A few more hurdles/delays- what did you expect??

I have just got off the phone with a nutritionist that Dr S referred me to, for my high beta carotene levels.  Apparently my healthy balanced diet is too high in beta carotene.  Well, too high for my particular body to metabolise or some such. Everyone is different of course.  Why my body can’t seem to handle it well, who knows.  The upshot is that if I want my levels to come down, I have to restrict my intake of most of the vegetables I eat.  She hasn’t sent me the info sheet yet, but I might be living on cauliflower and artichokes and a handful of cherries for the rest of my life.

Very likely high beta carotene isn’t a terrible problem and a lot of people probably live quite happily with it.  However, apparently it has some link to diabetes (or is it specifically insulin resistance?) and a link to meddling with female reproductive systems.  Some studies have shown (according to Dr S- I haven’t seen any myself) that it impairs ovulation.  And who knows what else?  

[An online friend today discovered that insulin resistance directly impairs the growth of the endometrium in pregnancy, resulting in miscarriage.  Hmmm.  My sugars have always come back fine, which meant I never got referred on to do an glucose intolerance test.  But another online friend said her sugars were normal and she pushed hard for a GI test and lo and behold, it was abnormal.  I’m going to get DH to write me a form for that and test it next week.  Fuck.  IF it ends up being abnormal, I’ll have to go on that bloody metformin Dr S prescribed me back in December, AND eat my words….]

So, then, I do want to lower this level, and I will do the food restriction over several months, retesting each month to see how I am doing.  But it sucks to have just another thing to monitor in my daily life.  More body function scrutiny.  Like I don’t have enough to do, now I have to think hard about every piece of food I consume, and re-jig how and what I cook (the how is important, apparently juicing and mashing and pulping all increase the amount of beta carotene available to you body).  I’ve only spent all day making jars of tomato sauce and relish from that 10kg box of tomatoes I bought last week.  One tomato has 400 units of beta carotene.  I am allowed 800 units per day.

Sigh.

Today I signed up for an 8 week pilates course at the local rec centre.  Once a week, Friday mornings, begins tomorrow.  Had the postural assessment today and thankfully I am not in too bad shape.  I do suffer from hypermobility, which has caused muscle stretching and weakness around the joints, over time and this has led to my joint injuries (not helped by taking muscle weakening IVF drugs 6 times, and I don’t think the hcg will be doing me any favours in that department either). Did I mention my back has gone again?  Yup.  Off the gym, etc, until it heals.  Anyhoo, my surface muscles are strong but my deep, core muscles are weak.  So this will be perfect to work on that problem.  

Twice a week I am getting chiropractic adjustments from a friend who has moved to the area after finishing her degree.  This is a long term project, changing the habitual patterns my body has got itself into, and also peeling off a bit of the deposited stress that has built up over the last few years (coming on for a decade) with TTC tribulations.  She is very kind and is treating me as a favour.  I thought the pilates would be a perfect accompaniment to the adjustments, so my body can learn to hold itself in the ‘new’ positions.  It’s a big time commitment- traveling twice a week for sessions, then one pilates class and two hours home practice per week.  But what the hell.  I am doing for myself and not for TTC, so hopefully it will feel less of a chore. We’ll see.

The pelvic scans this month showed a mature dominant follicle (and about 8 others besides) that got to 19mm, which was fine according to Dr H, and then ruptured on its own leaving a passable corpus luteum.  All this means that my egg function seems ok and I don’t have to go back next cycle for any more scans.  WOOT!  The ‘bad’ news was that although the endometrium measured about 15mm, the functional layer was only 5.5mm, and did not ever become shiny and white (on screen) and move into the phase it should have been in at ovulation (called the secretory or luteal phase).  Basically, this means it is obvious my endometrial lining as it is, cannot support a pregnancy.  In a way, it is actually good news: the diagnosis is now certain.  The bad news is that although the treatment I am on works, it is not guaranteed to work for everyone.  So.  All the more reason to get to the bottom of this beta carotene malarky I guess.

Last week I was back and forth to Bunbury with the scans Fri/Mon/Wed/Fri. Exhausted me. This week I am playing catch up with house chores (cleaning/ironing/filing/bills/cooking etc) and grounds maintenance (picking food/processing food/watering/fertilising/pruning etc) that didn’t get done last week. Plus: Monday I had a phone consult with the NaPro charting instructor for an hour; Wednesday counseling for an hour; Thursday pilates postrual assessment for half an hour then 45 mins on the phone to the nutritionist.  Tomorrow I have a blood test to see how the p4 level is doing on the hgc shots (2 down, 2 to go for this cycle). Monday I’ll try to do the GI test.  Doesn’t seem to be slowing down all that much.  I keep thinking: one of these weeks it will get quieter.  Surely.

