TVT, Turkey Style (CD3)

It's Thought Vomit Thanksgiving, ya'll! I am way too tired from cleaning and baking and organizing and setting up for my visiting family (four staying with us, four in a hotel) to put together more than bullet points today. Though, let's be honest, when do I ever?

- After three injections, I have entered the irrational crying stage of IVF. I cried this morning at how happy I was that everyone was in town. I cried when I got a picture of my dad and brother, who just finished running their first joint 10K. I cried when I started THINKING about how annoyed I am at not being able to watch HIMYM for a while. To be honest though? This irrational crying thing? Makes me feel more like me. So I'm good with it.

- The final weigh-in is complete for my sugar-fast challenge. On Halloween, the first day I abstained, I came in at a shocking 193 lbs. Thank you, two rounds of IUI/injectables, and lots of Mike's Pastry in Boston. And finding consolation in a bottle (ha! *a* bottle) of good wine. And a bag (or two or three) of Trader Joe's white cheddar puffed corn (fake pirate booty). To recap, I'm 5' 8 1/2". Last year at this time, I was 178. Super duper. So.... what does running a 5K and laying off the white stuff for 25 days get you? FIVE POUNDS. Yup, I weighed in at 187.8 this morning. It helps that some of the AF bloat went down too. It's def not where I want to be, but it's a good starting point.

- I went on another baking binge Tuesday night, to make my family think I'm all Suzy Homemaker. I baked chocolate zucchini muffins, pumpkin spice muffins*, GF pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cookies w/cinnamon icing. The most impressive part of that was actually cooking all the damn deliciously battered items without tasting A SINGLE MORSEL OF BATTER. Or finished product. Until yesterday.

- Apparently, there are a few of you out there that like me! I've been bestowed the Liebster Award! Apparently, Liebster means "dearest" in German. This one has been floating around the blogosphere this week, going to folks with less than 200 followers. I received it from three other awesome ladies whose blogs I *love* to see pop up on my unread reader list. Rebeccah from Pink Lipgloss and Prenatals, Oak from Acorn Chronicles, and Kelly from Team Baby are all rockstars themselves, and I VERY much appreciate knowing that they enjoy my thought vomit! They've all been great support so far in this IVF journey, as have the rest of you!

Here are the rules to pass this baby on: 

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!

 

Here are 5 bloggers I would like to pass the award on to:

1. Lauren, from Not Just An Army Wife (she barely squeaks in at 195 followers!)

2. Lauren, from The Army Doctor's Wife and P(c)OS Ovaries

3. Megan, from This Space for Rent

4. The lovely Waiting and Wishing

5. Emily, from A Peek into our Journey

 

These ladies are all truly wonderful, and deserve a good look! They'll crack you up and make you cry, all at the same time. Or maybe that's just me.... 

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving!!! And to those of you *not* celebrating Thanksgiving, Happy Thursday!

*One box spiced cake mix, one can of pumpkin, 1/2 cup water. Bake according to the directions on the box, add a minute or two of baking time. Thanks, Lauren, for the recipe!!! She also suggests you add a decadent cream cheese frosting... hold me...

Take THAT, ute! (CD2)

The taunting worked :) I arrived home yesterday after work and errands... and voila! Just barely, too, as the props used in the taunting were unscathed. One point JM, Zero points Ute.

See kids? Scare tactics work. And school yard bullying.


We did our first injection this morning, and our second this evening. The schedule for now is for 150 units Follistim in the mornings, and 2 vials of Menopur in the evenings. Dr Boy has been awesome and woke up at 5:30am today so he could inject me before I left for work. He rocks the IVF-spouse job. The follistim bruised. Not a fan. It didn't burn or hurt, just left a surprising bruise. The menopur hurt like a mother effer this time! Which shocked me, because I didn't find it that bad last time. I think we shot it too close to the follistim bruise. We'll fix that one tomorrow, for sure.

