The continuous presence of absence

So I am trying to cope with the idea that my quest to have a child is over. I *did* speak to my husband, and have come to a better place in our marriage. And I also learned a little more about what was really in his heart. This brought me great peace and the ability to forgive. I realized that I needed to forgive him, as much or more for me, than for our marriage. I need him in my life. He is my anchor in life, my guiding star. Despite all he has done, I consider myself damn lucky to have him as my life's partner.

But really, in the grand scheme of things, it changes little. He still does not want to try anymore and I must deal with that decision. Not just agree to it, but *accept* it.

I don't know how to do that.

I was thinking earlier today when I commented about adoption to someone else's blog. Wanting another child is like deciding to adopt. When you're ready for adoption, you just know. You can't explain why it's right for you or even why you decided to go that route. With my daughter, I just instantly knew in what seemed like a moment (while were were knee deep in our second round of fertility treatments). It was like a switch went off for me. It was just something I felt was right, meant to be even.

That's how I feel about having another child. I *just know* it's meant to be, that's it right. But life does not work that way. God does not always answer prayers in the way we want Him to. While it's right for me, my husband doesn't agree, and so I must get on with things.

I don't know how to do that. And I don't want to do that. But the choice is not mine.

So I started poking around the internet. I am certain I am not alone in this predicament I find myself in. Most searches were unhelpful as failure to conceive topics almost always led to adoption. That's not in the cards for us, nor do I want it again.

But then I stumbled on this, and I wanted to shout "Yes!" Someone finally put into words what I was feeling. From the Yeah, write! blog:

I learned that infertility can be grouped in with miscarraige and even the loss birthmoms feel in something called "disenfranchised grief" or "ambiguous loss" or "the continuous presence of an absence." That last phrase was from Anna Quindlen, and it's the perfect description. You're not mourning for a loved one you had grown to love over years and years. You're mourning the loss of the dream you had of someone. And it's still real grief, although it's not publicly acknowledged or widely understood.

So I am not alone. Or crazy. It's real grief, even if no one understands it. But what's scary is that word "continuous." Already when I look at my children I feel like someone is missing. Will I always feel this? Will I ever just get over this? It's going to be an uphill battle, because at the root of everything is, I don't want to get over it. I want my way, I want my dream.

I recently wrote about life being full of dreams for a wedding toast I will give next week. It was bittersweet because I remember that time of innocence in my life, when I believed all you wanted in life was possible, I believed in dreams. I didn't know then how life was sometimes unfair.

But nobody said life was fair, did they?

How?

I'm not sure what to write about. I have so many feelings that I have been holding in for months, but not sure I want them out there in cyber space. I don't even advertise this blog to "friends' , because as usual, I close myself off from people I know. I guess, I've had enough "friends" let me down over the years, I am just not up to going through the same again. My faith in girlfriends is gone.

I know a lot of what I am about to write is completely irrational. I know this. But I need to start working this out, and I need to tackle these things in my mind one by one.

I am going to break a promise to my husband. When I asked him to stop reading my blog, I promised I wouldn't talk about him. But everything I am feeling all relates 100% back to him. Like I said in previous posts, the more I bottle the emotions, the more they seem to multiply and boil over to the surface. I am not sure if I will hit publish, but I at least need to express some of what I am feeling. I feel like it's so awful, I can't admit it to anyone. I am afraid of what my husband would think of me if he knew what I was really feeling. Would he hate me? leave me? Resent me even more? *shudders*

My greatest fear has come to pass. My husband does not want to continue trying to have another child and I am devastated. I feel like all the hope and joy I had in life has been sucked right out of me, and I feel like I'm in a panic, like I don't know what to do next. The denial of "this can't be happening" has got it's hold and I feel desperate. But just like when you suffer any loss, there is nothing you can do. You just have to let it happen to you, and fight off the helplessness as best you can.

