Sunday, January 30, 2011

Faith & Strength

One comment I hear about myself all the time is that people admire how much faith I have in our TTC journey, and they don't see how frustrating it is for me. I heard the same thing after Nora died, that I was so strong and they couldn't understand how I was staying strong during a time like that.

I'll attack the last part first. I didn't feel strong when it happened. I felt shattered and broken. I would cry at the drop of a hat, something I didn't even do when I was pg. I cried myself to sleep at night for months after we lost her. I hated it with every fiber of my being when someone would tell me that I was so strong going through that. I was not STRONG, I was surviving something no parent should have to go through. I felt like I had failed my child even though there was nothing I could have done to change what happened. So, if you know a woman who has lost a child, never ever tell her she's strong because in reality, she's barely holding it together.

As for the faith in the TTC journey, it hasn't always been there. I was raised going to church every Sunday. I went to the same church from the time I was a baby until the Sunday before I moved to Vegas. I always thought I had a strong connection with God and that He was guiding me. Even when I moved to Vegas, I felt like He was guiding me to where I needed to go. When we lost Nora, I held onto my faith but I couldn't go to church without crying, it hurt to hear people singing about how wonderful God was but He didn't help our child. I lost my faith for a long time because I felt betrayed. How could God give us such a promising start and then take it away without us ever getting to know her? I never stopped believing in Him but my faith in Him had shriveled.

It took over 3 years for me to realize that God did what was best for Nora, not what was best for us. It would have been a difficult and painful life for her if she'd survived and He took her to a place where she wouldn't have to go through that. It's a hard lesson to learn that God does what is best for the people involved and it isn't always what they'd like. It can take years to learn it. After all that time, it seems like I feel like a repentant child and am always praying that He let me make up my lack of faith to Him. I rarely go to church now because, in a way, I feel like I don't deserve His forgiveness, but that doesn't mean that I don't still believe and pray.

As for TTC, well, the faith in that is the faith that our lives together would not be complete without children, whether our own or adopted. I will never give up on having the children that we want because that is what we are meant to do. It's hard to see every other woman on the planet, or so it seems, getting pg when we've struggled with it for so long, but just because they are doesn't mean I'm going to just give up.

I look at this as we are never going to have the children we want if we just give up because it's too hard. Nothing in life is easy, and the worthwhile things are never easy to get. When you have to work harder to have a healthy child, you will appreciate it more than someone that didn't have to work for it. You won't love them any more or less than someone who didn't have to work for it, but you will appreciate just how hard the journey was.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Every Ounce Helps

Okay, so I've managed to lose 1 pound in 2 weeks...I'm not complaining because every ounce is one step closer to getting healthy...it can be frustrating though. I've been fighting to lose the same 3 pounds for 2 months, and the sad thing is that I lost them already and gained them back.

Today my WW leader told us to set a small goal to get to by the end of June weight-wise. I don't want to set a specific weight but I will say that I want to be at at least 35 pounds down by the end of June, which is 21 pounds from what I have lost this week. I also have to up my activity because I increase it one week then do almost nothing the next, so I have to get more consistent with my exercise.

We found a good way to save money because we've gotten really bad at it. I have a debit card on Mike's account but it's a separate number and we've never used it. To use it we have to transfer money from his card to that one, so we decided to activate it and start saving money on that card by transferring so much each payday to it. We hardly ever think about this card and we agreed we'd only use the money on it for things like moving, furniture, flying back to St. Louis for a visit, and stuff like that.

I'm getting anxious to move and our agreed upon moving date is March 31st-April 1st. We'd like to move sooner but don't want to have to pay a prorated 1st month because we moved in before the beginning of the month. Thankfully, we won't have this issues with the uhaul again because my sister and her husband are going to rent it for us and we'll just give them the money for it.

We are also anxious to get our furniture back because though it's nice not having to provide your own furniture when your low on funds, the quality of the furniture isn't the same as ours. Our bed alone is worth moving out of here for and they have their own bed, so they won't miss it. My sister and her husband are giving pretty much all of our furniture back when we move...not sure what they are going to do, but I guess they can work on getting their own since we're giving them so much notice.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Come On February

Okay, so today is CD5 and I have started the progesterone shutdown. Part of me is doubtful it's going to work and the other part has high hopes for it. I started 1/4tsp of Emerita USP progesterone cream twice a day today on my hands, inner wrists, neck, and face...the first dose was at 12:30am, the second will be at 12:30pm before we go to bed. I also started pregnenolone, which is an OTC supplement that the body naturally produces to create progesterone. I'm only taking 20mg per day though you can take up to 200mg. I take it at the same time as I do my first dose of the cream.

