Post 29: Avocad-oh!

I've spent the last week trying to find a way to eat avocado in a way that doesn't taste like avocado. I'd planned on making brownies based on a pinterest recipe (1 boxes brownie mix and 1 mashed avocado), but when I looked through my cabinets, I was all out of brownie mix. What I did find was a bag of gingerbread cookie mix. I figured it had to be similar to brownies, so I made up a recipe, and it worked! It even, gasp, tastes great! 

I started by mashing a full avocado until it was as smooth as it could be. Then I slowly began adding the cookie mix. I knew there was more mix than there would have been with the brownies, so made sure to watch the texture. I then realized that I didn't want to waste the rest of the mix, so I threw in the rest, added an egg and two tablespoons of water, and viola, baby poop cookie dough! 

I dropped the cookie dough by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet, and baked them at 375 for 10 minutes. I ended up with a pretty awesome cookie, and I only have to eat eight of them to equal half an avocado! I'd highly recommend this recipe to anyone trying to sneak veggies into their diet. You can't taste or see the avocado at all, and the cookies are really moist and fluffy. I'll definitely make these again! 

Post 28: Holy Guacamole...I Still Hate Avocado

After three days of force feeding myself avocados, I still don't like them. After my first attempt at a turkey, cheese, and avocado sandwich, I decided to get a little more creative. Day 2 of the gross green diet included homemade taco chicken taquitos with an organic guacamole dipping sauce. I didn't like it, but I ate it! It did make me feel better though when my husband said I picked an awful tasting guacamole. Maybe there's hope for me yet, and I'll find, or make, the perfect guac eventually. 

Today's avocado endeavor included an avocado dressing with cucumbers, yellow tomatoes, and red peppers. The good news is it didn't taste anything like avocado, the bad news is I have to eat six cups of it to equal my daily 1/2 avocado. 

The gross-looking slimy, egg hold consistency sauce didn't look too appealing, but the flavor was pretty good. For the dressing, I took 1/2 an avocado and mashed it until it resembled a paste, then added about 2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and a packet of Italian dressing seasoning. I ate this with crackers, and I didn't hate it, so that's a plus!  

My next recipe, straight from pinterest, could go either way - Avocado brownies. Doesn't that just scream deliciousness? Supposedly you can take a boxed brownie mix and add a whole, mashed avocado and viola, brownies!  Maybe I'll add my daily does of walnuts to the mix for a little crunch. Ugh, this may end badly. 

Post 27: Avocado...gross

Oh, the things we do when we're baby crazy! As were preparing for IVF, I'm trying to really work on my diet. I'm a pretty healthy person. I exercise a lot between the YMCA and the dance studio, don't drink caffeine, and I cook most of our meals. However, we still eat quite a bit of fast food, and this week I finished almost an entire dozen Krispy Kreme chocolate iced glazed donuts! But, it was the first unmedicated month I've had since February, and my last chance to splurge before IVF. I've been reading all sorts of books about IVF, and thought I don't normally believe in them, I'm starting to follow as many old wives tales as I can find. I figure it can't hurt, and if constantly wearing socks and only drinking room temperature beverages can increase my chances of pregnancy, then I'm all for it!

Let me start out by saying how much I hate avocado - I think I'd rather eat dirt! However, every book that I've read about IVF prep says that avocados are super foods, and you should try to eat half of an avocado each day while going through the IVF process. Since I hate avocados so much, I decided to start working it into my diet before starting IVF to let my body, and tastebuds, adjust! 

I began by asking my friends and family how they like to eat avocados. I was given many suggestions, including mixing it into a salad, or making guacamole, but the one thing that everyone said was to put it on a sandwich in place of mayonnaise or mustard. So, today at lunch, I decided to do just that. I stopped at a grocery store, bought an avocado, and at lunchtime, I smashed it, and spread it on my sandwich. I also followed my sisters advice and melted the cheese on my sandwich to help disguise the consistency. What I ended up with was a nasty looking turkey and cheese sandwich, with way too much avocado for my liking. 

I forced myself to eat the entire sandwich, and added in some cool ranch Doritos to help mask the flavor. In conclusion, I still hate avocado, and melted cheese does not improve the texture at all. Maybe this old wives tale should be put to rest, because I don't think I can force myself to eat avocado every day for the next six weeks! 