I am so angry at him. For months, ever since my last loss, he has been stringing me along, giving my false hope. Maybe not intentionally, but it's true none the less. Right after the loss, I felt totally abandoned by him. On paper, I blame it on the gluten issues he was having, and how they caused his brain fog as he put it. But in my heart I know. What I was feeling wasn't important enough to him. I cried myself to sleep night after night while he avoided me, watching television in the family room. I remembered being amazed at how uninvolved he was, when my world was falling apart. I felt like I was living with a stranger. I needed him to mourn the loss, to understand my pain, to show me he was there for me. But I knew deep in my heart, if I was honest, that he was relieved, and that mades me even more angry. Hpw could he be relieved when I was in such agony? I feel like if I were important to him, he would care just because it was important to me. I am beginning to feel that what I want in life is really only important to me, and therefore important to no one. They might was well not exist.

Since the miscarriage, he has flip flopped back and forth sending me complete mixed signals. He agrees to TTC, then changes his mind, then agrees again. I feel like I've been mourning for years instead of months. Each month would bring a new hope and then, a new let down - I'd have to start the grieving all over again. But not completely because I wasn't pregnant. But because I felt abandoned all over again, left in out in the wind to dry as it were. Then we would be back to trying and I'd have hope again...until the next time I was ovulating... then the cycle (no pun intended) would start all over again. I (very slowly unfortunately) learned not to say anything at all about my cycles, or he would completely shut down and avoid me more, sometimes for a day or two.

He doesn't seem to understand that I am no longer grieving the miscarriage, I am grieving/not grieving/grieving/not grieving not being able to try for that 4th one. It's like any progress I make is completely undone every time he changes his mind. My nerves and emotions are so raw and on edge now, I feel on the verge of break down. And I am on my own. I have felt so alone now, for so many months, that I am actually wondering about my future. Will it get worse? Once the kids are grown and gone, am I destined to live my life this way, alone with my own thoughts?

I know in my head that this is irrational thinking. My husband loves me and I love him. In fact, this morning in a women's discussion group I took part in, I heard several women complain about their husbands and their short comings, and amazingly, having to spend time with them, when they'd rather have alone time or time to do chores that need to get done. I thought to myself, are you people nuts? I can't wait til my husband comes home, and I love just being with him. I can't imagine ever not wanting to be around my husband, or being frustrated with him for wanting to spend time as a family. I felt sorry for those women.

But my heart feels something different. I used to feel rock solid in my marriage and my place in this lovely little family. There is now that doubt as to what I think he feels for me. Maybe we aren't rock strong like we used to be. Our marriage has changed. Month after month, I took that awful medication. I've punished myself in so many ways, and he let me. And when the crucial time of the month came up, something else would too. A cold, or a sore back...or whatever.

The fury I felt at those moments...and the hurt. I was sacrificing every thing, putting myself through hell and he let me. He let me. How could he let me go through with all this when he had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain? He not only let me down, teased me with a dream I could never have, he let me go through all that for nothing, made me beg. Instead of letting the wound heal, it's been like ripping out your stitches and resewing them over and over again. For months. How can I *not* question my value to him?

My sister is getting married in a couple of weeks and I am so jealous I could spit. I look at her and the innocence of her fledging little marriage-to-be. I want to go back to that place in our relationship where I felt like my husband adored me, like he would never hurt me, when he loved being with me. I know I adore him, and would do anything for him. But more and more I am feeling like I am just a burden to him. My role in his life is no longer lover and best friend, but rather, mother to his children,

Man that hurts.

I've been holding back on this question in my mind because I didn't want to deal with the truth behind it. But I knew, eventually, it would all boil down to this; would *he* will resent me for wanting to have that 4th child or would *I* resent him for taking it away from me?

Talk about a rock and a hard place...

So it ends with I resent him, AND he probably resents me....and the death of my dream, and a limping marriage. There it is, the truth I have been tucking away and tucking away trying to avoid. I always said I didn't want to look back and have regrets, but that is what I have now. I had at least three more opportunities to try before it was time to give up and accept God's will. There was a part of me that I really thought one of these cycles would work. Now, I will always look back and wonder, what if? or maybe if only...

I resent him because he doesn't love me enough to do this for me. And it shakes me to my core. My security is this world is now gone. It's not just losing this unborn child, it's knowing that once again, I am alone in this world, just like when I was single.

I know, I know, it's irrational. He can't help what he feels, if he doesn't want another child, he doesn't. He can't help feeling what he feels anymore than I can help how I feel. I am no better than he. He's angry at me for feeling all this, for not letting go, but I am just as angry at him for his lack of compassion, or what I am perceiving of his lack of regard for how I feel.