I also am taking 2 chasteberry/vitex pills twice a day but not at the same time. I usually take the rest of my vitamins including the DIM with my grapefruit juice at about 8:30am, so I'm trying to space them out where they don't counteract each other. I haven't read anything saying that you can't take all of them together and, in fact, most of my research they recommend the chasteberry/vitex, DIM, and pregnenolone to overcome estrogen dominance.

The next couple of months are going to be stressful because we are trying to help motivate my sister-in-law to go out and really put in the effort to get a job, we have to pack & organize our apartment, and we aren't going to have much time to TTC plus considering the lack of privacy it's not really even worth trying until we move into the bigger apartment.

We are definitely lacking in privacy and room in this apartment. We did talk to Mike's sister about what we were going to have to do if she didn't get a job by the time we are moving, which is the beginning of April. Basically, we told her we can afford a 2 bedroom apartment and the utilities that come with it but it's going to be tight when it comes to any extras including food, so if she doesn't have a job 2 weeks before we're due to move when we go to put the deposit on the apartment, then she's going to have to move back to their parents' house until she has a job and once our lease expires on a 1 bedroom then we'd move into a 2 bedroom with her.

We don't want to kick her out or anything but if she's not working, we can't keep picking up the tab for her because it's just showing her that someone is always going to take care of things for her. When she moved in, the one thing Mike and I agreed on was that she had to learn what it means to be an adult but she's not learning that. I won't say exactly what she is doing but the only thing she's not doing is looking for a job. She's broken our one really big house rule already and, sadly, her parents are of no help with this because they do it too. It's too big of a risk to take for it to be acceptable to us, but she doesn't care. I'll say this, I don't care if every state has people campaigning to make pot legal, until the laws change it is still illegal, and Mike and I don't want it linked to us in any way.

We try to tell her that if she has to do any drug tests, she will fail because of the pot but she doesn't care. I've seen people do a lot of stupid, illegal things but what I can't abide by is exposing your children to your own use of illegal substances on a constant basis, I don't care if it is only pot. All that does is teach them that it's okay to do it if you don't get caught and to teach their children the same bad habits. THAT is bad parenting. Hard core druggies and alcoholics lose their children for this, but people tend to overlook people who get high on pot because people don't tend to die from it. You aren't an adult if you are still doing stupid childish things like this and teaching it to your kids. I have no respect for people who are like that, including my in-laws as well as my other sister-in-law and her boyfriend who smoke it around their 2 year old daughter.

Now that my little rant on pot smoking in-laws is done. Bring on February.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The YoYo Effect

Ok, for weeks, actually almost the entire time I've been doing WW, I have been yoyoing back and forth, losing one week then gaining it and more back the next. Last week, when I started the provera I gained 2.2 pounds, this week when I'm off of the provera, I lost 0.8 pounds. The first time I did WW, I didn't have this issue. Most weeks I would lose and I'd have a rare gain one week then lose it the next. I have the feeling my hormones and the provera are what's causing this.

I'm not saying that I always eat 100% healthy but I do well enough that I shouldn't be having this struggle week after week. I always drink at least 6 cups of water per day, I take my vitamins daily, the only thing I really don't do consistently is get all of my fruits and veggies in each day. I try, but it doesn't always happen. I'm just not a veggie lover and they recommend getting in more veggies than fruits.

The reason I say I think my hormones are affecting this is because it's always worse in the weeks after I don't O and that I start provera. I think all of the excess estrogen in my system just makes my body hold onto the fat instead of getting rid of it the way it should. It's very frustrating to put up with the ups and downs every week. I could handle it better if it were every once in awhile but not every week. I have been doing WW for 3 months and haven't even averaged 6 pounds per month. I'm keeping most of what I've lost off but my body is really fighting me on this and this is what I've put up with for years. I think my body really just doesn't want to let go of the fat because that's what estrogen does.

I am starting a new regimen called the Fertility Shutdown. It was originated by Dr. John Lee, world renown expert in bioidentical medicines, and it's done in order to help women with an-ovulatory cycles O on their own. Basically what it is is using a bioidentical progesterone cream (example: Emerita Pro-Gest) with USP progesterone in it to temporarily turn off the ovaries' attempts to O each month. For 2-3 months/cycles you follow an organic diet with little to no red meats and limit your exposure to xenoestrogens (can be from plastics, dairy products, shampoo, toothpaste, body wash, etc) to limit how much man made estrogen is entering your system. Twice a day from cd-5 to cd-26 you use 1/4 tsp of the progesterone cream rubbing it into areas where the skin is thin like your wrists, hands, feet, upper chest, neck, and face (basically any areas where you can clearly see blue veins under your skin).

