Monday, December 31, 2012

Told my parents! (Originally posted December 14, 2012)

So this morning I finally got up the courage to call my parents to tell them I was pregnant. It went pretty well. I called my dad's cell phone and he was like "congrats I know you've really wanted this" and then asked me all sorts of questions, and then he went and found my mom and she kinda paused and was like "that's very good to hear" and then BAM gave me like 30 minutes of pregnancy advice and asked me all these questions and was actually really cool about it.  So that was nice.  She kept giving me really simple advice like "are you on prenatal vitamins?  You know you should be drinking a lot of fluids right? You should be eating a lot of fruits and vegetables you know" lol.   I told her how I've been falling asleep at like 7pm every night and she told me about how when she was pregnant, Princess Diana was pregnant with Prince William (weird, and now I'm pregnant same time as not-really-Princess Kate!), and how the media started catching on to the fact that she was pregnant cause she kept falling asleep at like state functions. And not a single mention of religion or circumcision was made (better than I can say for my in laws who brought it up like the first conversation!)

So that went better than I expected I guess. :) I'm glad I've gotten it over with. I'm going to email them pictures from the ultrasound and they are going to email me pictures of the renovations they are doing on their condo in Florida that they are planning to retire to in a few years (which used to be my grandparents before they died). 

There was one sour note when my mom told me how she's having a party on Sunday and my entire extended family is coming.  Why? Cause I wasn't invited.  Why would she tell me that shit when she doesn't invite me? 

Friday, December 28, 2012

Pregnancy Dreams/ Ultrasound (originally posted December 12th, 2012)

I had a dream earlier this morning that I went to a nightclub/show with my dad, and he went off and started partying, and he was supposed to be my ride home after the show, but I couldn't find him. I tried calling him a million times but he wouldn't answer the phone and then my cell phone started breaking apart, and I called my parents house and someone there said my mom had disappeared too. And I went back to where his car was parked and it was gone.  So instead I walked over to a park a couple of miles away where there was a music festival  going on and crashed in a tent with my (hippie/festival) friends J, C, and L the clown (yes I have a friend who is a clown in real life). And in the end my parents went missing for 2 days because they were off partying, and I had to find my own way home in B's car.

My dreams are just obvious now...fear of being let down and abandoned by my parents and turning to my friends/B for help instead.  I still haven't told my parents. Maybe I'll call my dad in a few hours. Or over the weekend or something. Or maybe I'll just keep putting it off.

I told my other brother though (the religious one), and told him not to tell them- and he said he won't because he doesn't want to get in the middle of drama.  He mentioned something about how at least when I fight with my parents I can hang up on the phone, while he has to hear them bickering about my marriage all the time (since he moved back home while attending grad school). So I asked him what was up with that..what are they bickering about now, 3 and a half years after we got married? And he said something vague about how they are happy I'm married but unhappy about who I'm married to.

In pregnancy news, yesterday I had my first ultrasound. According to the thing I was 7 weeks 5 days pregnant yesterday, which gives me an estimated due date of July 25th, 2013, which is one day off from the day I thought it was. I went back and looked at my fertilityfriend chart (a website where you can track your temperatures for ovulation purposes), and I even checked off that I had ovulation pains that day! (November 1st).

The heart beat was 157, and we could see the heart flickering on the screen.  Actually, I missed like the first 30 seconds cause I didn't realize there was a screen overhead and thought she was going to turn the screen she was looking at next to me, which I couldn't see, ha. The whole thing went soo quickly, like only a few minutes, I hardly had time to adjust to what I was seeing. She also looked at my ovaries and measured them, and somehow determined that this egg came from my right ovary because of a special kind of cyst that forms there afterwards.



Then when we got home I scanned the pics they gave us and stared at this picture and I can swear I can see a little face towards the top of the picture, but maybe it's just my imagination or some trick of the light. Meanwhile, baby!  I think i can make out an arm in there and maybe some "footplates".  The lump in the middle of the three lumps is where the heartbeat was at. The round thing floating on top of the baby is the "yolk sac" which feeds the baby until it develops it's own digestion system develops more fully in a few weeks.