I am itching to get into the pantry and have a big chuckout.  I think I have been saying this for a while.  I know I have been wanting to, but there just isn’t the time.  I need a whole morning, and I can’t remember the last whole morning I had to myself.  The fridge got a clean out today, which was very satisfying.  I found one product that had an expiry date of 2007, and several at 2008.  A whole shopping bag of stuff got turfed. Bliss.  I can’t wait until the studio is done and my art/craft/sewing supplies are moved in, because then I’m going to have another big turf out of my clothes/shoes/bags and rearrange the cupboards in my bedroom (currently housing the art stuff).  Maybe that can be my birthday treat!

Mike and I went away for the weekend just gone.  It was SO nice.  Just amazing.  We stayed in Denmark at a friend’s holiday cottage and holed up for Saturday and Sunday nights.  The weather was a bit grim so we didn’t make it to the beach, but read, played carcassonne, watched DVDs [the Mentalist season 3; Battlestar Galactica Season 1] and generally hung out together, alone, with no-one interrupting for the WHOLE WEEKEND.  Utter Joy.  I am going to try to make it happen again in March.  We really need that couple time, and we just can’t get the isolation at home.  

Now it is back to the grindstone and lots of on-call for him: one of the partners is skiiing in Canada for a month and another is having a triple bypass this week, recovering for at least 6 weeks post op, so there is only two of them for all the on call and things are hectic and the days (and weeks!) are very very long.  Good news: the contracts for the payrise for oncall are almost finished so with any luck they’ll be signed by the end of the month.  Happy days.  [I am trying not to calculate how much money we COULD have had with this incredible amount of extra on call.  Does no good to ruminate over that.]

The studio build has gone slowly the past few weeks.  Yesterday the scaffolding went up and the tin has been ordered so the roof may well be on by the end of next week.  I don’t think much more will happen this week, if anything.  The windows have arrived and now Mike has to find a way to varnish them before installation.  Our best bet is to turf them over to the workshop of our good friend Glen the woodcrafstman, but Glen is holidaying in Bali this week, so we’ll have to wait, and hope the roof doesn’t go on too quickly! Also the sheeting has arrived that we are making the cupboards from, so that can be cut to size when Glen gets back also.

The builder, Pat, has the exact paint I wanted to use for the walls and ceiling, so that’s a big saving.  Bauwerk lime paint, eco friendly and non toxic.  He had 60L left from a previous job, but a 20L tub will be more than enough for us.  So not much is actually happening on the site, but there is a lot of coming together behind the scenes.

We had the Canadian wwoofers back for two weeks (they left Monday as we returned from our weekend away) and they built the composting toilet structure next to the cabin.  Plus a walkway from the cabin to the loo.  It looks amazing (will endeavour to post pic).  We are so thrilled.  One less major job to do ourselves (well, Mike still has about 4 hours work left on it), and one extra toilet on the property for the Easter Tribal gathering, which will come in very handy.  They have moved on to our friend Jeff’s place at Southampton to help out with his endless list of projects.  We are heading over there on the weekend for a pizza night- yum!

I have pinned down a portaloo and a spit roasting gadget, and organised the final details for the DJ for the event.  Mike can organise the keg.  Then there is just cleaning to do, which will take me the next few weeks chipping away- de-cobwebbing house/windowcleaning/BBQ cleaning/spare fridge cleaning etc.  I feel on top of things and with such a big lead up time, I’m not under pressure.

This weekend I am enrolled in a two day cheese making course in Balingup.  I have wanted to do this course for three years now, and there has always been something preventing me.  This year my weekend wasn’t booked up and so I grabbed the chance.  I’ll stay overnight on Saturday at Jeff’s (and have pizza night and maybe a carcassone-a-thon with the crew) and head home afternoon Sunday, hopefully with cheese!

So that’s a general recap of the main events of this past month.  I’ve saved the most annoying thing for last- the surrogacy application.  No, it did NOT get submitted for February’s meeting.  Why?  Dr S has not done her paperwork yet.

She has thoroughly failed to grasp the fact that the RTC require her, by law, to become a ‘registered surrogacy provider’ which involves lots of systems and procedures to be written up and other such crap.  The head of the RTC finally phoned her and spelled it out s-l-o-w-l-y until she wrapped her head around it.  Mo (the head of RTC) is now trying to help her through the process, but she won’t be done for ages yet.  Maybe she’ll be done by the March meeting, but probably not.  In any case, WE are not allowed to submit our application until she has been passed. And not at the same time, a MONTH after she has been passed.  So she has to submit, and get passed (which doesn’t normally happen first time around, she may well have to resubmit the following month, and so on), and once she has been passed, the following month we can submit, and then we may or may not get passed ourselves.

Therefore: nothing doing in the surrogacy department until at least April, very likely May.  *twiddle thumbs a little longer*  I think it’s driving the surrogate a bit doolally as well.  Truly, this has taken the most ridiculous amount of time.

Meanwhile, on with my own reproductive endeavours and the hoo-ha they entail.  I wonder when we’ll get the green light to actually have sex again?  That would be novel.

Must go and bottle my saffron tomato chutney.  That I now can’t eat.

See you in March!

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