see improvements in my ovulation dates within four months then I probably won't see any changes from these lifestyle choices after that. By July we will have been trying for one year officially. Seeing as how I ovulated last cycle on CD39, I am really hopeful at this moment that I can bring that ovulation date down even further. CD35 would be amazing, CD30 would be absolutely divine.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
CD1
And so it begins, again. With the start of today's period came one more little punch in the gut from Mother Nature, another reminder that I am still not pregnant. As we approach April, we'll be entering month nine of trying. In the amount of time we've been trying, we could have a baby by now.
I know there are women out there who have been trying for four years or more. My heart breaks for them. I don't know how they go through this for so long. I'm not even at the year mark and I'm starting to find the ups and downs of all this mildly unbearable.
Because I'm attempting to be more optimistic (when the spirit moves me) I thought it was relevant to share the stats of my most recent three cycles:
2 cycles ago --
O'ed on CD70
Luteal phase: 7 days
Total length: 77 days
Last cycle --
O'ed on CD53
Luteal phase: 12 days
Total length: 65 days
The cycle I just ended today --
O'ed on CD 39 (!!!!)
Luteal phase: 11 days
Total length: 50 days
I am happy that the two most recent cycles I've ovulated earlier than I did the previous round. Also, I am happy that after one cycle with a short luteal phase (that would be too short to sustain a pregnancy) I have at least got my luteal phase up to a normal length.
I am going to exercise every single day. This is my new promise to myself (starting tomorrow). I think my increased exercise regiment is what I can thank for my earlier ovulation dates. I'm also going to reevaluate my vitamins and probably start taking more as well as looking into my diet more, even considering a gluten-free diet. At this point, I feel like I'm getting desperate, and I'm willing to try anything within reason.
I know there are women out there who have been trying for four years or more. My heart breaks for them. I don't know how they go through this for so long. I'm not even at the year mark and I'm starting to find the ups and downs of all this mildly unbearable.
Because I'm attempting to be more optimistic (when the spirit moves me) I thought it was relevant to share the stats of my most recent three cycles:
2 cycles ago --
O'ed on CD70
Luteal phase: 7 days
Total length: 77 days
Last cycle --
O'ed on CD53
Luteal phase: 12 days
Total length: 65 days
The cycle I just ended today --
O'ed on CD 39 (!!!!)
Luteal phase: 11 days
Total length: 50 days
I am happy that the two most recent cycles I've ovulated earlier than I did the previous round. Also, I am happy that after one cycle with a short luteal phase (that would be too short to sustain a pregnancy) I have at least got my luteal phase up to a normal length.
I am going to exercise every single day. This is my new promise to myself (starting tomorrow). I think my increased exercise regiment is what I can thank for my earlier ovulation dates. I'm also going to reevaluate my vitamins and probably start taking more as well as looking into my diet more, even considering a gluten-free diet. At this point, I feel like I'm getting desperate, and I'm willing to try anything within reason.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Deactivated
This morning I did what I had been considering for a long time. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, I finally deactivated Facebook.
Yes, like virtually everyone else, I can say that Facebook is making me dumb. It's wasting my time, keeping me from doing things I could be doing that are way more productive, like exercising or getting my news from an actual newspaper rather than from my politically active friends' status updates. This is all true.
But the main reason I deactivated, which I will only share with those few of you who even know about the existence of this blog, is that I am tired of all the babies on Facebook. In keeping with my last post, I am tired of people's sonogram pictures as their profile pictures, updates about their babies' every moves in their status updates, complaints about being pregnant, and baby-belly photos of people who I frankly (in the worst part of myself) can't understand why they deserve to procreate and I do not.
So, if you used to be friends with me on Facebook and I no longer appear in your list of friends, never fear. I still like you, and my husband I are still married (though he is now simply listed as "married" instead of specifically married to me, a fact even he does not yet realize [that I will share with him after he wakes up from his nap]).
It's not that I'm not happy for my genuinely close friends and family who recently had babies or who are currently pregnant. I'm thrilled for them, and I want to share their happiness over email, over the phone and in person, and I do. I'm amazed by friends who had babies recently and then give up two straight hours to talk to me over the phone while their baby sleeps. But I really couldn't care less about the girl I vaguely know from work or from middle school who's about to pop one out. And such knowledge is simply not good for my psyche, nor is it good for my time management. Like one of my closest friends recently said to me over a tear-filled dinner, the problem with Facebook is that it's a place where your 300 "closest friends" post only the happy stuff about their lives -- their recent trips, new job offers or promotions, house purchases, pregnancies, births, dog adoptions, TV show and book recommendations, latest business ventures. No one posts about their most recent miscarriage, their impending divorce, their heart-breaking layoff. It gives us all a false sense that everyone else's lives are perfect and only our own contains stress and anxiety and disappointment.