I thought when I saw the ultrasound I would feel more pregnant, and this would all feel more real, but I'm still not showing and apart from throwing up every morning, falling asleep every day at like 7pm and being insanely hungry in between (and gaining a few pounds so my pants are a little more snug- but possibly because I started eating carbs again), I don't look pregnant at all, so it's still a little hard to believe that thing up there is inside of me. Maybe when I can start feeling it move around/start showing it'll seem more real.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Talked to dad...but not about being pregnant

(Written December 9th, 2012)

My dad just called to wish me a happy chanukah. I told him how I've been reappointed after my third year review (meaning I have a guaranteed job until a year after I go up for tenure, and with the 1 year delay on my tenure clock I get due to having a baby, that means I have a job until 2018 at least), but I didn't tell him I was pregnant. In fact he flat out asked out the pregnancy thing was going and I super awkwardly was like "ehhh it's the same, whatever" basically flat out lying and saying I wasn't pregnant, and he was really insistent and asked a second time and I lied again!  What the hell, who flat out asks someone if they are pregnant, isn't that like not socially acceptable to ask people?I wonder if my brother said something to him or something...(he said he didn't)

I don't know what's wrong with me. My first ultrasound is on Tuesday. I don't want to tell him until after the first ultrasound, and I don't even know when I will feel ok telling him. I don't want to deal with it. At least not yet. I'm only 7 weeks, and I still have a high risk of miscarriage, and I don't want to have to start dealing with my dad sending me emails about how religion is important to a kid's life, or pressuring me to get my kid circumcised, or whatever crazy/annoying thing he is bound to do at some point.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Mommy issues (originally posted November 20th, 2012)

So last night me and B got to talking/arguing about my family and what we're going to do for thanksgiving after we have the baby. I said we should go to my parents house for thanksgiving if they invite us because we go to his parents for christmas, and he said he wants to spend both holidays with his parents and we can go to my parents some non-holiday time, cause why should they get to spend the holidays with our kids after the way they've treated us all these years.

At some point in the argument I started weeping hysterically, because I realized that this whole conversation was academic, because my parents have never invited my husband to their house ever, let alone invited us both over for thanksgiving. O, pregnancy. I don't even remember the last time I cried, I think it was before I even moved to the south. O wait, I think it was actually that time I couldn't have hush puppies a few months ago.  B got all concerned and nice but I felt bad and was like "I'm not trying to win this argument by crying I swear, I can't help it!" But then that turned into a long crying rant about my parents and how much they suck and how my dad is totally going to be offering to pay for circumcisions if we have a boy even though I don't want to circumcise our kids.

I've been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and how they are going to react when we tell them. Especially my mom. My dad I'm actually not worried about at all- every time we talk he keeps asking how TTC is going, he's suggested I pray to try to get pregnant (which I never responded to that email- but in retrospect, yeah, that probably means he's not anti-me getting pregnant) and I know he will be super excited about being a grandpa. Heck, my entire teenagehood/20somethingyears he was shoving babies into my arms and taking pictures while I held it awkwardly, while I guess he was imagining himself as a grandpa. In fact we had huge arguments in my early 20s cause at the time I wasn't sure I ever wanted to have kids (wasn't really sure about that until I met B / was in my late 20s) and he would argue about how what's the point of life, etc.

Anyway, I am really not at all worried about my dad, but I am super worried about how my mom is going to react, and it's been really pissing me off the past few days that I AM worried about this, that instead of plotting how I *get* to tell my parents they are going to be grandparents the first time, I'm worried about how to *break the news* that they are going to have a grandchild whose father will be a man they have met twice and disapprove of. Why do my parents/mom have to be such fucking jerks and threaten that my "kids will be totally estranged from the rest of my relatives" when I was getting married, and so now put a shadow over a time when I should just be happy and thrilled and not have to worry about this bullshit. I just keep flashing back to when I called my mom to tell her I was engaged, and she was silent for like an entire minute and then when I was finally like "So...are you going to say anything?" she was like "You know how I feel!" and hung up on me and then we didn't talk for like 4 years. Until last thanksgiving in fact.

I want my kid(s) to have a relationship with their grandparents on my side (although not one where my parents are trying to convert them). I want my mom to make a baby quilt for my kid the way she made baby quilts for all my cousins when they had their first kids. I want me and my husband and kids to go visit my parents down in their Florida condo (that they inherited from my grandparents and are planning to retire to) the way I used to visit my grandparents living in that same condo, and hide awkwardly in the second bedroom with my kids the way my parents and us used to hide from my grandparents in that same room.