So now I am faced with two dilemmas....first I have to figure out how to let go of wanting this other child (if you are a praying person, please please please pray that God takes this desire from me) and then I have to figure out how to forgive my husband for hurting me.

I do love him, and I want to have a long long life with him. I want to fix our marriage. I don't want to live with bitterness and resentment. I have to figure out how to get from point A to point B though and I honestly don't have a clue on how to do that. Right now, I am in such pain, all I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to go out, I don't want to talk to anyone who knows we were trying because I don't want to have to tell them it's over. I don't even want to hear the words come out of my mouth. I just want to escape someplace where I don't have to feel this and I can avoid all semblance of this place where I have found myself.

But that's not how it works is it?

The only way through grief and pain is through it. I am holding onto it with such a death grip because if I let go, then my dream is really over. How does one actually let go of such a precious dream? I honest to God don't want to let go, - it just hurts like hell.

As for the other question, it just so happens that my husband will not be home for the next 4 nights so I have plenty of "alone time." to think about it how I can forgive him. Can I just will it to happen? I am afraid my inclination is to just stuff down everything I am feeling and just provide for my family.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner sometimes.

Turning the corner

So I am making baby steps, and this is good.

Yesterday, was a huge relief for me. I felt like sending off the letter lifted a weight that has been on my shoulders for months. As the day went on, I felt better and better. more optimistic than I have been in a long time.

I immediately tried to think more positively about my well being. I thought more about what I wrote yesterday, that being happy is not a betrayal. I need to embrace that sentiment. Part of that is taking care of myself, both physically and mentally.

Physically, I am trying to eat better. I don't mean more clean, I've been staying paleo....when I did actually eat. I just had been slowing reducing my food intake lower and lower. Not healthy physically or emotionally, and one of the ways I realized I had been punishing myself. It's one of the things I set out to fix in my "moving on" process.

I did well with breakfast and lunch, allowing myself to eat healthy portions, and not cutting it short. But my mind went several times to just skipping dinner, to do without.

It's ironic really. One of our big things in parent discipline is to not use food any any way - no lollypops to stop crying, no mm's to go "in the potty" instead of the diaper, no treats for good behavior. Food should not be a part of our emotional well being. I didn't want my kids falling into the same trap as I.

So how did I go from being an emotional eater to NOT eating? It took conscious effort, but despite needing to be two places last night, I made myself stop, sit down and at least eat with my family. It was a small meal, probably not as much as it should have been, but I didn't skip. And that's a good start.

Mentally, I have as much work to do, but am taking some good steps there as well. I talked about the way I looked, and how I let it beat me down. No more. I need to be proud of the weight I lost and the process I am making toward my goal weight. Both last night and this morning, I received some kind compliments about the way I look. For awhile now, I've been blowing off these comments or poo-pooing them.... I didn't this time. I forced myself to stop, smile and try to really appreciate the sentiment behind it. It's OK to be happy I have a flatter stomach. It's not a betrayal.

It all started with a decision. For me, it was enough. But I know in years past that I could not shake the depression that settled on me from time to time. I think it was easier this time because I knew what was causing my depression. I had reason to be sad. But I know there are women out there who don't know why they are depressed, and that can be very confusing and scary.

If you are in one of those spots where you know you're depressed, but you don't know why, please know you are not alone. There us help out there. Please do not be afraid to seek medical help or counseling.

You don't have to feel like this. Sometimes, all it takes is just one little step to turn the corner.

moving on

Yesterday was a hard day for me. I struggled with my emotions most of the day, and yesterday only posted a fraction of what I've actually been feeling and thinking.

I've been willing myself to move on. My favorites lists on my iPhone includes that song by Rascal flats, and I play it over and over again, like a mantra, telling myself "you can do this, it's time to move on". But I resist.

Why? Who in their right mind wants to wallow in self pity? It's hard to let go of the pain, the mourning, the grief. After awhile, it becomes a part of who you are, and that much harder to shed. But really, the biggest obstacle of letting go is simple; if I move on, let go of that emotion, then no one will be there to remember the little child that wasn't. As a mother, how can I do that? How can I justify being happy when these horrible things happened?

