Fertility Diet

Back in May, my acupuncturist put me on a fertility diet. It's been pretty strict and sometimes, I just want to eat whatever I want, but I can see the benefits from it, so I will continue to eat "fertility friendly" until I see that BFP (then I will immediately grab some ice cream and chocolate chip cheesecake!)

The main points of my fertility diet are no dairy, limited gluten (my acu would like me to cut it out completely, but it's really difficult, so I just cut back significantly), no cold foods or drinks, no refined sugars, more red meat and only organic meats if possible, tons of cooked veggies (never raw or cold and try to eat organic), limited fruits (nothing too starchy - so bananas and apples are out) and tons and tons of lukewarm water. I also have a cup of red raspberry leaf tea every morning and several cups of green tea throughout the day.

This is probably the healthiest I've ever eaten. I'm pretty small to begin with so I haven't lost any weight, but I noticed an immediate change in bloating as soon as I started the diet. My stomach is rarely bloated anymore and I have a ton more energy on this diet. I just feel better in general.

Here's what a typical day on my diet looks like:

Breakfast --
Scrambled eggs with veggies. No cheese. Organic eggs. I typically do peppers, onions, cherry tomatoes, squash and fresh spinach sauteed in with the eggs. We belong to an organic CSA, so I just use whatever we have that week in terms of veggies. Sometimes I also throw in some organic canadian bacon for extra protein. Now, I work at home, so it's easy for me to prepare this most mornings, which is awesome.

On mornings I have appointments or for some reason don't have time to cook the eggs, I will eat a packet of plain organic oatmeal with flax seeds sprinkled in and a side of fruit (typically berries).

Lunch --
Again, with working at home, I'm lucky to have access to a kitchen with all my own food to be able to cook whatever I want. Most days I eat leftovers from whatever we had for dinner the night before.

I've found these individual servings of organic quinoa at my grocery store, so a lot of times, I'll heat up one of those and throw some veggies in with it.

Whole Foods makes gluten free tortillas, which I will eat stuffed with black or cannelloni beans and sauteed veggies. Typically I eat another serving of fruit for lunch as well.

Dinner --
I cook a lot from The Fertile Kitchen cookbook and it has really easy, simple recipes. We normally will just eat some sort of protein, rice or quinoa and then veggies.

J hates all the gluten free stuff, so I've given up on trying to force him to eat brown rice noodles for pasta. I have cooked him regular pasta and me the gluten free pasta some nights, but that's just a lot of extra work.

Dessert --
I have a HUGE sweet tooth, so the sugar thing is probably the hardest part of this diet for me. I normally have some sort of chocolate after every meal (sometimes even breakfast) so getting out of that habit was really hard. I've started having 1 small piece of dark chocolate after lunch and dinner. It helps with my craving for sweets, plus it's relatively good for me.

With being on the no dairy diet, I was worried about getting enough calcium because my mom has  Osteoporosis. I started taking a delicious calcium supplement, Adora Disks, which come in milk or dark chocolate. I eat the dark chocolate and they are SO GOOD! I look forward to taking my calcium each day with eating these!!

So that's my daily eats in a nutshell.  It is difficult, but after the first month, it really did become like second nature. I look forward to eating good, healthy, real food and I think it is having a positive effect on my fertility.

Au Naturale

This cycle (#14 if you're counting), we're going all natural. No crazy weird diet, no acupuncture, no pineapple core, no POM, no charting, no OPK's. Just lots of BIO and fingers crossed.

Just in case none of this works, I will be starting fertility herbs next cycle. I had a consultation with an herbalist and she is writing me a prescription for some hard core teas to drink all cycle. I'm scared/excited to see what the herbs are all about. My acu seems really confident that the herbs will do the trick for us. I personally would fall to the ground if all I have to do is drink some nasty flavored teas to get PG. I guess we'll see what happens - bottoms up!

Destined for this?

I realized a few weeks ago that I know 52 girls who are either pregnant or had a baby in 2011. Yes, 52. That's not an exaggeration. I was in a sorority in college, so I think that has something to do with it, but still. That's a freaking lot of people. The one that stings the most is my BFF who got pregnant immediately after stopping BC and never even got a period - just a BFP. This was 3 months after her wedding as well. She was the one who I told when we started trying (before she was even married) and now it's super awkward between us because she's due in 3 weeks and I'm still here, trying.

I think part of me realized deep down that we would have problems. It just seems like it's so easy for everyone else, and there has to be the "statistic" right? It just sucks that's us. Infertility is such a taboo topic that it's hard not to feel alone. You see tons of "I'm pregnant!" announcements on Facebook, but you never see any shouts of "another failed cycle!"

Crossing the territory into "unexplained infertility" is a scary, lonely place. Without treatment, I just don't know if it will ever happen for us. I wish there was an issue that we could pinpoint and "fix", especially when the doctors tell us that we're normal. Well, I don't really feel very normal. We're young, healthy, eat well, don't smoke, don't drink, own a home, both have good jobs, cars, pay our bills on time...yet for some reason, we're destined for this struggle. The struggle I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Shot in the Dark...

So today I re-confirmed with our insurance company that no infertility treatment is covered. Nada. I know I should look on the plus side and be grateful that all of our testing from May was covered. But it's almost like a slap in the face - we will cover seeing if you are infertile, but if you are, we're not going to cover any of it. Awesome. Looks like we're still at square one with not really being able to afford several thousands of dollars to get me knocked up.

I honestly can't even wrap my brain around IUI either. It's just not really how I saw myself getting pregnant. I know I need to get over that and thousands of women do it (probably every day) but at this point, it still seems so foreign to me. Ask me again after another 6 months of natural TTC and we'll see where I'm at then.

However, I am taking a fertility yoga class tonight, so that's exciting. I have no idea what to expect and I hope they don't put a big IF stamp on my forehead when I walk in. Or even worse - what if I'm the only one in the entire class? Maybe I'm the only bitter infertile in my entire town?? Here goes nothing...