Falling Hard off the Wagon June 30, 2008

Well, my experiment with the “cleanse” stopped almost as soon as it started.  Tuesday and Wednesday I did it faithfully and it was okay – I realized just how much gluten, animal products, sugar and alcohol are in my diet in general.  At first I had a hard time remembering - no milk, no eggs, no jam… I’d think “oh, I’ll just have a boiled egg – that’s lots of protien. Uh, no.  Animal product.”  I didn’t feel great, nor did I feel bad.  I felt basically the same.  Maybe a little more lethargic, but that could have bene in my head.  Thursday I was maybe going to join some friends for a dinner picnic and I was concnered about what I would eat, so I bought some fruit and some corn chips and salsa and promised myself that I would just eat that (unless there were some really great cookies or something – then I might not be able to resist).  Then I read Dooce’s post about giving up the cleanse because she got really sick, and I decided that gave me permission to stop too.  It wasn’t that I hated it, or I couldn’t do it.  I just didn’t want to anymore.  I have had enough deprivation in my life over the past 6 months (coffee/caffeine, cold foods, alcohol, anything remotely processed) and sometimes I really just want a bowl of ice cream at 9:00 at night.  It isn’t making me sick, my weight isn’t out of control (as much as sometimes I think it is when I step on the scale these days, but objectively I know that is just in my head), and it makes me happy.  Why would I stop doing something that makes me happy even just for a week when it really isn’t doing anything bad for me?  Anyway, I guess I can justify anything to myself if given enough time, but I am glad I stopped.

Mike finally gets home tomorrow night, late, after 10 days away.  I am so happy that he’ll be home.  I think it has been at least 6 years since we have been apart this long.  My parents arrive for a visit tomorow afternoon too, so we won’t be having date night right away, but I am so glad he’ll be home.  I am pretty lame when he is gone – I just stay home.  I thought to myself Saturday at 8:00 pm that maybe I should call my cousin or one of my friends to see if someone wanted to do something.  Instead I just hung out by myself and watched TV and read blogs.  I don’t get a ton of alone-time, so in a way this has been nice.  I’ve gotten lots done and had lots of time to relax.  But I’ll be glad to get back to my normal life.

T-minus 4 weeks until shots start for IVF#3.  I recently met a woman who has two adopted sons, and have started thinking a lot more about adoption over the last week.  I have a LOT of time in my own head when I am working and also now that Mike has been gone.  I am feeling pretty pessimistic about this upcoming cycle – of course I really HOPE it works, but since the last two have not, I am kind of losing hope for this one.  At this point (and who knows, I might feel very differently come early September when we find out the results of this cycle) I think that I want this to be our last cycle if it doesn’t work.  I am tired of the roller coaster and I am tired of the shots and the dildocam and the blood draws and the deprivation (see above).  I am just tired.  If it doesn’t work I think I want to move right into adoption pretty quickly.  We haven’t discussed this at all yet, except for very casually one day when Mike said that if we do pursue adoption he would like to look to Asia.  Then maybe the child would look somewhat like him?  I don’t know.  There’s a lot to discuss and decide, and I am sure it is just a different roller coaster than the last one, and a different type of waiting, but it almost seems wrong to me for us to throw a bunch of money at the possibility of having a child that is genetically ours rather than taking that money and putting it towards adopting a child who is living in an orphanage or a foster home.  It’s obviously not altogether altruistic, either.  I mean, I would be doing it for the child, but we would also be doing it for ourselves – to selfishly create the family that we want to have.  I have read about people (just this weekend) who adopted two children at once.  That also sounds very appealing to me.  Maybe a more intense process but then you just have to do it once (or maybe one more time with one more chid sometime down the road…).  I wonder what the finances of that look like compared to adopting one.