So, goodbye Facebook. Maybe now I can, ironically, be surrounded by more positive energy than I ever was through everyone's overly positive status updates.
Yes, like virtually everyone else, I can say that Facebook is making me dumb. It's wasting my time, keeping me from doing things I could be doing that are way more productive, like exercising or getting my news from an actual newspaper rather than from my politically active friends' status updates. This is all true.
But the main reason I deactivated, which I will only share with those few of you who even know about the existence of this blog, is that I am tired of all the babies on Facebook. In keeping with my last post, I am tired of people's sonogram pictures as their profile pictures, updates about their babies' every moves in their status updates, complaints about being pregnant, and baby-belly photos of people who I frankly (in the worst part of myself) can't understand why they deserve to procreate and I do not.
So, if you used to be friends with me on Facebook and I no longer appear in your list of friends, never fear. I still like you, and my husband I are still married (though he is now simply listed as "married" instead of specifically married to me, a fact even he does not yet realize [that I will share with him after he wakes up from his nap]).
It's not that I'm not happy for my genuinely close friends and family who recently had babies or who are currently pregnant. I'm thrilled for them, and I want to share their happiness over email, over the phone and in person, and I do. I'm amazed by friends who had babies recently and then give up two straight hours to talk to me over the phone while their baby sleeps. But I really couldn't care less about the girl I vaguely know from work or from middle school who's about to pop one out. And such knowledge is simply not good for my psyche, nor is it good for my time management. Like one of my closest friends recently said to me over a tear-filled dinner, the problem with Facebook is that it's a place where your 300 "closest friends" post only the happy stuff about their lives -- their recent trips, new job offers or promotions, house purchases, pregnancies, births, dog adoptions, TV show and book recommendations, latest business ventures. No one posts about their most recent miscarriage, their impending divorce, their heart-breaking layoff. It gives us all a false sense that everyone else's lives are perfect and only our own contains stress and anxiety and disappointment.
So, goodbye Facebook. Maybe now I can, ironically, be surrounded by more positive energy than I ever was through everyone's overly positive status updates.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Then again, maybe I won't...
...which is ANOTHER Judy Blume book title reference, which makes two solid Judy Blume title references in one as-of-now very short blog.
So, in case you haven't guessed, I have decided not to pursue fertility treatment with my current (and now technically former) OB/GYN. After talking to more ladies who've been on Clomid themselves and posting a question on a PCOS community forum (and receiving many response), I've discovered that my doctor was being entirely too "by the book" with me, basically meaning that most other ladies' doctors prescribe them Clomid without any expensive tests and without labeling them as "infertile." This also means that these women do not have to pay expensive out-of-pocket costs. See, if you have a "period problem" and your doctor gives you Clomid to induce ovulation/maintain regular cycles, insurance covers the cost, but as soon as you slap "infertility" on that bad boy, get ready to shell out the dough. More specifically, both my doctor and her nurse had warned me that I would be spending $500-$1,000 just to START Clomid treatments. Apparently lots of other women can get away with a free doctor's visit and a trip to Walmart for a $9 Clomid prescription. Maybe my doctor is being thorough, one might argue, but I would argue that I stand by my statement that my doctor isn't looking at me as an individual and just wants to give me the most popular drug and call it a day.
Yesterday I called the nurse at my doctor's office and said I wanted to cancel my appointment. When she said, "You mean you want to reschedule for another time?" I said, "No, I mean cancel. I am not ready to be labeled infertile when I am ovulating on my own." She reminded me that she would be happy to schedule me for another appointment as soon as I'm ready. I held my tongue, and I guess I can't say never, but it will take something significant for me to return to my now-former doctor. I have a recommendation from a good friend for a doctor who works down the street from my house, so should I decide to schedule an appointment down the road, this new doctor would be even closer by than my former doctor.
On a totally different note....
I've been thinking about parenting a lot lately. After being on a plane ride heading some place tropical with three toddlers -- who were screaming the entire three-hour flight -- all owned by one mother in the row in front of me, and then coming back some place tropical listening to another toddler actually screaming bloody murder for a solid 30 minutes (honestly, I assumed someone must be killing this child) I've thought a lot about licenses for parenting. If I had my way, people would all be infertile until they were granted a license to reproduce, and only once they received their reproductive license would their natural reproductive abilities commence (this would also benefit society by preventing unplanned/unwanted pregnancies...see, I'm looking out for everyone! No one would have to worry about birth control!). This wouldn't be an elitist system -- you can have any IQ, any job, any income and be a good parent. You cannot, though, lack common sense and be a good parent. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence of the most fertile people I know in the world would indicate that people with the least common sense are the ones who can look at their husbands and miraculously conceive.
