A Cup of Tea

After my m/c at the end of May I decided that I needed to get serious about trying to improve my diet. Specifically, I wanted to eliminate red meat and dairy, and reduce sugar and caffeine. Well, I haven't managed to eliminate anything, but I've significantly reduced both dairy and red meat, and I've made efforts to increase my vegetable intake. This past week I've indulged way too much in chocolate — but well worth it, I say. What's life without chocolate?

Besides chocolate, my biggest regular indulgence is plain old orange pekoe tea. I drink one cup each day, sometimes two, which I don't think is too bad, but then again nothing about it is good. That little mug contains three things I'm supposed to be avoiding: caffeine, sugar, and dairy. I used to use Splenda, but Dr. L was appalled when he heard that. I tried using a non-dairy replacement — almond milk, which I now use in cereal — but it tasted terrible. So milk and sugar it is.

Tea is a definitely a comfort thing for me. My mom and I lived with my grandparents for most of my childhood, and tea was very much a part of that life. My grandma always has a cup of tea nearby. I hardly remember her drinking anything else, ever!

Upset? Feeling ill? Have a cup of tea and you'll feel better, I promise. :)

See this post for more evidence of how much I looove tea.

Failing to Kick the Habit

Remember that post last Saturday, "Trying to Kick the Habit"? Well, I haven't done anything I said I was going to do. The diet stalled before it got out of the driveway, I have done very little exercise, and I've been spending as much time as ever on the Nest's Trouble TTC board. I did stop temping, but only for four days.

Oh, and my cousin came back to stay with us for another month because she got a job — yay! I like having her here, but I'm much more likely to indulge in bad food (and bad TV) while she's around.

Let me tell you about the temping. Last Saturday it was CD32 and I was feeling pretty certain that I would not be ovulating this cycle. But it kept niggling at me — what if? It's hard not having that information when you're so used to it. And so, because apparently I'm an addict, I resumed temping on Thursday — just in time to see a temperature shift that has continued for five days now. It's not super high, but it's higher than my usual follicular phase temps.

So, I might have ovulated! Good, right? Well... maybe not. If I did ovulate last week, my next cycle will start about five days before my post-op appointment with Dr. L, and I might have to sit out yet another cycle. I guess I could call and beg for an earlier appointment, but I always feel like such a whiny, needy pain in the ass when I do stuff like that.

Due Diligence?

Did I do my due diligence in all this infertility stuff? Should I have done more?

Sometimes I think we went about this all wrong. I went off BCP fully expecting what did in fact happen — nothing. Okay, I had one AF the next month, and I thought, cool, what a great time for my body to decide to start working! And then nothing, for the next five months. But the point is that I expected it. And instead of doing something about it — instead of, say, researching fertility diets that promote ovulation or going on any diet just to get healthier and lose some weight — I just waited. I took my prenatal vitamins and I waited until I was due for my annual checkup, and then I went in and got my referral to an IF specialist.

Now I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry. And I wonder, since I'd only been off BCP for six months, why didn't my doctor suggest trying ways to get my cycles going naturally? Or, why didn't she look at me long enough to figure out I probably have PCOS and put me on metformin to see if that helped before sending me off to the specialist?

Even now, one year into treatment, I still haven't got my act together. My attempts at dieting are half-hearted and laughable, really. Whenever I read about a particular diet I get overwhelmed and doom myself to failure before I begin. (The GI diet was great for about two weeks.) Every time I see Dr. L he asks me, "Have you lost any weight?" And I say, "I don't think so," and I feel ashamed.

My long-term plan, assuming continued infertility, is this: I'm going to do four more IUIs, for a total of six, and if I'm still not pregnant, I'm going to take a long break before thinking about IVF. And during that break I'm going to go all out — I'm going to do acupuncture and really commit to a diet and make my body a lean, mean, baby-making machine. And if that doesn't work, I'll consider IVF.

But wait, isn't that plan all wrong? Why am I not taking a long break now and doing all that stuff? Oh, I know. Because now I've been trying for 18 months and now — now I'm impatient.

I'm editing this post to add a footnote: I did lose 30 pounds the year before I stopped taking BCP, and I have somehow kept it off, so technically I'm in the best shape of my adult life. I only need to lose another 20 to fall into "normal" range, and I guess there is a part of my brain protesting that an extra 20 pounds can't possibly be what's preventing me from getting pregnant. But still.

Trying to Kick the Habit

K and I rented Juno tonight, and we both enjoyed it. It was cute and sweet and funny, and the only character I didn't like was Vanessa, the adoptive mother, played by Jennifer Garner. I was uncomfortable with how ... fragile and desperate she seemed. Maybe I'm just afraid that will be me someday, or that others will see me that way. But I loved the title character, and the relationships seemed very real. Two thumbs up.

I have decided that the best way to make the next month until my post-op appointment go by quickly is to try to put it out of my mind as much as possible — "it" being IF and TTC. I have been completely unsuccessful with that during all previous breaks, but I'm going to give it another shot. Why is it such an all-consuming obsession? I'm going to stop temping (it's CD32 and there's no sign of o) and I'm going to try hard not to talk about "it" and to lay off the Nest. What else can I do? I will continue to take my twice-daily prenatal vitamins, of course. Luckily, if you want to call it luck, I'm desperately swamped at work and should be concentrating on that. I need to be about 300 percent more productive than I have been in recent months.

What will happen to this blog, you might wonder? Well, as I mentioned in the previous post, besides work I'm going to try to focus on losing some weight — 20 pounds to my goal weight. My cousin has been staying with us for the past month (she's 22 and size 6), and we kind of used her as an excuse to eat out a lot and to have plenty of treats and "fun food" on hand. Well, she left this morning, depriving us of our excuse. So, I guess I'll post about that once in a while.

But you'll have to allow me just one more tiny rant: I've been TTC for 18 months now, and in that time I have ovulated just five times, and I'm probably not going to ovulate again until June. That sucks ever so much.

Okay, I'm done. :)