The plan is to do bloodwork on Saturday and evaluate things. (Did I mention my e2 from Tuesday came back at 55? Nice and suppressed. Though not as low as it could have been. Oh well.) I'll have my next ultrasound on Monday, which will be the 6th day of stims. Good times!

Also, I ended the sugar fast today, since I started stims. My breaker of choice? A pumpkin spice cookie with cinnamon frosting. It. Was. Amazing. I made it a very proud 25 days.... woohoo! It'll definitely make me think twice about the sugar I put into my body from here on out. At least for, say, the next five minutes or so.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Cravings

I have a confession to make.

I have not eaten a single piece of Halloween candy this year.

I shit you not. Four bags were purchased (snickers, kit kat, reese's pb cups, and twix, for those of you with inquiring minds). About 8 pieces remain. And we only had about 10-15 trick or treaters TOTAL.

You know what that means? Dr Boy is enjoying himself :)

Honestly though, on Halloween, I decided that I was going to go on a sugar-fast. My friend Jamima (whose beautiful daughters provide LOTS of child-therapy) went sugar-free for 30 days through Sept/Oct. Bravely enough, she tackled this strait through a 3-yr old birthday party and everything. Successfully. Of course, the girl's a PROFESSIONAL TRIATHLETE, so she can pretty much do anything, but tackling a hard-core craving is tough no matter who you are.

I had intended on doing this through October, and having Halloween be my break-the-fast. But vacation came. And another BFN. So no, I ate my way through that month happily.

But now, just about two and a half weeks away from starting IVF stims, I'm going for the gold. And I started last Monday. The worst sugar day of the year.

Today is will complete day 8. I've had fake sugar twice- a sugar-free vanilla latte, and a teaspoon of stevia on my grapefruit. I'm ok with that.

My goal? No sugar 'til I start stims.

Oy. Vey.

Thought Vomit ThursFriday

Thurs-Friday is kindof like brunch or linner, a little bit of both worlds :)

- Had an awful time getting to my u/s appt Tuesday. Between the impossible task of finding a parking spot, not knowing which building the dr was located in (different location than usual), ending up floating around the maternity wards (yes, that really happened), and nearly having a breakdown when I checked in 15 minutes late, I finally made it. Hardly still sane, but made it.

- The u/s showed no follie activity yet. Nothing over 7mm, after 6 days of shots. Whatevs. There weren't any last time around, it just rules out this cycle moving along any faster than last time, really. On one hand, it should still be fine because we did end up with a good, ovulating, follie last time. On the other, it didn't end up making me a baby. So I'm still a bit jaded and disconnected from this cycle a bit more, mentally at least.

- Shots 8 and 9 hurt like a bitch. And bruised. I am so over this. But I can't complain about them too much bc Dr Boy feels like I'm bitching about HIM and the way HE injects me. Which I'm not, I'm just bitching about it in general. Sigh.

- I'm pissed that this cycle isn't moving faster bc it means we won't be able to fit in a third before we leave for Boston and VT in mid-Oct. Because yes, I'm already thinking about next time. I told you I was feeling disconnected about this cycle. Maybe a quick month off would be good though, I don't know. Give my body a chance to relax a little (I hear relaxing gets you pregnant) and lose the 8 lbs I've gained in the last 6 weeks. What the hell am I saying, I'm going to be pissed if this time doesn't work and we have to waste more time. Pissed.

- I'm attempting to cut out processed sugar, at least for a little bit. I was less than 1 lb shy of 190 when I stepped on the scale yesterday, and that is UNACCEPTABLE. Ohhhhhhhhh no. Mmmm mmmmm. I'm taking the AA "one day at a time" approach. I can refrain from peanut m&m's and Grandmother's peanut butter cookies from the snack shack TODAY. I can say no to the skinny cow ice cream sandwich TODAY. I can give away the chocolate brownies left over from our BBQ TODAY. What did Dr Boy say last night? "We need more good dessert options up in this house." Ha. Get used to it.

- I'm fairly certain the low-sugar deal will only last up until my next BFN. Here's hoping, though.