I'm want to wait a bit longer to tell them, although I am probably going to talk to them on Thanksgiving and who knows, I am terrible at keeping secrets so I might just blurt it out. But what I also really don't want is to have a miscarriage (well in general I don't want that), for me to have to tell my parents, and for my mom to be secretly thinking that I am being punished for not being religious.

On the other hand, the longer I wait to tell them, the longer I have to worry about how they will react, which has now led to at least one weeping episode. So maybe I should tell them sooner, just to get it over with.

I was talking to another former-orthodox jewish friend of mine who also has a really bad relationship with her mother, and she told me that she is always making friends with older ladies her mom's age as substitute mothers...and it struck me that I totally do the same thing. My adviser/coauthor from college is in her early 60s, and has been like a substitute mom for me- she's come to visit me down here more than my mom has (twice now), she actually came to my wedding unlike my own mom, and even gave a little speech during the ceremony (which my MIL also did). Here in the south, my closest friends in my department are women my mom's age- my chair (late 50s/ early 60s) my department secretary (early 60s) and a deadhead prof I go to shows with (exactly 60 years old). At my 30th birthday party this year there were more 60somethings than 30somethings. There are lots of people/women in the department much closer to my age, and yet I became much better friends with all the ones who are the same age as my mom. Woah.

Meanwhile, when I told my brother he sent me a bunch of text messages asking how B and I feel about it, how I'm feeling in general, etc. It was really nice, I didn't expect him to be all protect-y like that. :)

Friday, December 21, 2012

Pregnant! (originally posted November 13th, 2012)

This morning my temps were still super high (usually when I'm about to get my period they drop), and when I checked what was going on period-wise overnight it was only very very faint light pink spotting. Like the kind that sometimes pregnant women get when a fetus implants in them (when it implants it diverts your blood vessels to the baby and many women bleed a bit during this time).

So I took a pregnancy test.

And it was positive.

hooooooolllllly shit. I am still in denial about it I think, and it wasn't the darkest line ever, but it was a definite fucking positive.

Going to wait till I have to pee again and then take one of my expensive pregnancy tests. And then I guess....call the gynocologist? I have no idea what to do at this point, if I am pregnant (I guess I shouldn't say if) I'm only about 3 weeks pregnant right now. My due date would be sometime between July 24th and July 26th 2013.

Meanwhile this may explain my incredibly bizzare sleep patterns the last few days...i've been falling asleep between 6 and 8pm and not waking up until 8 or 9 in the morning. Last night I tried to stay away to watch how I met your mother (at 8pm) and fell asleep on the couch halfway through the episode.

And in conclusion, HOLY SHIT.

ETA: Took a second test (The expensive kind). Also positive.


Photobucket

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Damn you body! (Originally posted November 12th, 2012)

Just started spotting pinkish blood, which is right about on schedule since I'm due to get my period tomorrow if I'm not pregnant. FUCK. Now I have to go in for "more tests" whatever the fuck that means (I fear transvaginal ultrasounds) so I can find out what additional things are wrong with my body. Plus B gets to go jerk off in a cup or whatever. Plus I'm out of clomid prescriptions, so who knows how long it'll be until I ovulate again since I'm guessing I won't be able to get an appointment I the next two days before I would need to start taking it this cycle.

I'll wait until I'm 100% sure I got my period to call them (tomorrow) but damn...I was so hopeful, my temps were very high this morning (and usually they drop before I get my period) so I was hoping that meant I wasn't about to get my period and instead might have been pregnant...dammit. .

Monday, December 17, 2012

Intermission: So I AM invited home?

So this is a non previously written post. I still have around 2-3 weeks of scheduled posts until we catch up with the present day re: trying to conceive (which will post every Monday Wednesday and Friday- one just posted a few minutes ago) but here's a post about some stuff going on in real time.

On Friday I happened to talk to my parents and they mentioned they were having a big family get together on Sunday. Which I of course was not invited to, despite the fact that we've supposedly 'reconciled' over a year ago and I could have TOTALLY gone since my semester ended a week ago and I've mostly been sitting around all week since then (today I'm going back to work though sadly, need to start getting some research done as I have to revise a journal article that got a "Revise and resubmit" that is due February, and write another paper to submit to a conference in January).