And we have been talking about buying a place sometime next year, but if we do move straight into adoption, I think we’d be spending all of our house money on adoption fees.  But, I have decided that for me it feels better to wait to buy a house than to wait to have a family.  I hope Mike agrees.  I think he will as long as I am clear that I am not asking him to put a bunch of money into adoption and at the same time be putting a down payment on a house.  It would be wonderful if money was no object.  Maybe then we’d try donor eggs, start pursuing adoption and also be able to buy a house (and then I could have a nice weeklong mental-health vacation at a spa).  Too bad we live in the real world.  We are very fortunate that we aren’t in debt from these last two rounds (and won’t be with the one coming up) thanks to good insurance and some savings, but there sure isn’t enough money to do everything that I want to do.

Shows I Really Should Hate June 26, 2008

I get totally sucked into reality TV.  Not shows like Survivor and Big Brother and some of the other popular ones (was Big Brother popular?), but the ones on Oxygen, Bravo, and VH1.  The last couple days I have been totally sucked into two new-to-me-shows – Tori and Dean Home Sweet Hollywood and Jon and Kate Plus 8.  There are a lot of reasons that I should hate these shows -

 

Tori and Dean – She got pregnant so fast with her first baby, and then RIGHT AWAY got pregnant again.  It does kind of rub it in how easy it is for some/most people and JUST HOW infertile I really am… Also, she is the little spoiled rich girl from Hollywood that everyone loves to hate.  When we watched 9-0 (our affectionate name for it) in college, we would always make fun of her looks.  BUT, now I find that I kind of like her because of this show.  She is nice, and doesn’t act super-spoiled and is really sweet with her little boy.  She so clearly wants to be a good mom to both Liam and the baby on the way and is making such an effort to be different from her own mother, with whom she has a difficult relationship.  I can kind of relate to that – in a less extreme way.  It’s part of why I want to have kids too – so I can have a better relationship with them than I had with my family growing up, and to some degree even now.

 

Jon and Kate Plus Eight – Again, this rubs in exactly how infertile I am.  They used fertility treatments too, but theirs were successful, and then some.  Even though Kate can be a total bitch sometimes (I would for sure be divorced by now if I spoke to my husband the way she speaks to hers), and she needs to let go of the OCD a little bit (with everything she has to do, she still feels she MUST mop the kitchen floor three times a day?? no wonder she is always so pressed for time!), the kids are SO cute, and it is interesting to see how they manage their life – and try to actually go out and do things with the kids.  I think they really try to make each of the 8 kids feel special, which is great to see. 

I guess it’s just voyeurism to some degree – don’t we all want to see how other people live so we can compare our lives with theirs?  I think that’s the attraction with all these shows for me.  Even The Girls Next Door, which I never would have thought I would like – but I get totally sucked in every time.  Thank God Mike isn’t around to make fun of me. 

Headache June 24, 2008

I was thinking of going for  a run this afternoon after cooking, but I have a huge headache.  I wonder if it is sugar withdrawl.  Can you go through the same sort of symptoms as for caffeine for sugar withdrawl? 

Yesterday I taught a frosting/meringue/whipped cream class for my friends – so tons of sugar was consumed.  I avoided bringing any home with me though.  But I think I have been consuming a lot of sugar over the course of a day recently.  This morning I did start the Quantum Wellness cleanse.  I am just doing it for 7 days though – not the full 21 that you can do it for.  I don’t think this is contributing to my tiredness/headache.  I was super-tired this morning for some reason, even after eating a typical breakfast – oatmeal and fruit.  This part of the cleanse isn’t too different from normal for me.  I wonder, though, if the headache is related. 

Day 1 meals have been/will be:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with soy milk and fruit, Tea

Snack: Small V8

Lunch: 1/2 avocado with salt and pepper, 1 sliced tomato with salt and pepper, 1/2 large sweet potato, oven roasted

Snack: 1 banana with peanut butter

Dinner: (will be) vegetable and tofu red curry and brown rice

This probably isn’t interesting to anyone but me, and the cleanse has removed a lot of sugar and other things from my regular diet.  But, it isn’t THAT hard to go vegan/gluten-free/sugar-free.  It would be WAY harder if Mike was home or I had plans to eat out…

So, maybe I am using this headache/tiredness as an excuse not to run – but I do have a ton of stuff to get done around the house still.  Sunday when we got back from the weekend away I just didn’t feel like doing anything, so I sitll have to unpack.  At least all the dishes are clean now.