I've dealt with my ghosts and I've faced all my demons
Finally content with a past I regret
I've found you find strength in your moments of weakness
For once I'm at peace with myself
I've been burdened with blame, trapped in the past for too long
I'm movin' on

That second line scares me. I don't *want* to be content with a past I regret. I have too much of that in my life. In my 30's, I learned to forgive myself for the mistakes I had made. I don't want to go back there. But that's what I'm doing isn't it? I'm not moving forward. It's a double edged sword. If I stay in this stagnant place, I regret the life that was never meant to be. But the thing is, if I don't let go and move forward, I'll still have regrets anyway, won't it?

I'm movin' on
At last I can see life has been patiently waiting for me
And I know there's no guarantees, but I'm not alone
There comes a time in everyone's life
When all you can see are the years passing by
And I have made up my mind that those days are gone

If I trap myself in the here and now, "burdened with the blame" I heap on myself, I will miss the life that my family continues to live. Life will not be patiently waiting, it will indeed, pass me by. My children are oblivious to all that happened, all that I am feeling. They are living their lives, going to gymnastics, playing out side at recess, playing on Wii, building legos.... life continually moves forward for them, and if I stay here, I will miss it.

I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't
Stopped to fill up on my way out of town
I've loved like I should but lived like I shouldn't
I had to lose everything to find out
Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road
I'm movin' on

I love all my kids, those born and unborn, but I can't let that love become a barrier. I need to let go of those that are already with their Heavenly Father, and live for those that still need me here on earth. And I need to remember to live for me too, teach myself that I am not to blame, and yes, I deserve to be happy. I need to learn and accept, that being happy is not a betrayal to those unborn children.

I've always been of the belief that when faced with an obstacle, if you throw your head over the wall, the neck and body have no choice but to follow. I spent the better part of last night awake and thinking. I do not want to be this person anymore. I want to heal my heart, forgive myself or better yet, not blame myself for something I can't control. It's time to pack up this old baggage and let it go....It's time to move on.

So I'm sending out a little love letter into the heavens to those children I've lost:

dear little ones,

I love you more than you could possibly know. But you are in the presence of the Alpha and Omega, your Heavenly Father and He will care for you until I come to join you. But for right now, your brothers and sister and daddy need me. I need to stay here for them, but I will love you just the same. I have to say goodbye now, but I will always carry your memories locked in my heart. You will always be with me. I look forward to the day when I can finally hold you in my arms.

love, mommy

Food relationships

One of the side effects if you will, of changing to a Paleo lifestyle is that it changed my relationship with food. I mentioned weeks back that I was (successfully) battling my tendency to be an emotional eater. I guess that's to be expected, but did it all change for the better?

I recently read a blog (that I read often) about a women who faces steeper infertility challenges than I do; she is unable to conceive at all and has no children. She is a powerful writer and expresses herself so well, I often feel like she is writing what is in my heart. I found that when I read her thoughts, I feel less alone in the world for a few minutes.

Recently she wrote about "the sugar coating" we women put on things. You know how it goes, people ask us how we are and we say "fine" instead of really telling them how we are. This happened to me just yesterday. Someone asked me how the fertility treatments were going, a woman who has been there done that herself and would be totally sympathetic. What do I do? Tell her how I'm really feeling? Nope. I give a flippant remark, plaster a smile on my face and quickly change the subject.

The blogger commented that this practice comes back to bite us in the derriere and often "big time." Underneath that sugar coating is often not pretty, festering and toxic. I am coming to realize she is not only an amazing writer but also very wise.

I'm down to 177 - the lowest weight I have been in 10 years. People are starting to comment...you've lost weight, you look good, you look pretty today. How do these compliments make me feel? Like crap....total and utter garbage.

Bottling up all my emotions and grief has come back to bite me. I realized, I am punishing myself for losing the babies and not being able to "get over" all this. I realized that the flatter my stomach gets, the more grief and emotion I feel because I should be large and round right now, getting ready to deliver my child in the weeks to come.

Yet I feel I am trapped. I thought if I could push down the grief and bury it, I could control it somehow. I don't feel there is anyone in my life who could understand me... I have three children, this happens all the time and people recover. Why can't I? There is something wrong with me and I just need to move on...

