Delay: phase II

The weekend was great - we had fabulous fall weather to enjoy. We spent Sunday enjoying being home, catching up on Netflix and binge watching Homeland.

I signed up for a pottery class that starts in November. I'm excited to learn something new. I also toured a gym nearby and started the trial period. I was sore from Thursday's workout and loved it. The holiday weight needs to come off, and then some. I already miss my Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast but it's so much easier to avoid eating 400 calories rather than try to burn it off later. So back to calorie counting for me. I have a very realistic goal weight in mind before we attempt a transfer and I hope to reach it. I can only do that if I get back in the better-eating mindset.

Friday morning was the final dose of antibiotics. I had a sour taste in my mouth throughout the two weeks of meds so I'm glad they're done. I hope this did the trick and that I won't need a third round. We are now at phase II of the delay: two week wait before biopsy. After that is the wait for results.

We're looking for a destination for a mini vacation. Last year we were itching to get away and hadn't yet decided on whether we could make a major trip to Israel work (it did, in Jan). We ended up doing a fall trip to Boston for a few days and really enjoyed it. 

Now that the zika ban has lifted, I really want to visit Florida. I miss the beach. We spent all our points last year on the major trip, so we would have to pay for the Florida trip out of pocket. It doesn't seem like a lot at first, but without points we're looking at nearly $1500 for RT airfare, car rental, and hotel for three nights. I could probably find a few deals and get it down closer to $1000 but that's still a chunk of change to spend on a weekend.

So I'm also looking at more local getaways, and maybe do a Sun/Mon instead of including the rest of the weekend to cut costs but still get the flavor of a change of scenery before we move forward with treatment.

I've applied to three different jobs so far. I'm only applying to positions I would actually consider leaving my job for. I know I won't find anything that has all the same perks, but I also know that a new position is a new opportunity to learn, grow, bring in more income, and hopefully be more stimulating.

Making the wait count

Things have fully transitioned to summer mode around here and the change has been nice. Things are slower at work, the weather is finally hot, and it seems like we're on our way to getting our summer projects started.

I'm still learning about insulin. I don't understand how my fasting and 2hr glucose are both well under the limits but my fasting/2hr insulin is high. I think I broke Google trying to come up with an answer because it doesn't seem to know. Beside that there are conflicting opinions about what to eat. Some say to strictly limit all forms of sugar while other opinions say that fruits are fine. Cutting out fruit entirely would be really hard for me so I'm not doing that yet. I have a call in to the Registered Dietician and in the meantime I'm working on cutting out white flour and refined sugar. I think that if I try to change too much too quickly then it will backfire so I'm focusing on small steps to help the changes stick.

This week's changes are to include at least 30 min of activity most days. That's up from 0-2 per week ever since the March loss. I'm also back to counting calories and, while not cutting it out entirely, limiting white flour and sugar. I found some recipes from an Instagram blogger that I'm excited to try. One is a lemon-garlic chicken and the other is a zoodles salad recipe. Very diet friendly and they both sound delicious.

The biggest challenges are going to be planning ahead and avoiding cereal. Planning ahead is crucial to having healthy food already in the house so that we don't resort to take-out which has been a major go-to in the past few months. Cereal is my food drug of choice in all forms and flavors. I can easily inhale two bowls for a snack, or instead of any meal of the day. It's not only a lot of processed sugar but there's also barely any nutritional value and it's a waste of calories. I'm not going to attempt to go cold turkey but it will have to be eaten sporadically and within small controlled portions.

In treatment news I'm getting ready for the hysteroscopy scheduled for the end of the month. I'm still on bcp so I can schedule my period around when it needs to be. The tricky part is with regard to mikvah since the procedure needs to be on a certain day of the cycle and will likely cause spotting. Hopefully the procedure will go smoothly with limited recovery which won't delay anything. After that I get a two week break while they get the results over to the RPL specialist and we all wait for the start of my next cycle.

If all looks good, we'll start an unmedicated ERA in that cycle. I've done two already but they were both with the medicated FET protocol. Per the medicated ERA results I need an extra day of progesterone for my lining to be receptive. The RPL specialist wants to see if I still need that extra day if I'm not on any meds. Obviously we don't want to miss the window if I do an unmedicated FET with an actual embryo, so we can't use data from a medicated ERA. I understand the reasoning, I just hate the idea of another uncomfortable biopsy.

I'm trying not to "bird view" the summer because thinking of all the things ahead makes me anxious, but it's helpful to think that if all goes well with the hysteroscopy and ERA then the next step is a retrieval. That finally feels like progress. It's also the biggest hurdle before a transfer, since we have nothing to transfer now. So while things are slowly moving forward, there are still a lot of steps to happen between now and a potential pregnancy.

In the meantime we're working on taking one day at a time. We also added a new project: enjoy the wait. The time will pass regardless of whether we're anxious or not, so we may as well do things that make us happy in the meantime. There's a time to be sad and anxious and worried, but it's not all the time. It's a gift to wake up every day and our time shouldn't be wasted harping on things we can't control. We'll work toward what we want and we'll put in everything we can in to it. But at some point it becomes up to Him and our job is to just wait. So why not enjoy the wait. It's easier some days than others but it's a mitzvah to be happy and it's worth the effort to prevent becoming depressed and bitter. We don't have money or PTO to do lavish trips around the globe but we can do outings and things on a smaller scale. Yesterday we went to see The Incredibles 2 (3D) and it was fun. Highly recommend.