January 2010 Highlights

January 21st

Welcome to all of those visiting for ICLW week! I hope that you all made it over here from my old blog…looking back switching blogs earlier this week probably wasn’t the best idea I ever had!

I am Kate, my husband is Chris and after 4 years of ttc we are pretty much at the end of our unexplained ropes. Early on we tried a few clomid and clomid/IUI cycles, these resulted in a bfn, chemical pregnancy, and a missed miscarriage at 8 weeks. I also had a spontaneous pregnancy and blighted ovum miscarriage along the way. We tried IVF twice…at two clinics using two different protocols and both attempts failed to make even one decent embryo, which is interesting to say the least since I clearly have gotten pregnant a few times. They aren’t sure if my ovaries just can’t handle the heavy stims or if the allergic reactions I have to the medications are lowering my egg quality.

My doctor now has me on a good carb/no sugar/workout plan that is supposed to increase egg quality although they have nothing to back this up aside from my mentor saying it worked for her. One thing also to note about this is that I have a healthy bmi combined with good glucose and insulin levels so there truly is no evidence that my issue has to do with sugar. We found out last week that my AMH levels are in pre-menopause range, but we are right on the cusp of being normal so the doctor doesn’t think this has anything to do with our issues.

So what do we do now? I have no idea. I am still doing the nutrition/workout plan but definitely not as strict. I have no desire to do IVF again since I have no hope it will turn out differently. Doing a few more clomid cycles is on the table but I am just not sure if I have the steam for them anymore plus again I have no more faith that those will work versus us trying on our own(and my faith that will ever work is at about 3%).

Even though this is no longer a just IF blog I hope you enjoy it!


January 27th
Let’s talk about the positive things going on in my life now…

We must first go back to 2008 after my first failed IVF when I was told that my eggs are so bad they must be toxic…:gasp: What, toxic eggs? What the hell even is that? I did my research on Dr. Google and went to Kate extremes to remove sulfates, parabens, ect from my life. I really wasn’t doing it for my health though, it was for some crazy belief that all of my problems stem from the environment. When I look back now if my eggs truly are toxic, nothing is going to change that so what the hell was I doing? See, extremes person.

Fast forward to 2010 and the blood sugar plan…I read up on what blood sugar does to your hormones and somehow got ended up reading about pesticides in your food, which then lead to chemicals banned in the EU but the US still uses, to watching Food, Inc(rent this), ect. I decided I wanted to make some changes, but to be a healthier person and not for some whacked out toxic egg belief. I know I can’t and won’t even try to eliminate it all but I figure if I am only using/eating 3 “toxic” things a day versus 12 then I am all over it.

This leads us to the point of my post…Dr. Bronner’s 18 in 1 pure castille soaps. You read that right, this soap has over 18 uses and is completely safe for you, your kids, your pets, ect. I first bought the unscented baby formula and using essential oils I made my own foaming hand soap. You would be amazed at how little soap you actually use in a foam dispenser!

Next up I tried the tea tree scent to clean my kitchen floors and they were sparkling 20 minutes later AND the dogs could roam around without me worrying about what would get on their paws. I also put some in a spray bottle with water and used it around the house as an all purpose spray which I was also very pleased with. Now all I have under my sink is baking soda, vinegar, borax, lemon juice and Dr. Bronners. How simple is that? I would also like to mention that I still have bleach in the laundry room…some things just need bleach.

Uses I am still waiting to try…shampooing Buca and Peanut, shaving cream, body wash, toothpaste(seriously, you could lick this and not get sick) and washing my car. I can’t see using it as a toothpaste on a regular basis but I still am going to give it a whirl!

Toxins out of the house…triclosan(anti-bacterial/pesticide in hand soap) and way too many to name off of the back of the windex/409 bottle!

Perimenopausal

Eek! The results from my AMH test are finally in and it does show that I am in fact perimenopasual. Not massively, but still no longer in the range of normal. Or was I ever in the range of normal to begin with?? Who knows. A lot of doctors are now using this test as an indicator of not only egg quality but also of how you will do during IVF so its not looking good.

The doctor and the coordinator both think we should just keep going, but of course they would say that. At the end of the day they won’t get paid if I do nothing. I just don’t think I can bring myself to do IVF yet again with truly no reason to think it will turn out any differently than the last two times. Plus who knows if the embryos sucked because of this amh level or because of my allergic reactions to the drugs…either way my level isn’t going to change and we are still going to use the drugs so I fail to see why any new cycle will be different than the last ones.

So I am sad but relieved. Relieved that I feel like I have done everything I could and its ok to stop treatments. This doesn’t at all mean that they don’t think I will never get pregnant on my own as the past few years have shown that it can and has happened. Hell, perimenopausal women get pregnant all the time…my aunt as a perfect example. Maybe we will eventually get lucky one of these times. Chris thought I was going to have a massive meltdown yesterday but being that I am not optimistic about anything this didn’t surprise me one bit.

The only question left is what do I do now?

01/17/2010

Well its a good thing I didn’t actually bet anyone on whether my coordinator would call me back or not because she called at 8:30 am this morning! It would appear that although my glucose levels have always been in the normal range, they have in fact gone down since May so Dr. R is happy with this. I am going in tomorrow morning to get my AMH tested and once those results are in he is going to create a protocol for us so we can cycle in March/April.