Anyway last night my dad sent me like 100 pictures of the family gathering which made me realize just how long it's been since Ive been home...I haven't been home since 2009. My family is getting old.  My grandparents have aged rapidly. My cousins all have kids and those kids are no longer babies. My baby cousin is an adult teenager.  I haven't seen any of them in years.  My dad said in the email "Everyone was here for our chanukah party today"

So I wrote back: "Everyone minus a few.  Must have missed our invite."

And this was my dad's response: "Obviously, it was intended for local folks who could drive here. I had no idea you wanted to be invited to these things, being 9 hours away.  The next scheduled family lunch is for Purim at Aunt E's house."

So now I'm just confused.  Really?  He had no idea I wanted to be invited home when my entire extended family was invited over?  I mean I live 9 hours away now, but for the first 2 years of not being invited home I lived only 2 hours away. And I regularly drive 9-10 hours to visit my inlaws every Thanksgiving and Christmas, which he knows about.  And plus, we both know the reason I haven't been invited home all these years is cause of B.  So what the hell is this email? Is he just trying to pretend like the last 5 years never happened?  And now I'm invited to my (Chaeredi/ultra orthodox) Aunt E's place for Purim next year? (which I can't go to, that's right in the middle of the semester).  I don't know, I don't know what to write back to this, but I feel like he's trying to act all coy and innocent like it's somehow been my fault for not coming there to visit more often, when I've specifically been excluded from being invited home for several years. 

Tentative draft of a response: "Yes of course I want to be invited to family get togethers, why wouldn't I? You know we visit B's parents 2-3 times a year and they live 10 hours away, we wouldn't be able to come up to visit you? We probably wouldn't come up for every get together, and we would need some advanced notice so we could arrange a dogsitter, but we could probably make it up there once a year or so...the only thing stopping us is that we have never been invited." 

Ovulation? (Originally posted November 1st 2012)

So yesterday I peed an almost-positive ovulation test, and today I peed a definitely positive ovulation test, so yay, a chance to get pregnant again! I've also been getting ovary-area cramps for the past hour or so which I take to be a good sign. Today is only day 26 of my cycle- still much longer than it should take me to ovulate considering I'm on clomid, have lost 30 pounds in the last 3 months by eating less than 50 grams of carbs a day, and have been drinking vitex tea (vitex is shown to regulate hormones related to the reproductive system and I'm pretty sure it's helped me ovulate in the past- and my temps have been much steadier since I started drinking this tea every day), but much less than the 53 days it took me to ovulate last cycle!

So it seems all this weight loss work has helped for something at least. Also, the insulin spots are still on my thigh but barely there (very much faded) and my knuckles and elbows are no longer black, although my elbows are still a bit darker than they probably should be. But much lighter than they've been for as long as I can remember!

I found a ribbon to wrap around my wedding ring on the bottom half so it won't fall off my finger which it was in danger of doing (and did once already, but I saw/heard it and picked it up). It might look weird when I gesticulate in class though, but oh well, I'd rather look stupid than lose my wedding ring.

So now will continue doing it for a few more days until ovulation is confirmed with a temp spike (you get a positive test a day or two before ovulation and a temperature spike after ovulation) and then wait a few weeks...ahh!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Level Accomplished (originally posted October 16th, 2012)

As of this morning I have lost 28.6 pounds since my high weight in January and 22.2 pounds since I started low carbing and walking (almost) every day nearly 3 moths ago. That is more than 10% of my body weight in the last 3 months.

Today I met my first major goal- 191.2, or officially out of the "Obese" BMI category, and now in the "overweight" category. My BMI is now 29.9.

Now the trick is for this to actually work re: Me ovulating in a reasonable amount of time. I took the second round of clomid last week. My health insurance wouldn't cover it cause they are bastards and they don't cover infertility (not sure how they covered the first round, maybe it was an accident), but thankfully it was only $20 out of pocket. I'm taking ovulation pee tests (they are kinda like pregnancy tests but tell you if you are about to ovulate) and if it works the way it's supposed to I should ovulate sometime this weekend. Of course I'm not counting on that.

Today I'm traveling to a conference. I'll be there until Thursday but that's day 12 so I shouldn't have ovulated by then. Hopefully the stress of traveling won't fuck up my cycle again but I'm already afraid it will. Last time I traveled the first day I got a positive ovulation test and then didn't end up ovulating for another month. Hoping this time since I am traveling before ovulation it won't fuck me too badly, but with my fertility luck it probably will sigh.