- I am planting beets and lettuce in my fall garden. About to give up on my peppers and zucchini. It's been a bad year for peppers in my 'hood, and I can't seem to get the zucc's any bigger than 4" before they start to turn yellow. Very odd. I thought they grew like weeds!!! Tomatoes are still going strong though. Yum-tastic.

- My self-esteem lately has been ROCK BOTTOM. This one deserves its own post though. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

I have another u/s this afternoon. Hopefully we'll see something more interesting, since it IS CD12 and all.

That is all.

Realistic goals

I thought I had set realistic goals. Goals which I stuck to even when I knew they were impossible. So I basically set myself up for failure, which is a pretty craptastic excuse to fail, because duh, no matter how much progress you make you'll still fail so why try?

What sucks is I felt like I did try, at least enough to not GAIN this week. Up until weigh-in this morning, I had lost a pound or so. I put in my veggie garden this week, I ran. Downfall? Probably garlic fries at the baseball game. And a carb-fest excuse of an Easter meal because Dr Boy's dad forgot to make my salmon (I don't eat meat. They were having tri-tip.) So lunch/dinner consisted of 3 pieces of parmesan garlic bread and two helpings of red potatoes. Mmmm. Diet-friendly.

Pretty sure I'm bloated from that crap yesterday. So we'll see what happens next week. In the mean-time, I've revised my goal to something I'm TOTALLY going to hit. 175, just in time to go on a 9-day fast/gas station food extravaganza across the mid-west- a real live storm chasing trip. I want to trim down so I'm as depressed when I get back and have swelled to the size of an F-5.

So there we go. More running, more swimming, less parmesan garlic bread.

By the way, one of these days I'll give 'yall a TTC update. Not much, but I haven't in a while so I will this week. Promise.

Today I weigh: 181.6 lbs
Today my BMI is: 27.2
Weight loss/gained this week: +0.6
Goal: 175 lbs
Goal BMI: 26.2 (according to this calculator)
By When? May 19th (I leave for vacation.)

Mah Glutes Are Gahn

Not in an "I have no ass" kind of way, but more in an "I used muscles I'm not used to and now they don't work so I might as well have none" kind of way. I helped a friend put in her summer garden yesterday, and we successfully planted ~20 different plants (of course the true test of success will be in a couple of months). I also ran/walked 3.5 miles in the morning, when I otherwise would have been asleep and dead to the world. Both felt great at the time*, but have left my rump feeling roasted, and my thighs tenderized. Since I wasn't alone for either, they felt more like socializing than exercise.

On a side note, I absolutely LOVE gardening. When we lived in a townhouse (before we moved up here), I planted a topsy turvy and a clay pot with tomatoes. Year one produced mild success.

Look at the size of that thing! Not bad for a porch!


Mmmmmmm delicious!


Topsy-tastic! Some sort of yellow cherry heirloom variety that was delicious.

Note that there are no photos of my 2010 fiasco of a porch garden. A combination of April travel and a newly-diagnosed diabetic cat had that year bound to fail before it even got root. Ha. I'm funny.


But enough about my love of dirt. And things that come out of it. Though I'm a little obsessed with vine-ripened tomatoes. I think I may plant about a billion of them this week. Nomnomnomnom....

OK for real enough now. Moral of the story is that I got off my sorry dead arse and MOVED and ENJOYED it. That's the point. I also did pretty well food-wise. I avoided all things super delicious at a festival in town (including cotton candy, a slushy, bag of chips, and mmmmmm frozen lemonade). I walked a lot. I did have a few drinks at a bar Friday night but ordered rum and diet coke :) Yes that counts a diet-conscious choice. Let me live in denial.

So things are going slowly but surely in the right direction. I feel good, and am starting to go down, down, down. Slowly. But slowly that'll speed up too :) Just like my 5K time.



* Just kidding the run felt like crap. It was hotter than the last time I ran, and humid, and I felt like my entire body was going UP and DOWN with each step I took on the run part of the intervals. Thank god for the awesome coach I was running or I would never have gone as far. It did feel good after though.