Post 26: Feng Shui

As part of my acupuncture treatments, my doctor asked if I had changed anything in our bedroom lately. I replied, "only the sheets," and was told that we needed to change something to help reset my internal clock. It could be as simple as a new pillow or bedspread, but she really wanted us to rearrange the furniture. So 24 hours later, we did just that! We moved the bed and chest of drawers, and changed our comfortor to our warm, winter quilt. We also managed to find around 20-30 cat toys hidden under furniture! 

I'm not sure if the feng shui is correct, but it's worth a try. I'm now sleeping around four hours each night, which is a pretty good improvement considering I was only averaging two to three hours each night before starting acupuncture. I knew that it wouldn't be an overnight change, and to expect it to take time, and, I think, little by little I'm making progress. 

Post 25: Peed on Sticks

I lasted longer than I thought I would, two full weeks, but I ended up peeping on an OPK this morning. I planned on taking the month off, not charting or tracking data, or peeing on sticks, but that didn't last long! I decided this morning to at least track ovulation since it's been so long since my body's had to do it unassisted. The test was negative, but should be positive soon. I was also afraid that if I didn't track it this month, then they may ask me about it at our IVF consultation and I wouldn't have an answer. So, here I go, again, peeping on sticks. 

Post 24: Feelin' Funky

I've found myself in a funk lately. My "get up and go" has gotten up and gone. I have no desire to do anything. Things that generally bring me so much joy are now things that I do because I have to, rather than because I want to. I would almost guarantee that this funk is caused by the hormones slowly leaving my body. Since this is our off cycle as we prepare for IVF, I am officially hormone free for the first time since February. I sound like a bad commercial for beef.

I think another issue is that I see and interact with babies everywhere. It's so hard to be surrounded by the one thing that you want more than anything in the world. However, I did this to myself. I didn't have to offer dance classes for infants and toddlers, but it made sense as there's no classes around for that age group. Unfortunately, I underestimated how hard it would be on me personally. Moreso, it's an internal struggle as no one knows what we're going through other than my staff. I did catch one of them watching me interact with the children and moms in class this week. They know my struggle, and watch me pull myself together, put on a smile, and play with other people's children. 

I also realized that I have yet to cry, at all, throughout our entire infertility journey. I'm not a crier in general, and was raised to be tough with the saying, "Suck it up, buttercup." It takes a lot for me to cry, but one would think that I'd hit my limit. I fully expected a meltdown when my BFF told me she was pregnant. However, the tears didn't come. I put up such a strong front, when in actuality in crying and having a total breakdown inside. Crying won't solve my problems, but maybe I need to wallow in my grief in order to move on. 

I use the word grief liberally. No, I have not suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage, but I have suffered through years of ups and downs, each month praying and hoping that our test will be positive. I grieve for the children that I haven't had, and pray for the ones that are coming. It's difficult to talk about grief when loved ones don't understand. I grieve for the time I've lost through this journey, for the friends I've lost contact with because they don't understand or are tired of listening, and for myself as I continue to put my body through countless treatments. 

Post 23: Needles...lots of needles

I have officially finished my first round of acupuncture! It went extremely well, I stayed calm, and as I was informed beforehand, it didn't hurt. There was a little sting on a few of the needles, but overall, not too shabby. Today, she targeted the areas of my body to help with insomnia, fatigue, and reproductive health. This included three needles in each leg, two in each arm, and one in the top of my head. There's more areas Dr. Lori will target, but these were the starting points. The goal right now is to reset my body. I've been going for so long on so little sleep and at such a high stress level that we're both expecting it to take a little while before I start to notice a difference in my sleep patterns. As Dr. Lori said, I may feel like crashing early tonight, but with as tightly wound as I've been, it may not happen right away. Hopefully I will be sleeping before we make it to IVF, and my stress levels will come down. Acupuncture itself isn't too bad. I barely felt the needles, and the ones I did feel only stung for a second or two. The worst part, in my opinion, was sitting in silence for 20 minutes while the needles were in place. I stared at the ceiling, and found patterns and shapes in the ceiling tiles. I go back in two days for another round of acupuncture, and maybe by next week I'll start to see a difference in my sleep and energy levels. 

Post 21: Was it God?