Realizing that reproductive licenses aren't in our nation's future, I would like to make my pledge that I promise not to be an obnoxious parent should I ever be lucky enough to procreate. Here are my rules, in no particular order:
1) I promise not to make status updates, blog posts, tweets, texts, email messages, etc. about my child's bodily functions. I already know no one cares, and it's kind of gross. This will not change if I suddenly have a child.
2) I promise to make time for childless friends. I will remember that there is so much more to life than my baby. I will also remember that my friends care about me, not just my baby (though I'm sure he/she will be great if he/she ever gets a chance at life).
3) I promise to remember that people have been raising children for thousands of years and children have been developing for thousands of years; therefore, every time my child eats, talks, moves, etc. it is not something everyone I know really cares about. We've all been there, literally.
Those are the items that I've found most annoying lately. I'm sure I'll make more discoveries the longer I stay "infertile" and the longer I can judge the moms and dads of the world. If this all comes back to bite me in the ass one day...well, I would absolutely love it.
So, in case you haven't guessed, I have decided not to pursue fertility treatment with my current (and now technically former) OB/GYN. After talking to more ladies who've been on Clomid themselves and posting a question on a PCOS community forum (and receiving many response), I've discovered that my doctor was being entirely too "by the book" with me, basically meaning that most other ladies' doctors prescribe them Clomid without any expensive tests and without labeling them as "infertile." This also means that these women do not have to pay expensive out-of-pocket costs. See, if you have a "period problem" and your doctor gives you Clomid to induce ovulation/maintain regular cycles, insurance covers the cost, but as soon as you slap "infertility" on that bad boy, get ready to shell out the dough. More specifically, both my doctor and her nurse had warned me that I would be spending $500-$1,000 just to START Clomid treatments. Apparently lots of other women can get away with a free doctor's visit and a trip to Walmart for a $9 Clomid prescription. Maybe my doctor is being thorough, one might argue, but I would argue that I stand by my statement that my doctor isn't looking at me as an individual and just wants to give me the most popular drug and call it a day.
Yesterday I called the nurse at my doctor's office and said I wanted to cancel my appointment. When she said, "You mean you want to reschedule for another time?" I said, "No, I mean cancel. I am not ready to be labeled infertile when I am ovulating on my own." She reminded me that she would be happy to schedule me for another appointment as soon as I'm ready. I held my tongue, and I guess I can't say never, but it will take something significant for me to return to my now-former doctor. I have a recommendation from a good friend for a doctor who works down the street from my house, so should I decide to schedule an appointment down the road, this new doctor would be even closer by than my former doctor.
On a totally different note....
I've been thinking about parenting a lot lately. After being on a plane ride heading some place tropical with three toddlers -- who were screaming the entire three-hour flight -- all owned by one mother in the row in front of me, and then coming back some place tropical listening to another toddler actually screaming bloody murder for a solid 30 minutes (honestly, I assumed someone must be killing this child) I've thought a lot about licenses for parenting. If I had my way, people would all be infertile until they were granted a license to reproduce, and only once they received their reproductive license would their natural reproductive abilities commence (this would also benefit society by preventing unplanned/unwanted pregnancies...see, I'm looking out for everyone! No one would have to worry about birth control!). This wouldn't be an elitist system -- you can have any IQ, any job, any income and be a good parent. You cannot, though, lack common sense and be a good parent. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence of the most fertile people I know in the world would indicate that people with the least common sense are the ones who can look at their husbands and miraculously conceive.
Realizing that reproductive licenses aren't in our nation's future, I would like to make my pledge that I promise not to be an obnoxious parent should I ever be lucky enough to procreate. Here are my rules, in no particular order:
1) I promise not to make status updates, blog posts, tweets, texts, email messages, etc. about my child's bodily functions. I already know no one cares, and it's kind of gross. This will not change if I suddenly have a child.
2) I promise to make time for childless friends. I will remember that there is so much more to life than my baby. I will also remember that my friends care about me, not just my baby (though I'm sure he/she will be great if he/she ever gets a chance at life).
3) I promise to remember that people have been raising children for thousands of years and children have been developing for thousands of years; therefore, every time my child eats, talks, moves, etc. it is not something everyone I know really cares about. We've all been there, literally.
Those are the items that I've found most annoying lately. I'm sure I'll make more discoveries the longer I stay "infertile" and the longer I can judge the moms and dads of the world. If this all comes back to bite me in the ass one day...well, I would absolutely love it.
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