Today I weigh: 181.0 lbs
Today my BMI is: 27.1
Weight loss/gained this week: didn't weigh last week
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 24.7 (according to this calculator)
By When? April 24th (Ha! I'm funny.)

Moving is a cold, hard, beeatch

I knew that it probably wouldn't be good having, for all intents and purposes, an unlimited food budget for 40 days. Combine that with a poorly equipped kitchen, and a new busy schedule complete with 6am start time for work, and you have a recipe for diet disaster. I had high hopes of continuing to lose weight while on per diem, but alas, those high hopes will have to go back on the top shelf from whence they came. I'm up about 3 pounds from the last time I weighed myself before the move, about 6 weeks ago. I'm up 6 pounds from my lowest weigh-in. I knew things weren't going to be good when I put on my favorite pair of jeans last Wednesday, and they were tight. They weren't the most comfy pair to wear to work, but I was bound and determined. I had hoped that maybe the dryer at the temporary apartment was shrinking them, but now that the evidence is in, there's no excuse.

So here we are. Things are gonna change, for real this time. I'm starting to run. Intervals for now, but eventually I'll be less crappy at it. I'm starting to swim. Gotta get the full use out of my pool membership! So I'll see you all in a week, McFatty's. One week. Less pounds. More exercise. Less food. More healthiness.

So there.


Today I weigh: 181.6 lbs
Today my BMI is: 27.2
Weight loss/gained this week: didn't weigh last week
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 25.5
By When? April 24th (which is clearly, not going to happen)

"Team" Sports

It's hard for me to consider swimming a "team sport". It makes sense in the whole relay-style competitions, but even then, you're doing something by yourself, and you just happen to only participate a percentage of the time. But when I went to the pool yesterday and said I wanted to sign up for classes, the instructor, sorry, the Coach made sure I knew it was a "team", not "class". So call it what you will, but at least I did.... three days late.

I have no excuse for not going Friday night.... other than the 40mph winds, temps in the 40s, and rain... but who's counting, right? I love weather! I was just tired, and napped instead of being a productive human being. So I went last night, swam, and loved it. Like I always do. And I'll use that to keep me going back.

So there's one in the plus column for this week. There were quite a few negatives, the least of which was an emergency (are they ever NOT) appendectomy Saturday afternoon/evening for Dr Boy. And yes, he self-diagnosed. Thank god he listened to his body (where did I hear that one this month? Oh yeah!) and didn't try and tough it out. The thing didn't rupture, but it had curled up almost into a knot- I think it went into the fetal position when it didn't feel good. That's the story I'm sticking to at least.

So lots of stress-eating this week. Let's just say that before Dr Boy went into the hospital, we had the better portion of a gallon of ice cream in the freezer. When he came home, elves had eaten it. Elves. I swear, it was elves. He's doing much better now, so I'm going to do well this week. The Scale of Doom comes out of storage next Tuesday... and I. Have. The. Fear.

Wish me luck...

An Ode to My Scale

Oh angst-inspiring square piece of glass,
You tell me how much fat I've acquired on my ass.

Into storage you have gone for the entire month,
I don't know what I weigh. Harrumph.

I miss knowing the daily changes in my weight
That make me feel not so good, or great!

Without that scale I do not know
How much I added with that Ho-Ho.

So thank you, Dear Scale, for all that you do,
Including seeing how much I lose when I poo.

-JM

Helloooooooo again, at long last, McFatties! I have been quite busy, uprooting my home, packing, moving, starting a new job, etc. Things are in a bit of upheaval in the Meier household, and most of our worldly possessions are in temporary storage. Including my Dear Scale. Part of me wants to buy a new one, but the other part says eff it. It'll only be another three weeks or so and it's not worth the $$. It is, though, funny how much weighing yourself nearly-daily keeps you actually caring what the number is.

I'm doing alright right now, I guess. I've been a LOT more active since I moved, taking a swim class once a week, and walking with the crazy puppy a lot more (note: she's still insecure). Taking my pills.