If i don't get pregnant this cycle I have to go back to the doctor for "more tests" (that my insurance will not cover) and B will have to come in for tests too, so really hoping it works this time around.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Annnd (Originally posted October 7th, 2012)

I got my period. Out for this cycle. "Bright" side: At least it's only been 65 days since i last got my period, so this cycle only lasted a little over 2 months. The one before that went up to 117 days and then I only got my period by inducing it with drugs.

Sometime today or tomorrow I have to go to CVS to get my second (and last before I go back to the doctor and/or find a Reproductive endocrinologist which I'm probably going to do instead) round of clomid. Last time if it worked it worked crappily if at all (hey at least I ovulated and got my period eventually!), but I'm optimistic this month will go better. For one, I've now lost about 25 pounds in total, vs. around 10 the first time I took clomid 65 days ago, and have been low carbing for almost 3 months vs. 2 weeks. For two, right around when I thought I was going to ovulate last cycle (CD17 when I had a dark but not completely positive ovulation test) I flew to my trip, and think that messed with my cycle cause whenever I fly around when I'm supposed to ovulate I seem to ....not. In fact the previous ridicuously long cycle- I think part of that is that I naturally ovulate maybe every 2 months (normal cycle is around 55-75 day) but 2 months into THAT cycle I flew to NYC.

Of course now that I say that, I'm flying a week from Tuesday for another conference. But I'm hoping since that'll be less than 10 days into my cycle it won't mess with ovulation this time.

I also started taking vitex cactus about 45days through this last cycle- it's a herb that improves pituitary gland function, normalizes your hormones, and increases lutenizing hormone, which is the hormone that makes you ovulate. A little more than a week after I started taking it I ovulated. I then stopped taking it since you aren't supposed to take it if you might be pregnant, but I got some vitex tea (which is mixed with a couple of other things like green tea and raspberry leaf which is supposed to help, and is ridiculously called "Fertilitea" and makes me feel like I'm buying some charlatan bullshit) and I'm going to drink it twice a day this cycle in hopes that I might ovulate in a reasonable amount of time and may have a chance of actually getting pregnant.

Meanwhile I'm sick as shit with my traditional "got a cold right before getting my period" cold which seems extra harsh this month. Yesterday spent the day blowing my nose and today it seems to have moved into my lungs whilst still staying in my nose. Hoping today will be the worst of it (and hey, now that I know I'm not pregnant I can take cold meds!).

Monday, December 10, 2012

In a funk (Originally posted October 2nd, 2012)

Despite supposedly reconciling with my family and meeting up in June, since then I've talked to my mom once in early August and not since then. In that phone convo she said she would respond to a recent email I had sent her about my PCOS diagnosis, but she never did respond. I've talked to my dad one additional time last month when he called to basically remind me about a religious holiday and got off the phone after 5 minutes. Then he sent me an email trying to convince me to pray, which I still haven't written back to. After years of telling him we shouldn't talk about religion, he still doesn't get it. And I don't think despite the fact that we are "talking" I'm going to be invited home anytime soon. unless I somehow manage to actually get pregnant, in which case for the rest of my life Ill be afraid my parents are trying to missionize my kids.

I'm pretty sure I ovulated 8 days ago, which would be day 53 since I last got my period. So there is like a 5% chance I'm pregnant. But since it took SO long until I actually ovulated, meaning the clomid didn't work (yay, no easy fixes!), chances are it's not a viable egg anyways.  Anyway if my temps stay high I guess that'll mean I can take a pregnancy test this weekend or early next week or something, but I do not have very high hopes at this point.

I did lose almost 26 pounds since my high weight in May, but I'm still "obese" and have been stuck bouncing up and down from 194ish to 198ish for about a month. Also it's been raining a lot the last week so I've been totally slacking on my walking every day which does not make me feel good about myself. Meh.   At least I will be starting my second round of clomid with more than 2 months of low carbing under my belt, that can only help. The first round I had only been low carbing for a week or two.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Ahhh dad (Originally posted September 21st, 2012)

So this is really a topic for my ex-Jew blog, but I haven't been writing about my PCOS/infertility stuff there so far, so it's going to have to go here instead for now. As an aside, I also haven't written a single blog entry on my jew blog since getting diagnosed, and I think it's because if I can't talk about this, I have nothing to say, but I'm not ready to be public with this stuff. But maybe I really should be. I just don't want judgmental douches being like "god is punishing you for being an atheist."