Have you ever had one of those encounters where you walk away and wonder if God's talking to you? We've struggled with trying to get pregnant, but have kept it really quiet. My family and a few friends know - maybe 10 people total - so there's no way that the lady I met today knew to approach me. I set up a booth today for Children's Day at the Tazewell County Fair to recruit new students for the dance studio. The booth randomly set up beside of me was for foster care. I didn't speak two words to the woman running the booth other than a polite hello. Otherwise, it was silent. 

As I was packing up to head home, the lady approached me. She said she worked with foster care, and wondered if I'd ever thought about becoming a foster parent. She could tell that I liked children, was married, and had a stable job, and I was an ideal age and candidate to become a foster parent. Her comments took me totally by surprise. I'd never met this woman, but had been contemplating foster care for quite some time. 

I talked to this woman for about 30 minutes. I explained to her that we were going through fertility treatments, and had seriously considered foster care, but that I didn't think it was fair to take on a child while going through treatments, and that I didn't think I could give a child back to a parent who abused them. She then told me that they offer a foster to adopt program, in which the children are legally emancipated, and can be adopted directly from the foster care system if desired. I didn't realize that this was an option. I thought that foster care was when children were going back and forth between their birth parents and a family that cares for them, and that there was a very small chance of being able to adopt through foster care. We talked for a little while longer, and she answered my questions, and encouraged me to fill out the paperwork. 

As I left the fair, I told the woman to give me six months, and that if we still weren't pregnant, and had expended all means, then we would contact her about becoming foster parents, with the intention of adoption. 

When I got home, I talked to Shaun about my chance meeting. I fessed up that I'd been thinking about foster care and adoption because we're so close to reaching the end of our journey with infertility. I told him how the meeting may have been God placing someone at the right place and the right time, but that I still didn't have the desire to adopt. He agreed! When I first started to tell Shaun about talking with the woman from foster care, his first words were, "If we have to, we will adopt, but as long as there are ways to have our own child, I don't want to give up on our dream." It was at this point where I realized it may have just been a chance meeting, and not a God planted introduction. However, time will tell, and only God really knows the answer.

Post 20: Adoption? Is it for me?

I am so glad that I found the book Instant Mom. I have read it cover to cover, had internal discussions and debates about whether we should consider adoption, and even began looking at the available children on www.AdoptUSKids.org. What I've decided is that adoption isn't for me. 

Nia Vardalos does a wonderful job of explaining the ins and outs of the adoption process, and as I read her words, I realized that it is not something I want to go through. Yes, I want to be a mother, and, no, we have not ruled out adoption completely. But for now, it's off the table as long as there is another treatment we can try that could potentially end in a child of our own flesh. 

I have this thought that if God wants me to adopt, then he will open my heart, and give me the desire. When looking to adopt a cat, we viewed www.PetFinder.com. You can see all of the available shelter pets, and when I saw two little, black furballs, I knew that they were the right pieces to fill our family puzzle. The AdoptUsKids website is eerily similar to looking for a kitten. You can see photos of the children, read about their behavior, and see what type of environment would help thrive. 

Just as when we were looking for a kitten, we knew what we wanted when looking for a child. We have discussed adoption to some extent, and we know that it may be our only way to become parents. We've decided if we adopt, we want to adopt a young infant, who is relatively similar in appearance to us. Maybe this seems selfish, but in a small, rural community, where 99% of the population is Caucasian, kids need to fit in with their surroundings. We don't need our children to be discriminated against for being adopted and not looking like anyone else. It happens. I've seen it. 

As I was looking at AdoptUSKids, I set our parameters to include a Caucasian child no older than 3 years, with the gender unspecified. In Virginia, there was one child who fit this criteria, and I'm pretty sure they lied about his ethnicity, or he is the darkest skinned Caucasian I've ever seen. Nationwide, there were only 4 children who met the criteria we were searching. Over 200,000 children waiting to be adopted, and only 4 that met the requirements we wanted. With so few options, I decided to look into each child to see if maybe I would have a connection after reading a little more about them. As I began reading, I learned that all four children had serious medical concerns. Three of them were on feeding tubes, one wouldn't be able to walk. It was at this point where I realized that God is not leading me to any of these children. 

With our kittens, we saw them and knew that they were made to be part of our family. I would expect the same internal pull when looking for a child. What I saw was heartbreaking. Siblings who would like to be adopted, but wanted to stay within a certain state so they could see the one sibling who was already with a different family. Kids whose stories included wording such as, "the typical oldest child, she/he takes care of the younger siblings, and will need a family that can lessen the burden and allow her/him to be a kid again." I read through story after story, only to realize that there are people made for adoption, and I am not currently one of them. 