Unfortunately, there's been a LOT of eating out recently, and I mean a LOT. Plus, I can neither confirm nor deny my presence at a beer tasting festival this last weekend.

So.... for my goal? I'm sure I'll fall short, but I don't think by much. I'll let 'ya know when My Scale comes home....

...and then go on a crash diet to not look like a FAILURE for the next 24 days.

Today I weigh: Who knows? (net loss xx lbs)
Today my BMI is: Mmmmm kay
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 25.5
By When? April 24th

End of Week One!

Well hellooooooo, fellow McFatty's. While I love the number on the scale, I don't really feel like I earned it. I think rather than actually losing nearly 3 pounds this week, I might have been artificially heavy last week. Maybe I needed to poo? I swear, poo is heavy ;) Yep, I just went there.

What'd I do right this week?
1. Didn't drink- I love me some vino with dinner (and after, and after that...), and I abstained. All week. Of course, I'm on day 11 of the TWW, so there were other motives for that one...
2. Took all my meds on schedule- We all know how easy it is to miss here or there (or maybe it's just me who turns a 7 days course of antibiotics into 9?) but I made a good concerted effort to keep on them. Mostly, this was motivated again by the TWW and taking a prenatal, but the metformin sure helps deal with carbs! To keep track, I put my daily stash into small pillbox in the morning, and took them from there whether I was at home or not. No excuse of "I forgot them at home" or "can't remember if I did or not" when you have them with you at all times and know if they're missing!
3. Started slamming water like it's going out of style. The fake Nalgene I bought when I realized I forgot one on a vacation last summer has come into heavy rotation again. I try to drink most of my water from it, again, for accountability. And to have it with me wherever I am so I don't have the "but bottled water is waaaaay overpriced" excuse. (I'm cheap. Or frugal? Which one is less obnoxious? Or am I obnoxious?) Right now I'm going for 64oz each day (2 bottles/day).

Things I did wrong?
1. Pizza and cake at my work going away party. It would have been rude not to, right?
2. Spinach artichoke dip and spanikopita to celebrate one of my last midnight shifts. My colleague brought it in, and again, far-be-it for me to be rude, right?
3. I bought ice cream. For Sunday/family night dessert. And because it was really cheap. And delicious.
4. Didn't start using my calorie counter.

So I aim to work on those things I did wrong, but I know I won't. I'm helping a good friend celebrate her 30th birthday in Colorado this weekend. Which equates to four nights of drinking, and three days of skiing. Or learning to ski. Which is more like falling a lot. Maybe the exercise (of which I'm sorely lacking right now) will counteract the drunk?

I guess I won't be drunk this weekend if I get exciting news courtesy of my pee tomorrow. If that's the case, this weekend will be a piece of cake to handle! If not, I can drink my pain under the socially acceptable guise of celebrating the end of my friend's 20s.

Today I weigh: 178.2 lbs (net loss 2.8lbs)
Today my BMI is: 27.1
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 25.5
By When? April 24th

The first day of the rest of my...

diet... Otherwise known as my very first McFatty Monday! The ever wonderful "Blair" at Heir to Blair has organized a weekly accounting for our healthy living goals. The point? It doesn't matter if you have five pounds to lose or fifty, as long as every Monday you make a commitment to being healthy. The best way to take care of a family (or start one, in my case), is to take care of yourself.

You might remember that back in October my doctor put me on the restricted sugar diet from hell? Well, I did pretty darned well with it! I saw a nutritionist that specializes in diabetes management, and she gave me some great suggestions for sustainability with the diet.... saying my wack-job doc (who will thus be named Dr Judgy, story later) was not quite right in her nazi-like fatwah with sugar. Sugars that come from fruit and dairy do NOT count towards my daily limit. In fact, she recommended not counting sugars at all, but simply focusing on keeping my carbs under 140 grams per day. Even BETTER, she said any carbs that come from green veggies don't count at ALL. She may have said fruit, but that also may have been wishful thinking ;)


I can't complain too much, and with keeping my carbs below 150 grams, and really avoiding processed sugars (my kit kat bar obsession took a big hit. I. LOVE. KIT. KATs. Gimme a break...), I was able to drop about 15 pounds. You can see my glorious weight chart. I'm pretty damn proud of it. On Dec 31st, I weighed in at 175.8 lbs, which is the lowest I've been since at least early 2008, and I think that's being conservative.