Anyway I told my parents about this stuff a month or two ago and earlier this week when I talked to my dad (for the annual rosh hashana phone call I get) he asked how stuff was going and I told him that the clomid isn't working (which so far it hasn't - now been 49 days since I last got my period and I haven't ovulated yet) but I lost 20 pounds, etc. Anyway today I get this pile of bullshit from him:

"Hi Abandoning Eden,,

How are you doing?

I was thinking of you at Rosh Hashanah. They gave me an aliyah to the Torah at shul and I had them make a "Mishebayrach" prayer for you.
[EDITOR NOTE: THIS MEANS HE HAD THEM SAY A PRAYER IN MY HONOR]

The assistant rabbi pointed out that the Torah and Haftorah focused on women who had trouble conceiving. The Torah portion related the story of Sarah while the Haftorah from the first chapter in Samuel discussed the story of Hannah and how she had her fertility problems as well. The rabbi pointed out that the lesson we were supposed to glean is that prayer was able to change the outcome for these two women, (they were able to conceive/give birth to famous, healthy children) and that we should take prayer more seriously.

Since these are the days when we Jews take prayer more seriously I thought it wouldn't hurt to pray. It could only help. Maybe you can still find a prayer group on or near campus that has services for Yom Kippur and sneak in there for a few minutes of prayer and reflection. You never know...

Wishing you guys all the best...

Love, Abba"


ERRMAHGERD! Like, I know he is just trying to be helpful, but dear lord does my father NOT KNOW ME AT ALL. This advice is laughable. I'm not sure if this is him trying to sneakily get me to pray on yom kippur instead of the plans I already have- to teach 5 hours of classes and go to 3 hours of meetings. Or what. But...like...srsly...OMG.  I'm not even writing back, cause there's nothing I can say that won't be snarky, and I know he is just trying to help in his completely backwards non-helpful way.  That or he is taking advantage of my issues to try to kiruv me. Yeah, I think not responding would be best.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

After 117 days (Originally posted August 3rd, 2012)

After 117 days of nothing, I now officially am getting my period! I've never been this happy to be bleeding out my vag in my life!

It started late last night around 10pm, so according to my PCOS consultants (on an awesome message board that my friend recommended) today is cycle day 1 and I start taking clomid on Sunday. That unfortunately means that if I do ovulate on time (in 15 days) it'll be the first day of my trip. But chances are I won't ovulate on time anyway which means it may be during my trip. Ack!

I'm temping now [taking my temperature every morning- your temperature rises after ovulation] in order to make sure I actually ovulate, and also have a bunch of  ovulation pee kits that I'm going to use until they run out but mostly just going to have a bunch of sex this month. :)

Also yesterday maybe it was the PMS mood swings but I just felt compelled to tell my parents about PCOS. I hadn't had any contact with them since my diagnosis, and I was a bit apprehensive about telling them, but yesterday my dad sent me a video from Disney World of him and my mom in "It's a small world" and was like "we're thinking of you!" Which made me remember something I hadn't thought about in decades- when I was a little kid I used to make my parents go on that ride with me over and over again whenever we went to disney world (my grandparents lived two hours away and we would go down to visit at least once a year, so had many trips there as a kid). I loved all the little outfits the different dolls had representing all the different cultures in the world (or at least what those cultures looked like in the past). Sociologist at a young age!

Anyway I was writing back to him and telling him about a job thing and somehow I ended up writing a long rant about PCOS and how I have it and also telling my parents that me and B are TTC (trying to conceive) and that's why I know I have it, and CCed my mom on the email. I hadn't even planned to tell them we were TTC until I was pregnant, but I was just impulsive and sent it to them yesterday. So about an hour later my dad actually ended up calling me from florida (and my mom talked to me too) and we talked for like half an hour all about how my dad is now on diabetes medication too. And we talked a bit about low carb diets cause turns out my dad is on one too, and he's like "Of course, eggs and fat arn't bad for you, it's the high carbs that are bad!" and I was like "Ok you know that now, but don't pretend like you knew this 5 years ago or something!" lol.