But the more I bottle it, the more it seems to snowball and grow. Saturday I had to go to my SIL's baby shower. It was the epitome of bitter sweet. I remembered how I felt when I found out she was pregnant. What fun! To be pregnant with your sIL, right? I looked forward to sharing belly shots, clothes and advice to this first time mom. I didn't have that and loved the idea of helping someone else. I also looked forward to sharing a bond with someone. AS much as I wanted it, I was never close to my immediate family.

After I lost the baby, that all changed. She became a physical and tangible reminder of what I had lost. Every time I saw her, I would look at my shrinking stomach and compare it to her growing one. And when her child grows, I will see how old my child would have been.

But the thing is, she's not an acquaintance or colleague, she's family, and so I had to find a way to deal. So I bottled things down more deeply and got to work on making baby quilts and blankets and a scrapbook. With every page, every cut, every stitch, I thought of my baby and it tore my heart out. It's the best quality quilt I have ever made, using an entire spool of thread for the quilting alone. But it was painful for me.

I think I thought that maybe I could make up somehow, apologize for the way I've been feeling. It's not that I don't want her to be unhappy or not pregnant....and I truly believe each mom should have some heirloom quality special mementos for their baby, especially their first. So I really did want her to have those things, and they are exactly what I would have made even if I had never been pregnant. But a part of me wonders if somehow I thought making those items would heal a part of me, let me forgive myself for how I was feeling yadda yadda yadda..... talk about sugar coating over the whole mess.

It didn't.

That morning before the shower, I woke with dread and was physically ill. The tears came which I quickly washed away. I realized that throughout the morning, my hands would shake on and off. I would start to feel my heart race and the panic set into my chest. I haven't had to deal with panic attacks in years, but it was amazing how quickly it came upon me. I forgot about the roaring in my head that accompanies these attacks. I pulled it together, and once at the shower, I 'm happy to say I did very well. For my SIL's sake, no, let's be honest, I didn't want my husband to be even madder at me that he already is, so for his sake, I held my control and did the best I could. I often escaped to "check on the kids" which helped a lot. I only cried once. OK twice, but the second one doesn't really count.

So as not to paint myself as a total monster, please understand. I love and care about my SIL, I would never want to hurt her. But my emotions are so full to flood stage level, I am finding I can no longer control them. I keep putting up sandbags, and they keep leaking through and under and over that wall. And my husband is not a monster either, it's just that all this fertility stuff makes him crazy. He doesn't want to talk about it, or hear about it. I love him, but there's this wall up between us in this issue and trying to take it down, just drives a wedge between us, so I have (finally) learned to keep my mouth shut.

Finally, I worked up the courage and was able to talk with C and made the offer that had been stuck in my throat for the last 7 months - to call me any time day or night if she needed help, breast-feeding advice etc. It was the right thing to do, and the one time on that awful day that I was actually, if just for a moment, proud of myself.

But I am not.

I am still here, stuck in this spot hating the way I look. I no longer brag about my weight loss, I no longer care that my clothes are starting to fall off a bit. In some facade of normalcy, I do tell my husband because he is so into this (paleo, nutrition, weight loss etc) But food has no flavor or joy, I eat enough to maintain my health, and drink lots of tea to settle my constantly moving stomach. I am still losing. It's becoming a struggle to remember I am important to my family, and I have value if only for that.

Crazy, isn't it? because I can't have another child? And what happens if we do get that miracle and this all goes away like it did when I had Josh? Just makes me sound even more crazy, doesn't it? Hence me not talking to anyone about it,

I don't have a happy ending to the story. Not yet anyway. I made the mistake of helping pack up the gifts at the end of the shower. Touching those soft clothes and miniature booties and such...big mistake. When I close my eyes to go to sleep at night, I see that perfect white infant gown, can feel it against my skin. I hate when night comes and I must try to sleep. My dreams are also coming back to "bite me" as city girl says.

I don't know what I am going to do yet, other than start to be truly honest in the blog and pour my heart out here. I didn't want this to be a whiny depressing place - I wanted it to be helpful to other ladies like myself. But maybe I need to help myself first so I can be a help to other, if just for a short while. Maybe once I am honest and start to scrape off that sugar coating, and expose the ugly wounds underneath, that will be the flood gate I will need to heal, and let the tide regress.