I am STILL having this eyelid muscle spasm too – I am not sure how long it has been now, but at least 6 weeks.  If I wasn’t at the doctor (albeit a different doctor) all the freakin’ time, maybe I’d go get it checked out. 

This is Day 3 of Mike’s conference.  The first night I was surprisingly a little down about him being gone.  I thought I was used to him traveling, but maybe it is different now since he is gone so long this time.  I am getting lots of quality alone-time.  There are plenty of people that I could call if I wanted to make plans, but for now I am kind of enjoying just being home and being able to get some stuff done and get this apartment cleaned up before my dad and my step-mom arrive for a visit next week.

Speaking of getting stuff done, better get to my accounting, which I have been putting off since last week.

 

One Year Ago June 22, 2008

One year ago I wrote this into my Google calendar for June 21, 2008:

 

On June 21, 2007 (a Thursday) I am sitting in my cube by Conference Room 2 at [Company Name Withheld] having very little motivation do do anything at all.  Ms. Sally from [Company Name Withheld] ticked me off yesterday so much that I was ready to quit my job.  Fortunately for me, I am in a better mood today, but it took until after lunch to get there.  Tomorrow I am going to “work” from home – aka have breakfast with Laura and Luke at m. henry and then do stuff around the house while checking my voicemail and e-mail periodically.

Checking the Telluride Bluegrass Festival website today, I noticed that the 2008 festival starts almost one year from today.  In theory we will be attending this festival, since it will be Mike’s year to choose our vacation.  So, I am sitting here thinking one year ahead, wondering what is in store.  It is so hard to wait and see and have no clue.  Will I be pregnant?  Will I already have a baby (mabe wishful thinking with my crazy f#&*ed up body…)?  Will I be a personal chef?  One year ago I didn’t know what a personal chef was, and now I am halfway through with my certificate program at Kendall. 

I am pretty sure that I am not going to be able to handle much more of the [Company Name Withheld] life after I finish the program in December.  I hope that I find the nerve and balls to strike out on my own and do what I love to do.  I think I will – it will be nervewracking, but I have done crazier things, I guess, like moving to Boston with no job and no apartment.  But, that was when I was 22 years old.  For some reason this is a little scarier now that I am 30 and have found out how nice it is to have an income that actually pays all the bills and then some.  I am confident in my cooking, but am a little nervous about the business side of this.  Can I deal with difficullt customers?  What if I make someone sick?  What if I don’t make someone sick, but they say that I did? 

So, I hereby make the wish that one year from today, Mike and I will be in Telluride, will either have a child, or be many steps closer than we are right now to having a child, and can enjoy a little vacation time in our favorite state.  Why are there no fountains and pennies in my cube so I can *really* make the wish?

I really wanted to appreciate what a difference a year makes.  And it certainly has.  Some of my wishes have come true.  I am working as a Personal Chef.  Thank GOD I am not at that old job anymore.  I was so miserable.  We didn’t end up going to Telluride since we didn’t know what was going on with IVF – it seemed difficult to plan a vacation when we didn’t know if I would be pregnant after our first or second IVF attempt, or if we would be in the middle of another round of IVF, and if we were going to go we would have had to make all of those arrangments in January.  And obviously no baby yet.  Here’s hoping that is different one more year from now.  I learned already what a difference a year can make with hard work.  And with luck it could make a huge difference too.