They didn't really bring up the fact that I'm trying to conceive but they didn't shy away from it or say anything mean which was what I'm afraid of, and my mom was actually encouraging when I brought it up and was like "well now at least you have a plan and know what you need to do." which I really appreciated. I almost want to blog about this in my other (ex-jew) blog, but I don't know that I want to tell hundreds of followers (and a couple of crazy stalker douchebags) that I have PCOS...

But I would like to write about it there just because now that I have it I'm finding out about SO MANY jewish people who have it - so much so, that I wonder if this is one of those many diseases that Ashkenazi jews are especially susceptible too (there are dozens of those) so would like to spread some awareness of it.

In other news this morning I am down to 205.4 (from 214) so I lost more than 8 pounds in 2 weeks! Woohoo! And that's with all this bloating from my period...kinda have the feeling that I will drop a couple more pounds in the next few days too.

Monday, December 3, 2012

PCOS, quit explaining everything weird about my life

(Originally posted July 29th, 2012)

I spent the entire week basically depressed and researching PCOS, and also carb-crashing and being all shakey and having major brain fog. But I walked 30-40 minutes every day except Wednesday, when I lifted cans for a half hour instead, and today in addition to walking I also did a 12 minute yoga video. We figured out a good walking route that is mostly in the shade (essential at this point in the summer in the south - by 8am it's blazing hot when you're in the sun) and takes us around 30-40 minutes to walk, and B has been walking with me most days.

B has been kinda awesome about this in general, he keeps making me all these crazy low carb recipes, he's been cooking 3 meals a day for me since I've been sitting home in a funk, and he walks with me with only minimal grumbling (and I grumble too). I love him. :)

Meanwhile, it's just getting bizzare and creepy at this point! Pretty much anything that has ever been weird about my body can be at least partially attributable for PCOS. Every day my mind is blown to another degree as yet another unexplained mysterious thing about my body turns out to be related.

Another thing attributable; I've always had really dark elbows and knuckles on my hands, like dark to the point where they look dirty (and my hands have knuckles like 5 shades darker than the rest of my fingers). This is why I don't wear rings other than my wedding ring and didn't mind not having an engagement ring- don't want to call too much attention to my hands cause they are weird colored looking, it always looks like I don't wash my hands enough or something.

For a year before my wedding I moisturized my elbows every day in an attempt to get them looking less dark (since I was going to wear a sleeveless dress), and at one point I read something about not having the right bacteria on your elbows to eat away the dead skin, so I made B rub elbows with me a bunch of times to try to transfer his elbow bacteria. I kid you not. Neither of these things helped of course.

Guess what explains it? Insulin resistance and a build up of insulin that pools in the folds of your skin, and causes excess skin buildup. Knuckles and elbows are specifically mentioned as a place this can happen (as are knees and ankles, but I don't have problems there except for the boney part that sticks out from my inner ankles being a bit darker) The same thing that caused the spots on my thigh (Which seem a bit lighter but that might just be wishful thinking) and the one on my hand that already disappeared.

Ok so the list of things weird about me, that are definitely or may be attributable to PCOS:

*Irregular period when not on birth control (this started at puberty, I never had a regular period, it always came every 5 to 8ish weeks before going on BC)
*elevated blood sugar
*high cholesterol
*"Manly" demeanor/personality, not being "girly" whatever that means according to other people (excess androgens).
*a few extra hairs on my chin/chest/belly and somewhat thinning hair (thankfully not yet to the point where it's embarrassing).  My haircut people are always giving me layered haircuts to disguise how thin my hair is
*the fact that I have always had a hard time losing and keeping off weight and am in the "Obese" category even though I have had a reasonable diet/regular exercise for years.
*disrupted sleep/being a light sleeper
*spots on my thigh and hand
*dark elbows and knuckles
*always having some acne on my chin/forehead and having a ton of bacne whenever I'm not on birth control pills, despite being 30 and firmly over my teenage years
*my anxiety issues are probably partially related too - at least as there is a correlation found in the literature although causality has not yet been established - and now that I think about it, the 3 people in my immediate family who have some similar symptoms to me anxiety-wise - me, my one brother, and my dad, are the same people who are pre-diabetic or have insulin issues (me and my dad) or diabetic (my brother)

That is also a list of pretty much everything that has ever been weird about my body. At least it doesn't seem like I have multiple problems other than PCOS, just a bunch of PCOS related symptoms.