You should be monitoring your BBT this entire time because some women do O during the first month/cycle of the shutdown because until then the estrogen in their system has been pretty much unopposed, so by progesterone loading the body does what it is supposed to do. If you choose, you can try to catch that egg or if not continue for at least one more cycle repeating with the progesterone cream on cd-5 to cd-26. Three months would be ideal, but if you monitor your BBT you can tell if the progesterone is having the right effect. Once you stop on CD-26 you should have a normal AF soon after.

Once the 3 months are up, you only do the progesterone cream once daily on cd-15 to cd-28 or if you're charting your BBT, you start it the day after O for 14 days. Basically, what this is supposed to do is kind of recondition your ovaries to function normally, so you can have normal cycles again and O without the use of pharmaceuticals. I've read a lot of testimonies about this working for many, many women. I'm just waiting for AF to start and CD5 to get here, so I can start this. I don't know how well I'll do on a strictly organic diet/lifestyle for 3 months but I'm hoping regardless it will work.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

January's Half Over

So, there are a lot of changes in the works for this year already. Mike's sister, Mimi (her nickname), has moved in with us and been with us since about the 6th. It's made us realize even more just how small this apartment is but things seem to be moving along as smoothly as they can. It's not too difficult, with the exception of lack of room or privacy, in this apartment right now. Mimi sleeps in the bedroom at night while Mike and I are working, then she's usually up before we go to bed.

I've been getting a lot more work done because we have several goals for things we need to save for. The first being we still have to file for bankruptcy. The second is we need to move into a bigger apartment. The third is getting a car. The last is saving to one day do the IVF with PGD procedure.

The first two goals are the most urgent. We just need to get the financial issues behind us before we move anywhere, so we're hoping to file and be done with it in the next month and a half, then move by mid March or early April. We discussed moving into a 2 bedroom where we are now but it really won't afford us that much more room and we'd still need our storage shed. So, we looked at the costs of paying our own utilities and rent combined versus having it all paid in one where we are now. We've pretty much decided that when we move, we'll be moving out of the complex we are in now based on those calculations.

Roughly, the costs of moving to a 2 bedroom here, are really much more than it will be to have all of the extra utility/other bills again. It's roughly $1250 a month with internet access for a 2 bedroom where we are now. We figured we paid at most $350 a month for all of our utilities (electricity, gas, internet, satellite/cable, water/sewer/trash) per month at the highest during the summer. Most of the 2 bedroom apartments we're looking at range from $660 to $780 a month with water/sewer/trash included. So even if we spent $350 a month on utilities it still wouldn't cost as much as a 2 bedroom where we are now.

We figure it's about $200 to rent a truck and will probably take at least 2 to 3 days to move regardless of whether we stay where we are or if we move to a bigger apartment. We have to look at affordability more than anything else. Mike roughly brings in $1570 a month after taxes and I average about $600, I could make more but until now that's been sufficient. We would have very little left if we had to pay $1250 a month and the money I make would become even more important, so the times when I don't have work would just cause stress instead of being another day off.

Mimi is in the process of looking for a job, and she has a hopeful prospect that she's going to apply & possibly interview for on Monday. It's an on the job training type thing but if she gets it she'll be starting off at about $9/hour and working a minimum of 20 hours a week, then if she proves to be a reliable worker she'll get more hours up to possibly full time, which would really help us out a lot, especially if we have to make payments to the court after the bankruptcy if we have to file Chapter 13 (we're hoping to file Chapter 7 but who knows).

We made an agreement with her that once she starts working, she'll pay a third of the rent while we are in our current apartment then once we move she will pay us about $300 per month with utilities included, it could be more but just depends on how much the rent is wherever we move but we don't want to take all of her money. I've been in that situation and it's not fair, so we won't do that to her. We figure even if we have to pay $1000 a month for rent, a third of that or the costs of the utilities would be about $335, so it's a pretty average figure. Then if we move somewhere where the rent is more like $700, then she'd be paying a third of the rent and $50-$85 towards the utilities too. That's pretty good for your first place.

But until she gets a job, we will be supporting her. She doesn't really ask for much but her eating habits are very different from ours and so much stuff comes into the house that we don't normally buy, like soda (we are water, juice and milk people for the most part), candy bars, and chips. Well, keep your fingers crossed that she gets this job and then we might be moving sooner but if not, then it'll be in the time frame I already mentioned.