Generally I am feeling pretty good right now – focusing on my business, not getting too angry when I see pregnant women around the city, and enjoying this little break from the IVF roller coaster.  Shots start again, though, in about five weeks.  I’ve been running and biking and exercising, and no weight is coming off – which has been frustrating.  Maybe I am not changing my eating habits enough.  I am considering doing an abbreviated Quantum Wellness fast for the next week or so while Mike is off at his training thing for 10 days.  I think this would be a good time for it – less temptation to go out and eat gluten, animal products, and consume alcohol when he isn’t here.  Since I am “teaching” a whipped cream and frosting class for some of my girlfriends tomorrow, I think I’ll start it on Tuesday.  That will give me a good week to do it before my parents arrive for a visit (and we go to the Taste of Chicago) and also when Mike returns from his training.  I am hoping that will give me a bit of a jump-start to eating better.  I have still been eating a lot of crap – sugar and junk.  Tomorrow I’ll head to Whole Foods to stock up on fruits, vegetables and other things with no gluten in them. 

Embracing my inner cool-kid June 12, 2008

I have always (or at least since late elementary school) had a bit of an inferiority complex when it came to the “cool kids” at school.  I was not part of that group in 4th grade, nor 8th, nor 12th, nor really at any point in my life, but I always really wanted to be.  I was a little too shy and a little too insecure, and a lot not cool enough to fit in.  

When I went away to boarding school I had these crazy ideas that I was just going to change schools and suddenly would be able to fit in with the cool kids – maybe I could trick them into thinking that I was cool like them.  Little did I know that Lansing was a world away from Bloomfield Hills, and so was my knowledge of style – a very important thing when you’re trying to fit in with these kids (the difference in my family’s income vs. the income of these kids’ families also certainly played a part).  But, I ended up with a great group of friends in high school, who were definitely not the cool kids.  They were cool in their own way – quirky, smart, funny.  But, we did not rule the school.  In college I started shunning the sorority girls and fraternity boys and people who went to all the sporting events.  I think I wanted to reject them before they rejected me. 

So, when I ran into one of the cool kids from high school a few months ago and we decided to get together for lunch, it was a bit of a surprise to me to find out that we had a connection.  We just had lunch again today.  She was telling me about running into another high school classmate who she had always thought was really snobby, who turned out to be a really nice person.  We’ve both been surprised by the fact that people change after high school.  She said that she thinks that as adults, most people are a better version of themselves.  I couldn’t agree more.  I still feel a little insecure, but I think I am a better version of myself than 10 (or even 5) years ago, and I am developing a genuine friendship with her.  It is pretty crazy.

And it occured to me not too long ago that in my current life, I am surrounded by cool kids – my husband definitely was one of the cool kids in his school – from elementary school straight through college.  A lot of my friends here in the city also were the cool kids in their school, from what I can tell. 

Recently, I helped a friend with a bridal shower event – it was a bunch of her friends who live here and a few from out of town.  They were defintely all the sorority-girl type.  Many with huge diamond rings and designer clothes and I think I was the only one there without a manicure.  But, you know what?  They were really nice.  And I think I had them fooled to think that I was one of them.  I fit in with this group of girls.  I am looking forward to seeing them again.

So, in my adult life, I am finally fitting in with the cool kids – at least some of them. 

 

In IVF-land, we are gearing up for an August cycle.  I still feel like this is a little too fast for me.  I would like to just enjoy the summer.  But, given the option of August or November, August still sounds a little better. I am finding that when I am not in the middle of a cycle, I am not obsessing about it constantly like I was pretty much from mid-December 2007 until early May 2008.  It has been nice to have a little bit of a mental and physical break these past few weeks.  If cycle #3 works, I will definitely not think that it was too fast.  If it fails too, well…let’s not go there yet… 

Today was day 1 of BCP, so we have officially started the medication for the next cycle.  I’ll start the Lupron on July 28 (six and a half weeks goes by fast in the summer time) and ER/ET will be around August 22 and 27 or so.  We have some pre-tests that we need to do over the next several weeks, and then we’ll be on our way…I am not filled with hope for this cycle like I have been the previous two.  I think I’ll take it a little easier on the self-imposed food-and-drink restrictions and try to just live my life as much as possible this time around instead of questioning everything.  I might even have a glass of wine (or maybe just half a glass) periodically up until ET.  We’ll see.

