Lent prayer buddy reveal

It was my pleasure to pray for Sarah at Sarah's Journal during Lent.  I had been reading her blog before Lent, but had never commented.  When she announced that she was planning to become a CrMS Practitioner, I had to restrain myself from commenting ("How great!  I'm one too!  Wait, you don't know who I am...") lest I give myself away.  I really enjoyed looking at her beautiful wedding pictures.  Sarah, you and your husband make such a cute couple.  :)

Music for the Triduum

Holy Thursday:  Pange Lingua

Good Friday:  Ave Verum Corpus

Holy Saturday:  Exsultet 

Food and fertility

**Disclaimer:  I'm not a medical or dietary expert.  I don't have any double-blind, randomized controlled trials to support any of the info in the post.  I'm a scientific experiment with n=1.  ;)


A few years ago I listened to a talk given by Dr. Boyle, a NaPro physician from Ireland, on his observations connecting diet and fertility.  If you're interested, you can listen to it and view the slides here (it's the second one listed).  It's also a great overview of NaPro in general.

I was really intrigued by the concept that what you eat—or what you don't eat—can help improve fertility.  He talked about several of his infertile patients who did not become pregnant after exhausting all of the treatment options he offered.  These same patients made some changes in their diets and then conceived.  He tried to figure out what specific diet changes these women had in common and started to investigate various diets.  He wanted to give his other patients the option to adjust their diets in the hopes of improving fertility and immune function, and he settled on recommending gluten free (GF) and dairy free (DF), with these optional changes: no refined sugar, no legumes, less red meat, and more fish/chicken/fruits/vegetables.  I remember thinking that I could never live with a diet like that.  I love pasta.  I love bread.  I love milk.  I love cheese.  (the list goes on)  I was seriously impressed that there were women who would be willing to try such a diet—what a sacrifice!  But I was even more impressed that something as simple as diet could help a woman become pregnant.

Now I know he frequently uses food intolerance tests to determine what foods a woman should remove from her diet instead of necessarily recommending GF/DF for every patient.  That made sense to me:  eliminate only the foods you're intolerant to and see if it improves fertility.

Fascinating, right?  This was all great for my curious mind to learn, but it was purely academic and abstract.  There were "some" infertile women out there who needed to give up certain foods to conceive.  This didn't apply to the infertility clients I was working with at the time; they all ended up with successful pregnancies going the "traditional" NaPro route (no diet changes involved).

Then enter polkadot, the infertile.  Now the thought of giving up something as monumental as gluten wasn't seeming as impossible as before.  Before infertility, I did not quite understand the motivation you find once you're having difficulty conceiving.  Still, I was not going to rush into anything that meant I had to give up my beloved bread....and cake...and cookies...and ice cream.  ;)

At that point, we had been TTC for four months without success. After six months, you can start working with a NaPro doctor.  In the mean time, I wanted to do something that might help our fertility while we waited.  I think I was most impatient to conceive during those early months before I was even labeled as IF!  After learning a bit more from various sources, I decided to do my own experiment:  I would go GF/DF for a month.  In retrospect, adding a bunch of vitamins or supplements would have been a much easier experiment to do.  hahaha  However, I was convinced that going GF/DF had a fair possibility of being beneficial.  If I didn't become pregnant, then any change (vs. no change) in my chart would be the gauge of whether my experiment was having any effect.

DH was understandably skeptical.  I explained to him the reasons for thinking this was not a crazy experiment.  He reluctantly agreed that we'd try it for one month.  He wasn't about to change his diet, but he did a lot of the cooking so he would have to learn along with me.

I remember the night well; it was the week before Thanksgiving.  I would start my GF/DF diet the next day.  I am not normally so decisive or so quick to implement change.  For some reason, this was different.  Anyway, since it was such short notice for me, I wasn't prepared...at all.  Not my brightest hour.  hahaha  It was late so we didn't want to go to the grocery store that night.  Somehow I scraped together enough food to eat the next day.  Then I began the massive undertaking of learning what foods were okay and what weren't.  Grocery store trips were truly a group effort. :)  It took forever reading labels.  I threw mini tantrums when a perfectly good food would have one banned ingredient... ;)  I really should have done all of that research ahead of time and planned meals to eat.  Instead I just jumped in and hoped I wouldn't starve.  ;)  I don't recommend this approach at all!  hahaha

I was really not expecting what happened next.  I was hoping for either A) a pregnancy or B) zero change (so I could go back to happily eating all my favorite foods).  What I got was actually C) none of the above.

I think pictures convey it best.  Here's a typical cycle from my chart before any diet changes:

I had cervical mucus all day, every day.  Up until that point, I had used less than five green stamps (dry days) in several years of charting.  It was yellow stamps all. the. time.


Here's my chart the cycle when I started GF/DF (on day 9 of the cycle):

Look at those beautiful green stamps!!!!  I was practically giddy that I could use so many green stamps in the same cycle!  DH was as shocked as I was to see that.  Remember I said he was really skeptical at the diet change idea?  By the end of that first cycle, he emphatically said to me, "You need to stay GF/DF!"  Now I was secretly hoping to become pregnant after making these diet changes, which obviously didn't happen, but seeing how my chart changed really encouraged me.