Oh, don't know what happened (except maybe the Jack in the Box Mike brought home on Friday) last week because I had a really good week and according to my home scale early in the week I'd lost 2 pounds, but when I weighed in I'd gained 2.2 pounds. Oh, well, that'll teach me to eat that heavy before I weigh in.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Update...

I found out this morning after checking with our insurance that they no longer cover appointments to an RE for any reason. That said, we can't afford to pay for an RE on our own so we won't be going on Monday after all. We are hopeful that we may find an OB/GYN that may take me and help us out but unless I'm pregnant the insurance won't cover it since I just went in June 2010.

After discussing it, and we considered all options, we decided to just stop actively ttc but not prevent it either. I'm going to start focusing on my weight loss and getting in shape to run/walk the half marathon here in Vegas this coming December. Hopefully, by doing those things we'll conceive naturally without needing the clomid.

I am willing to accept that if it's meant to happen it will happen when it happens, so why should I make myself miserable and stressing myself out each cycle when there are other important things to do before it happens.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Another Bust...

Well, this month is a bust on the TTC front. After a few days of yoyoing BBTs, either I didn't O or I O'd much later than we thought and if that's the case there's no way we caught it. We have an appointment with the new RE on Monday next week. I'm hoping that after a month off, and 15lbs down, this new one will start us where we left off with the clomid (150mg) instead of starting us all over again at 50mg.

If the next cycle doesn't start on it's own by the time we go to the RE, it's back on the Provera for another cycle to get things started. I am a little disappointed because I was really hoping things had done on their own instead of having to resort to pharmaceuticals again. I'm not going to beat myself up about needing help with this but that doesn't mean that I have to be happy about it.

I'll let everyone know how it goes, but I'm expecting the typical first appointment stuff and more about how I need to lose more weight. Hopefully, this new one is a plus size friendly but I've heard good things about him.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Ehhh...

Ok, so I got a little impatient and took a test after I got home from my meeting. It had been like 4 hour minimum since I'd drank anything or gone to the bathroom and it was a BFN. I may retest later with FMU after we go to bed but neither of us are really tired at the moment. I'll discuss it with Mike and see what he thinks but I'm honestly willing to wait another 3 to 4 days or so before I test again if AF doesn't start. I am 11dpo today so it could be too early since I don't really know how long my luteal phase is.

On to better news...I was thinking this wasn't a great week. I got my fruits and veggies in each day but was just feeling like I hadn't lost any weight. When I weighed in they told me I was down 0.8 pounds, so that's almost a pound. I'm happy with a pound...I was really hoping to hit my 20 pound mark this week but in all honesty, it's not about the pounds lost by this point. It's still about teaching myself to eat healthy and until I get in the habit of doing it without having to think about it, I'll still be focusing on that. My exercise wasn't all that great this week either...didn't do much and couldn't motivate myself to do much. I really, really just hate exercise.

Friday, January 7, 2011

How We Met...

I'm still not anxious to test, not that I think it's going to be a BFN. Something in me just isn't in a hurry to test. Gonna wait it out till tomorrow and hopefully see a lovely BFP on a test.

I was looking through the blog after telling my sister-in-law last night how Mike and I met and can't believe I forgot to tell the story.

Okay, so the story started a little over 6 years ago. My sister and her husband decided because of financial issues they were going to move to Las Vegas. Something told me that I needed to go with them. Normally, I'm one of those people that would make that kind of decision but easily change my mind but I'd graduated from college the year before and was working at a gas station. I always said when I was younger that I was meant to move to the western part of the US, but I always thought it would be Wyoming (a place I still want to live and eventually raise our children).

So, we drove across country with mostly clothes and electronics in 2 fully loaded cars. Only my brother-in-law and I drove because we let my sister drive once in Oklahoma City and she almost killed us, she was driving my car at the time. It took 3 days pretty much to make the drive and we checked into an extended stay motel until we found someplace with more room and at a decent rent. My brother-in-law pretty much had a job from day 1 because he was working for a sister property and just had to give a letter of introduction.

My sister and I took a couple days off to explore Vegas a little then we got down to looking for work. I had already checked out the classifieds and worked out where I was going to apply. I'd just been offered a job at a call center (I'd asked them to let me think about the offer before I accepted) when my brother-in-law called me and told me that I needed to apply at Westward Ho casino as a change girl. My sister was in the employment center applying for the same position as we spoke. He gave me directions and I headed there.