City girl talks about her lighthouse...when she is at her lowest, she has this lighthouse - adoption. When I first read that, I thought, but I don't have a lighthouse...I probably won't get pregnant successfully. But then it dawned on me - my lighthouse is my family...Rob, the kids...they are my light. They will guide me home.

I dunno, but I am hopeful - how can I not be when I look in my children's faces? They need me - I have a family to take care of and I like all good moms, i will find a way to pull it together.

Medication...or food?

I'm not sure what's more amazing to me; the amount of medication prescribed and taken to millions of Americans today, or that at one time I thought that was normal.

I was raised in a home where if you were sick, you went to the dr and if need be, got your medicine. I remember that awful cough syrup with that nasty taste that would make me gag and shiver... Um, no thanks. I hated that stuff so much that even as an adult, I will suffer through the coughing rather than take that bit of nastiness...There isn't enough sugar gonna make that one go down!

Still, we are a "drugs will fix it all society." The interest in this topic was sparked by two things.... a story on a 16 year getting gastric bypass surgery, and me back to taking my fertility drugs again. The child's surgery is a whole other post, but I'd like to talk about my medication. This time, they are truly making me miserable. I am sick to my stomach all the time now to the point where the thought of eating anything makes me sick. All I want is calming tea (decaf of course!). I even woke up this morning with my stomach rolling, just as it is now. And the migraine like headaches that accompany them make it hard for me to function during the day sometimes, and to fall asleep at night. The pain is blinding. (I'm really grateful they tend to come at night though, so I can still take care of my kids).

But I really don't have a choice. I've got a couple months left til I turn 43 at which point I think my TTC journey will be over forever. I need to ovulate every month I possible can to get the most chances. Soon, medication will be a thing of the past.

But do people realize they do have a choice? We've all heard about the obesity epidemic and the correlation to diabetes. But many don't realize that Type II diabetes is reversible in many many cases. One just has to choose to make the changes in their lives. I hear on the news, and news shows all the time about the record number of people taking statin drugs, those cholesterol lowering "wonders". I can't speak intelligently yet about long term, do they really help (I think no), but the question that needs asking is, why so many people now need it?

The quote I hear around Paleo all the time is "let thy food be thy medicine." I just wonder over and over why more people don't think about that....the correlation between what (processed) food we are putting in our mouthes, and the over all increase in major health problems we see today.

Food has changed. With my kid's allergies, I spend A LOT of time reading labels. It's amazing what you will find in what. I ask myself at the store, why add artificial colors to fruit? Why is there a need for wheat in beef broth, and why is there sugar in everything?

My mom says to me, "you ate this stuff as a kid, and you grew up fine, what's the big deal?" The thing is, the food our kids eating today is NOT the same food I ate as a kid. HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) was invented in the late 60's and made it's way into the mainstream food market by the mid 80's. And it made it's way into everything.

I've said it before, we may spend a little more now on food, but we will save in the end in healthcare costs...and something that can't be measured in dollars: my family's good health. I watched my children get their wellness exams as few weeks ago. As the nurse took their blood pressure, I thought about all the young kids today that are now starting to show signs of hypertension.

I mean kids? with high blood pressure? I mean, come on!

It was both a reminder and reward, seeing their quick exams that pronounced them healthy, that I am making the right choices for my family. While we spend a lot on food today, I am hoping that means we won't be spending $800 a month of medications needed later.

The changes you can make might be daunting at first, but you don't have to do it all at once. I started by taking out just foods with preservatives after learning it caused my then 3 year old, now almost 8, to get hives. We ruled out all the other ingredients until it came down to just the non"food" in the food. So anything with preservatives was out.

After that, high fructose corn syrup was the next to go.That's kind of a no brainer, right? Who needs all that extra sugar. Once I realized it was in everything (from reading all those labels) It was clear it had to go too.

Finally, artificial flavors and colors were the last to go. This was a test of sorts, to see if it helped with my children's hyperactivity. J didn't have adhd, (the school insisted on testing him) but yet was still way too active during times he needed to be still, like school. So we tried taking out the colors and what a difference. He is a different child now, and much more successful in school.