Eventually I wanted to put a little more structure to the science experiment I was doing on myself, so I had food intolerance testing done.  Since I had eliminated gluten and dairy at the same time, I didn't know if it was one or the other or both which was causing my chart to improve.  While I was in the midst of the hormone profile last year (which meant frequent lab trips), I had the blood drawn for the food intolerance test during one of those visits to the lab.  Even though I knew Dr. Boyle only had his patients do testing with a smaller number of foods (~40), I ended up choosing the test panel with 100 foods because I suspected some specific foods that were in the larger panel.  Based on a few recurrent symptoms I had been tracking (headaches and stomach aches), I was pretty confident that dairy and either strawberries or bananas would be on the list.  I was hoping (really hard) that gluten was not on the list.

A few weeks later I received my results.  There was no way I could have been prepared for it.  DH opened the letter before I got home and called me to warn me that the list was longer that we thought...

Here's my list:

Severe intolerance:  beef, tea, sesame
Moderate:  chicken, turkey, potato, shrimp, tuna, banana, peanut, coffee, soy, gluten
Mild: strawberry, blueberry, grape, cherry, lamb, string bean, whey (dairy)

At first I was surprised at some of the foods on the list, especially the meats.  But then a light bulb turned on in my head...all of a sudden it made complete sense that those foods were on the list.  I frequently would have mild stomach aches after meals, and I had ALWAYS blamed it on either the food being too greasy (pizza, spaghetti, tacos, meatloaf, hamburgers, etc.) or that I simply ate too much (or, in the case of coffee or tea, drank too much at once).  Stomach ailments are common in our family, so I just figured I had a sensitive stomach or mild GERD or something similar.  After getting the results, I realized it wasn't the greasiness or the amount that was the problem; it was actually that my body was intolerant to the food itself.  That explained so much!  (And I realized that I had totally been in denial about how often I had a stomach ache...)

To help improve the food intolerance, I was supposed to completely avoid each food in the severe or moderate list for at least 3-6 months before attempting to reintroduce it.  I started the elimination diet gradually, and over time I have been able add back most of the foods on a limited basis.  The gluten and dairy intolerance are the exceptions...there's no schedule to add them back.

So will these diet changes improve my fertility?  I don't know, but they definitely made my chart look much better, so I am hopeful.  Aside from fertility, I don't get headaches or stomach aches from food anymore, which in itself is a happy ending for me and made my little experiment worthwhile.

My life is a Godspell song

I was randomly listening to the music from Godspell today, and I laughed when one song was playing because it describes my life a little too well right now.  I am still smiling as I write this...it's really not as bad as it sounds.  :)

  "All for the Best"

When you feel sad or under a curse	Three letters...PMS!!
Your life is bad,	Cooking dinner tonight filled the kitchen and living room with smoke. Thick smoke. We didn't notice until the smoke detector went off because we were in the next room... Oops. Hours later we still have a fan running.
your prospects are worse	My job might end in six months due to lack of funds. Several things have to go right but I'm hopeful...
Your wife is crying, sighing...	DH could say this about me the last two days (thank you, PMS).
And your olive tree is dying,	We have three potted plants that are dying. :( I don't have a green thumb.
Temples are graying,	I notice a few new gray hairs at least once a week.
and teeth are decaying	The dentist this week said one of my teeth is so bad that when the filling falls out I'll need a crown.
And creditors weighing your purse...	The big surgery bill is sitting next to the computer. It's due next week.
Your mood and your robe are both a deep blue	Yes and yes. (my mood is much better now, however) And I actually have a blue robe!
You'd bet that Job had nothin' on you...	Ha. Okay, it's not that bad.
Don't forget that when you go to Heaven you'll be blessed...	That thought puts all of this in perspective.
Yes, it's all for the best...	And tomorrow is another day. :)

10 things about DH and me

The how-we-met-and-got-engaged edition

1. It was love at first sight...sort of. Before we had our first conversation, we were sitting across the room from each other. I would look over at him and when his eyes met mine, I would look away, blushing. He was doing the same thing.

2. Our parish was placing an order for Theology of the Body CDs. I was organizing it. He ordered one just so he had an excuse to talk to me.

3. After some gentle nudging from a friend, I invited him to a dance sponsored by a group I was in because he told me he loved dancing and hadn't been to one in a while. It was NOT supposed to be a date...even though the attire was semi-formal, and you had to be invited by a member in order to attend. I told him to expect to dance with lots of different people—that's how the event was designed. In retrospect, it totally turned out to be a date, and we sort of bent the rules and didn't dance with (or talk to) other people.

4. He invited me for coffee (our "real" first date) the following week. I was 20 minutes late. He thought I was standing him up and was just about ready to leave.  :(

5. We went ring shopping after dating for 2.5 months. When you know, you know.  :)  He wrote down which ring I liked. I left the store slightly in shock.