I got there and they were leaving. My sister hadn't applied for a change girl position because she forgot what she was supposed to apply for, so she just chose  cocktail waitress and restaurant waitress positions to apply for. I went in and filled out the application for a change girl and was hired on the spot because of my experience at the gas station and in customer service. What we didn't know was if my sister had gotten hired I wouldn't have been able to work there because they don't hire relatives.

So, I started 3 days later and worked 2:45pm to 10:45pm. It was kind of scary at first because I never thought I would be a casino employee. I'd hoped to work in an office or something that didn't have to do with the casinos. I didn't really pay much attention to the other employees other than the ones that I had to interact with because of my job. It was about a week later, I was heading to my bank to stock up the change I carried on me when I almost ran into Mike coming from that area. Honestly, my first thoughts of him aren't very nice but he looked like a Mexican thug. He was wearing a thick silver chain but he smiled at me, so I smiled back and that was it.

I got used to seeing him around because he started at 2pm, so we almost worked the same shift. I started working there in mid-September but he never spoke a word to me until the beginning of December. I really thought he didn't speak English, which isn't as uncommon as you'd think in Vegas. I was waiting to close out my bank and he was walking past to turn his housekeeping keys over to the next shift. I told him his haircut looked nice and he finally said thank you. After that, we would chat and flirt whenever we saw each other (and usually both of us would get yelled at for it). At Christmas, he came and gave me a huge hug and was getting teased by the other change girls because he didn't hug them.

I heard the beginning of January that I was being promoted after only being there 3 1/2 months that was pretty exciting. It took 2 weeks before they started training me and my schedule changed to match my trainer's, so I was coming in at 4:30, which meant Mike and I didn't see each other that much. I knew he really liked me because if he wasn't interested he wouldn't have been talking to me and following me around as much but he wasn't making a move. So, one night I wrote my phone number down on a piece of paper and told him that I had some numbers for him. He told me he'd find me later before he left. I said okay and knew he was going to finally make a move.

He didn't find me before he left. I was kind of disappointed but figured that if I really wanted him, I was going to have to play dirty. So, the next day I saw him up in the employees area leaving from his break and I told him that I guessed he didn't want that paper I'd told him about and was going to throw it away. He was like what if I do want it. I told him all he had to do was ask me for it. So, finally he asked me for my number.

It was really sweet and we talked every morning for the next 3 days and the following Saturday was his last night that week, so I was going to take him home because that way I'd know how to get to his place to pick him up. (He didn't drive then, so if we were going to go out, I had to do it.) I took him there and then decided that we'd go back to my apartment (shared with my sister and brother-in-law) to watch a movie. Well, he basically ended up moving in with us that night. He went back to his grandma's, where he was living, to check on things but really slept and ate at my apartment.

It wasn't an easy relationship because there was a fraternization policy at Westward Ho and everyone tried to throw that in our faces but the policy only applied to employees that had money interactions with each other. Since he was in housekeeping, he had nothing to do with money and I got the blessing of our assistant floor manager before we actually let it slip that we were together. We've been together ever since and we've had some tough times but they never changed how we feel about each other.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I forgot my New Year's Resolutions...

Actually, I didn't. I hate NY resolutions. The only thing they seem to prove to me year after year is that I can't keep them. That's one of the reasons why I joined WW in October because I didn't want getting healthy to be a NY resolution, I wanted it to be something that is important. I did, however, have a sip of champagne with Mike on NYE before he went to work and we toasted to making this a great year in every way.

I have been having a great week so far food-wise. I've been getting my fruits and veggies in every day (at least 5 servings combined) but I'm not feeling the loss this week. So, I cheated and dug my digital scale out from under my bed and weighed myself...I was up 1 pound from when I weighed in on Friday...granted I had eaten quite a bit before I weighed. I forget that the body naturally gains 2 to 3 pounds per day when the stomach is full with food and water.

I also have been pretty lazy this week and really tired most mornings. It seems like every morning by the time it hits 3am, I'm barely staying awake. I haven't even been getting my daily quota of work done for the last 2 weeks because my eyes are just so tired that I can't stand looking at the screen anymore. I'm hoping this is a good sign of things to come. I've been having twinges and am kinda achy but not cramping, so I'm 8dpo today and hoping that when I test on Friday I get the BFP (Big Fat Positive Pregnancy test)we've been hoping for. The only thing I won't be looking forward to if we get that BFP is Las Vegas heat because I'll be suffering through the 3rd trimester in June/July/August/September.

Have a wonderful new year and make it good for you.