I explained to the coordinator today that I am more than willing to give the lifestyle plan as long as the doctor wants me to, but that the last day we will ttc is 12/31/2010(that will be 5 years total ttc). She said she will make sure to tell the doctor that but that he only wants me on the plan for three months before we try again. Phew! I have to submit more diet logs next week so he can look everything over and give me any new adjustments he wants me to make for the next two months and then we will go from there.

As of today what happens next all depends on what my AMH results are…as long as they are above 1 we will move forward. If they aren’t I am not sure what we will do as it has already been shown my eggs do shitty with IVF so that may be confirmation that they just are shitty. But then again the test is pretty controversial and it hasn’t been around long enough for most doctors to even trust the results. Hopefully it will be above 1 and I won’t have to worry about it! Hell, every other test I have ever had done has been perfectly normal so there really is no reason to think that this one won’t be also.

The Plan

I just typed this up on the nest when asked what my plan was and thought why not post it here also…

The basics of my plan is to keep my blood sugar level by following a low GI diet, cutting out alcohol, and weight training. My mentor gave me the book Fertility Foods and while it does a good job into trying to scare you into only eating fruits and veggies, this just isn’t a healthy way to go. My mentor did have success in basically eating nothing but lean meat and veggies, but that was her choice and neither my RE or the nutritionist endorse going to this extreme.

The goal is to eat balanced meals of 40% good carbs, 30% fat(with less than 10% being saturated fat), and 30% protein. They had me start using fitday.com which has a graph each day so you can see the ratios you are eating, so if I am a little low on something through lunch I can change what we are eating for dinner. The good carb thing threw me for a loop at first as I hate whole wheat breads with a passion, but I have recently found some sprouted grain muffins and pitas that I like a lot. I pretty much cut out plain bread itself as I just can’t stomach it. I was also told to eat full fat ice cream 2-3 times a week as it is supposed to help with ovulation issues, not that that is my issue but any excuse to eat ice cream works for me.

We also started going organic with a lot of our dairy, frozen fruits, and veggies. This was not recommended, but I also stopped using products with parabens, sulfates, and pthalates as I need as little screwing with my reproductive system as possible at this point.

The other main thing is the weight training. From what I was told the more muscle you have, the more stable your blood sugar remains throughout the day. Something about the your muscles burning the sugar instead of your body turning it into fat. I am not real clear on the mechanics of this part but my arms look buff now so its all good.

They re-did my glucose and insulin blood work and while these numbers have always been in the normal range for me, they both went down significantly according to the RE and he is happy with my progress. I do feel better, I have more energy, and my skin looks amazing. I don’t stray too far off the plan often because now when I eat stuff full of fat and oils I end up sick…so thats a pretty big deterrent.

One book that really explains a lot of this is Jillian Michael’s Mastering your Metabolism book. The goal of her book is to help you loose weight and get those hormones in check, but her book goes over all of your hormones and has special sections about PCOS.

More normal test results!

Fasting Glucose- 81
Fasting Insulin-6

These tests were run in response to my asking to be put on metaformin to help with my egg quality. Some REs believe that metaformin will help whether you have insulin resistance or not, but mine isn’t one of them so it looks like then answer to if I could be put on it is a big fat no.

Once again this tells us absolutely nothing except that me drinking red wine was not artificially keeping my blood sugar low. Unfortunately I don’t think this means I can start drinking red wine or any other alcohol again. My IVF coordinator(the one I like) is supposed to call me tomorrow after Dr. R looks over the labs and decides what he wants me doing next or how long he wants me on the nutrition/lifestyle plan before trying again.

Chances I will actually hear from someone tomorrow…35%

My blog broke!

So onto a new site...www.thecalmafterthestorm.wordpress.com

01/04/10

Holy hell, its 2010. We are getting old! I can remember meeting Chris in 2001, who would have thought we would have gotten married 4 years later on the day we met. Well apparently he did, but who knows if he is full of shit or not;P

We had a nice three day weekend which started off with our New Years Eve outing at a local bar. Let me tell you about the trash we saw that night, the five dollar cover charge was worth it for the people watching. The best of the night had to be crotch girl, her dress(that was actually a shirt) rode up so far while she was dancing you could see her underwear. I am not sure if she was massively drunk or just easy with the way she was dancing with everyone on the floor. There was people with no teeth, townies, people falling over...basically it was awesome. Then we ended the night at the Waffle House where yes I did go off the diet. I had not one, but two pieces of white bread and it was the best thing ever.

The rest of the weekend we just hung inside since it is so damned cold out. I did a lot of reading on my nook(which I love) and playing video games with Chris. My lovely husband finally spent some money on himself and bought Call of Duty 2. While I generally like all the games he plays, this one was a little to gory for me. Mowing down civilians in a mall? Come on, I know I am supposed to be an undercover terrorist but come on. That was a little much for me.

That was that. I hit the gym a few times and stuck to the diet(besides the white bread incident). I have a newfound love for Willey's Market on 13 in Middletown! I heard that they had a large natural food selection so we decided to drive up there on Sunday and they sure do. I was able to buy all sorts of frozen whole grain breads with no sugar added to try out! I defrosted the Eizikel(sp?) 4:19 cinnamon raisin muffins and am going to give those puppies a whirl tomorrow.