6. Shortly after that, I kind of freaked out. I told him I wasn't thinking clearly when we went ring shopping and that we needed to go again so I could pick a different ring. I no longer liked the one I picked out. I was very insistent. I was prepared to tell him to return the ring if he had already bought it.  hahaha  :)

7. We went ring shopping again at 3.5 months. I picked out a ring that was a completely different style. I felt much better about the whole thing. He sent me out of the store so he could "talk" with the salesperson for a few minutes. After a half hour in the nearest department store, I began to wonder what was taking so long. I sat down in the mall's lounge chairs with a direct line of sight to the jewelry store. He was still there! When he finally came out, he looked really embarrassed. I didn't dare ask if he had bought the ring right then!!

8. A few weeks later he came over to my apartment after work. He left his work bag by the door and headed toward the bathroom. As the door was closing he said I could look in his bag if I wanted. I peeked in and saw a box from the jewelry store. Not what I was expecting to see!! I didn't think this was his way of proposing... When he came out, I said that he shouldn't tell me to look in his bag unless he was planning on proposing. He was confused. He thought I would want to just SEE the ring. He had no plan to propose that day.

9. He proposed six months after we started dating. It was probably closer to 5.5 months, but who's counting? ;) I knew exactly when and where he was going to pop the question. He is adorable, but he is not Mr. Subtle. ;) Two or so weeks ahead of time, he had asked if we could go for a walk (on a specific date) to a certain park nearby. That was an odd request. We never planned walks--we just went on them. He had no idea I had figured it out. :) I was really busy and running on little sleep the days before the planned walk, but I made an effort to look cute that day. I even painted my nails the night before knowing there would be pictures taken of my hand! (I rarely painted my nails.) Just in case he didn't believe me that I knew he was proposing that day, I wrote a journal entry about a half hour before he arrived and planned to show it to him later as proof. :) And I secretly slipped the camera into one pocket and my cell phone into the other pocket as we were leaving for the walk--neither of which I would have otherwise brought along. It was a beautiful fall day, so I stopped to take a picture of the foliage as we entered the park. When I lowered the camera from my eyes, he was down on one knee.  :)

10. After taking some pictures of ourselves (including the one below), we started calling family to share the good news. We reached no one! We tried calling a few friends. Still no one! We were dying to share our news but there was no one to share it with.   :(  Four hours later we finally reached someone (my mom).

Bonus #11: I couldn't bear to tell him that I knew he was going to propose on that date until about a month into the engagement. He was so disappointed when I told him. He thought he had me totally surprised. I felt horrible.  :(

The non-milestone

One year ago yesterday it was Good Friday.  I remember it more clearly than usual because that day was a milestone of sorts.  It was the kind of milestone I never wanted to mark.  Had we conceived during our first TTC cycle, the hypothetical baby's due date would have been April 2, Good Friday.  Way back then when we started TTC it was fun to calculate the baby's due date (since IF wasn't even remotely on my radar), so I did just that as soon as I hit the 2WW.  I may or may not have otherwise remembered the due date, but because it landed on Good Friday, it was hard to forget.  I remember thinking how beautifully symbolic it would be to go through the physical pain of labor on the same day that the Church recalls Our Lord's Passion knowing that great joy would soon follow.  But then AF burst that little bubble, and I tried to forget about it.  As cycle after cycle passed, it became a lot less fun to calculate due dates...  But when Good Friday arrived, I did remember the date's significance and decided it was a rather fitting day to mourn such a milestone and our inability to conceive by that point.

I don't remember exactly what the priest said during the homily that afternoon—the general topic was suffering—but I remember feeling like he was talking directly to me.  I suppose when you're in a raw, emotional state, anything a priest says in a homily on Good Friday is going to resonate with you.  At some point he said something about how Christ knows our pain when we go through suffering...and I lost it.  Oh, how I needed to hear those words.  (I still need to hear them today!)  Tears ran down my face, and I did my best to remain silent and suppress the sobs.  As silly as this sounds, I was so thankful to be wearing a black shirt so that the tear stains were not visible...

So when I glanced at the calendar yesterday, I remembered what the date meant to me last year.  I mentioned it to DH, and he was sweet and gave me a long hug.  Now that I think about it more, it does seem like a strange day to remember.  No baby ever existed (a non-baby?), so there could be no due date.  I guess you could call it a non-milestone.  And now that non-baby would be a year old.  As hard as IF is, it probably doesn't help my mental health to focus on dates like this too much.  I try not to dwell on the past but I admit I know exactly how many TTC cycles we've been through... 

I suppose that is the nature of IF—you define it in terms of how long you have tried and failed to conceive.  And along the way you mourn the loss of the child(ren) that never existed.  And you find comfort in knowing that you are not alone, that Jesus is right there with you, whether you can feel him or not.  And you offer up the pain knowing it will serve a greater purpose than we can know right now.  And amidst the tears, you dream of the day when your Easter Sunday comes, and you hope that it comes soon.