Don't think you have to shop at those expensive "natural" markets. Rob and I call them hippie-granola types. Ironically, I think my parents call me a hippy granola type, but I digress. Anyway, You'd be surprised at how many brand names you can find right on your supermarket shelf that are all natural. Some of our favorites"

Bullseye barbecue sauce - they use molasses instead of HFCS
Smucker's Natural peanut butter with honey - you stir it at the beginning, then can just leave in your pantry. No need to refrigerate which I love
Degrosso pasta sauces and pizza sauce - again, no HFCS, but rather they use sugar (and it's way down on the ingredient list

Just take some time the next time you shop. Pick up two bottles of catsup. Which starts with HFC and which starts with, say, I dunno....tomatoes?

Let they food be thy medication.

PS - never stop taking medication without making a plan with a healthcare professional first. You can do it, but do it safely.

Bittersweet

Well, there's no other way to say this. I got pregnant, but it was bittersweet. I say was because I am no longer pregnant.

*sigh*

That's not how this was suppose to work, was it? The idea was to get pregnant and stay that way. The mixed emotions are just a whole lot of crazy ups and downs, and not a just a little hard to sort through.

I mean, I did not take fertility drugs this cycle (major downer), yet I had a strong ovulation (measured with bloodwork - major hooray moment). Then, a fertilized egg with implantation long enough to create enough HCG (another major hooray moment) to make a stick turn pink when I peed on it. The fact that it didn't stick shouldn't bother me, right? (yeah right...another downer).

Theoretically, this is good news and an answer to my questions...Or was it? I think it lead me to new questions rather than some answers. Was it the leftover clomid in my system the RE said might make me ovulate this month anyway? Was it the almost 30 pounds that I have lost? Or was it the paleo?

There is simple way, again theoretically to find out, isn't there? I can *not* take clomid this month and see if it happens again. But I'm not sure if I have the faith or courage to find out...or the strength.

Faith...while it seems like I have been on Paleo forever (that Sept 1 deadline has come and passed, hasn't it?) the fact of the matter is, I still haven't yet been on it 3 months yet. I know every Paleo blog out there is so very gung ho, but I am not that person. Yes, I believe I am healthier and slimmer and have much MUCH less inflammation in my body...no, I have no evidence yet (running bloodwork this month) that it will help my insulin resistance, PCOS and/or annovulatory cycles.

Courage - I've said it before...all the protein and veggies in the world can't help old eggs. Nothing can change that I am 42 and I will - when I do manage to ovulate - put out as many or more "bad" eggs as good. Bad eggs = miscarriages or chemical pregnancies, good eggs fertilized means a shot at a "sticky bean. " And every single month I get older, my odds get worse. Do I want to risk a precious month to experiment? No, I really don't. When I've exhausted all resources I feel like is the time to experiment.

Strength - I was kinda down all weekend. What did this chemical mean? I didn't have the same sense of loss as with a normal miscarriage. Rather, what really bothered me was the idea that I had "two losses" in 7 months, that has to be bad right? But I was online on a TTC in our forties board, and asked them what they thought...What was this pointing to, that it was all over? WasI really too old? On the contrary. Everyone there, who had a lot more experience with TTC in their 40's than I, thought it was really a positive sign...more that I just had to wait for that good egg.

Uh uh - does that mean I might have another chemical? Am I strong enough for that? You would think that would freak me out, but no. Instead of making me feel worse, it made me feel better. I felt encouraged, and for some reason, normal. I did not wake up sad this morning, and felt re-focused on what I had to do: take care of my family, and leave all this other stuff on the back burner....

So tomorrow is my cd 3 baseline scan. They may have me take clomid, they may have me sit it out again. Who knows. But what I am going to focus on is the positives...that I have a couple more weeks to take some more weight off (I really want to be down to 175 before the Disney wedding trip), getting back into the swing of school starting (kid 1 and 2 went off today, kid 3 starts preschool Thursday) and getting ready to enjoy a fun week in Disney. I am so looking forward to the gluten free bakery in Downtown Disney again, and the seafood buffet we are going to try at Cape May Cafe...I've been wanting to try that for years!

Oh yes, and of course my sister's wedding! LOL Yes, I finally have a bridesmaid dress I look halfway decent in, and I am thin enough now to wear it!