Let's back up. Before TTC, I'd come to terms with being a little chunky (I love food, that's the price, right?), not liking myself in photos (we LOVE to travel, the scenery's the important part, right?), not looking great in bridesmaid dresses (hey, the bride's the one supposed to shine, right?). That's a whole lot of bargaining with myself. When I went off the pill, and didn't get a non-provera-induced period for 23 months, I just figured I had bum ovaries (mommasita always said I came from her bad ovary). I'd fix it with meds and stuff, not by going on a DIET. Oy vey, I'm married to a Dr for godssake, I BELIEVE in modern medicine.

So back to magic weight loss by December, thanks to diet, a mild hypothyroid diagnosis (synthroid), and lots of metformin, upped a little bit each month. I got to thinking, this losing weight thing is EASY PEASY! I can go back to eating a shit-ton of pasta, and well, a kit kat here or there won't go to my spare tire (I carry SO MUCH of my weight in my stomach, thanks for that too, PCOS). And guess what? I was wrong! Despite the magic medication, I gained 5 pounds back thanks to crappy (and over) eating and killing the exercise. KUH-RAZY!

So it stops here, on this very first McFatty Monday. Accountability. To my two readers. 5 lbs per month. For now. Easy peasy. Yeah right.

Today I weigh: 181 lbs (eeee gad, at least it's not the 190 I was when I went to a water park this summer, those pics were a wake up call)
Today my BMI is: 27.5
Goal: 165 lbs (wedding weight!!!!)
Goal BMI: 25.1
By When? April 24th

edited to add: Did I mention that my two readers are crazy athletic types? Oh wait, I didn't need to. They know that about themselves. So they're now sitting there thinking, god, girl, just go run a few miles! Stop stuffing the pie hole and do a triathalon, like me! There will be very little sympathy here.

Quiz Time!

Guess who has PCOS? Me!!!

It turns out that the whole not getting my period (without the aid of medication) thing for 21 months is because I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). It's fun. Side effects include anovulation (not ovulating) and insulin-resistance (getting fat, increased risk of diabetes and heart disease). Turns out that the two rounds of Chlomid I did earlier this year were probably pointless, as another part of this whole hormone inbalance is making my womb inhospitable. ie: Even if the hubs and I were successful, it wouldn't, well, take.

So what are we going to do about that? The doctor I'm seeing (who is an internist, not an RE (reproductive endocrinologist) which raises some issues of its own) has started me on metformin (500mg for now, upping the dose in a month) and a special weight loss program. What weight loss program, you ask? Well, losing 10-15 percent of my body weight, and a low carb, low sugar diet. So I have to lose 20 to 30 pounds. And eat less than 140 grams of carbs every day, and less than 15 grams of sugar. Oh, and get 50 minutes of cardio 5 days a week.

Here I am on day 4 of this crap. And let me tell you, the sugar restriction? Im-freakin'-possible. 15 grams of sugar? Here's a few things that have 15 grams of sugar in them:
- cup of yoplait yogurt, certain flavors
- 2 Kashi granola bars
- 20 pieces of candy corn
- 5 whole carrots
- 0.75 cups of grapes

So you can imagine how much this sucks. Big time. DB (Doctor Boy Hubs) says that it's more important to stick to the carb restriction than it is the sugar, that the sugar restriction is unrealistic. Obviously not to go crazy with the sugar, but not necessarily 15g. And you know what?I am A-O-K fine with that. Even though I'm a vegetarian, it's ok. Sucky for sure, but ok. Because if it gets me to this?


It's worth it.