I will advocate for adoption. It is a wonderful way to start a family, and there are a tremendous amount of children who just want to be loved. I will champion for these children, and will encourage individuals to be more open to adoption. However, at this time, I will not be adopting a child. 

Post 22: Just a little R&R - Reading and Research

I've found that the closer we get to starting IVF, the more research I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, with a background in public health, I research every last sneeze. However, this is the first time that my research has expanded. Not only am I visiting Dr. Google, I am also trying new ideas, such as acupuncture, and reading books about other's journeys. Here's what I've learned about myself through reading so far:

1) I have no desire to adopt

2) I must speak up for myself

3) it's ok to be frustrated all of the time 

4) hormones make everyone crazy 

5) I really, really want to be a mother 

6) God is in control, not me

The books I've read this far, include: Laughing is Concievable, Every Drunken Teenager Why Not Me, Infertility: A Silent Struggle and a God Who Hears, Waiting on God, and Instant Mom. I probably read more than the average person, and can knock out a novel a day without even trying. However, I have time on my hands as I'm not chasing after a child, and the cats are pretty independent. 

Parts of each of these books have stuck with me throughout this journey. Though Instant Mom is one that really got me thinking. Instant Mom is Nia Vardalos' story of infertility and adoption. You may know her as the lead actress and writer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the humor in her book is the same style of feel good comedy, even in such a depressing situation. 

I'd failed to mentioned a while ago that someone in foster care sought me out at a local fair. There was no prior mention of my fertility struggles, she just thought that I looked like someone who would be a great foster parent. Shaun and I discussed it that night, and both decided that we wanted a child from my own womb. But I couldn't help but wonder if this out of the blue meeting was a "God thing" and I just wasn't listening. To strengthen my resolve that God was indeed involved with the "chance meeting," about a week ago I was at a consignment sale, and was drawn to a book called, "Adoption Day." I purchased the used book for $1, and teared up in the parking lot as I read the words about not all families are born, some are made. So I began looking at adoption and foster care, and made it my new mission. 

Post 19: Trying to stay positive

We've officially hit the two year mark of actively and unsuccessfully TTC. Thought it's been 24 months, I've had 27 periods, or cycles, so I technically could have had three children in the time that I haven't had any. It sucks. 

I've now completed three rounds of clomid with timed intercourse, and three rounds of clomid with IUI. The last IUI also included a shot of estrace to help thicken my endometrial lining that was slowly thinned by the continuous clomid cycles. We've maxed our our fertility benefits on our insurance, and still don't have a child. However, we have a consultation for IVF at Wake Forest on October 6th, and, hopefully, we will begin the processes soon! 

I find myself in an ongoing mild depression. The one thing I want more than anything in life, is the one thing I can't achieve. It seems the teenagers and drug abusers, however, can just pop out kids on command! But take two healthy, educated individuals, who are ready to raise a child, and nope, not gonna happen. 

To stay positive, I find myself daydreaming about the day I finally get to announce that we're expecting, possibly twins, now that we're headed to IVF. I keep putting together press statements for Facebook which read someting along the lines of, "With a lot of prayer, drugs, science, and love, we are excited to announce that we are finally expecting! It has been a long, tiring, painful journey, and we are beyond excited and ready to become parents!" 

I find that by thinking of positive announcements, I am able to remain hopeful that we will have a child of our own, from my own womb. 

Many people have asked us about adoption, but God has not placed the desire to adopt on our heart. As a child I played with dolls religiously. My imagination would soar, as I would have morning sickness, tell my husband that we were going to have a baby, carry a doll under my shirt for a long period of time, then would stretch out on my bed, time my contractions, push them out, and have such joy over the entire experience. I have always wanted to know the feeling of pregnancy. I want the morning sickness, the tiredness, the restless nights, and the baby. It hurts thinking about how badly I want to experience motherhood. I know that motherhood does not necessarily include pregnancy and birth, but it's a part of life that I don't want to miss out on, unless we've extinguished all other options. We will adopt if it is the only way we will become parents, but adoption for us is a last resort. It doesn't solve the problem of infertility, but it would make me a mother. 

I know God will provide. He would not give us the desire to have children, then deny us what he created in us. I will stay positive, I will have faith, and one day, I will be a mother.