Reticence June 4, 2008

I was in a special program in college that was like the hippie-division of a big state school.  We all lived (and had a lot of our classes) in the same dorm, we took intensive language classes, we had small classes (sometimes 7-10 people – unheard of at a 30,000 student school) AND we didn’t get grades, we got evaluations.  In one of my literature classes my sophmore year, one of my professors said in my evaluation that I was “reticent”.  I wish I could have just gotten a B – that reticent comment has really scarred me.  To this day I think of myself in a very negative way as reticent.  That’s where my book club fear came from and my fear of big social situations or - god-forbid - networking events.

So, I’ve been participating in this group for women entrepreneuers, which has been a really great thing for me in terms of visualizing my business and figuring out where to go from here.  I felt kind of bad last week because I didn’t participate that much in the discussion and I felt like my “homework” assignment, which we read out lout to each other, was not as good as the other womens’.  I was pretty down about it for a day or two, beating myself up for not doing a better job of the homework.

Today the homework was to think of a few words that described each of the ladies – so you really got a feel for the vibe that you are giving off and how these other women, who you have known for really just two weeks, perceive you.  Almost all of them said some version of ‘quiet’ for me.  But none said reticent.  There was quiet passion, quiet thinker - all good versions of quiet.  It was the first time that I really thought of this trait of mine as, maybe not a good thing, but at least not a bad thing.  Not as something that I need to change.  I am never going to be that bubbly, outgoing, perky, high-energy personality.  But, maybe it’s okay that I don’t participate in every discussion.  Maybe I don’t need to change in these social/business/networking situations to BE more bubbly and high-energy.  Maybe it is okay to be the quiet thinker, the one who isn’t always talking. 

I think this is the first time I have ever felt that way.

 

 

 

Estress June 1, 2008

Whenever I think of the word stress, I think of it said the way they say it in Ecuador.  It is the same word in English and Spanish, but they put an “eh” sound before the “sss” sound.  They did this to my name too – I think Spanish speakers are not accustomed to the “sss” sound starting a word…

Anyway, I don’t feel particularly estressed.  Yes, this process sucks, and yes, I am eating a lot more junk than I have in the last four or five years (estress eating?), but I feel like I have been managing the stress pretty well between seeing a psychologist, getting massages, going running, etc.  But – I have had a twitch in my left eyelid for almost three weeks.  It is REALLY ANNOYING.  It happens every day, maybe 75 – 100 or so times a day – I am not kidding.  It happens most when I blink, but seems to happen equally in the morning and evening.  I just read a little on the internet (oh, diagnostic wonder that you are) and it looks like mostly eyelid twitches are caused by stress and lack of sleep and there aren’t too many remedies except reducing stress and getting more sleep.  (Or Botox, which is kind of hilarious and unappealing.)

I ran a 10k race with my girlfriends this morning, and it was a beautiful morning to run.  When we were running along the lakefront I saw this very pregnant women with a tight-fitting shirt on that said ‘Got Baby?’ like the ’Got Milk’ commercials.  I mean, really, what good does that shirt do other than making people like me think - Nope – Thanks for asking.  Then there were approximately thirteen zillion other hugely pregnant women that I saw today.  This is the first day that I noticed feeling angry towards these women who seemed to me to be flaunting their perfect, round bellies.  Couldn’t they just stay home??  Before I just felt jealous.  Now I am starting to hate them too.

Yes, totally irrational.   Ah, the wonderful world of infertility.  Maybe I’ll go have a piece of my blueberry-coconut tart, even though I also had an ice cream cone in the middle of the day today.  I get upset that I have gained weight through this process and haven’t been able to lose any of it yet, and then I go eat all these sweets (and salty goodness too) and justify it by thinking that I need to be nice to myself.  Being nice to myself = eating good food.  Brilliant, brilliant.