8 DPO, Awesome Veggie Soup & Whine...I mean...Wine

I wanted to post this last night, but my dog decided to eat my last charger cord while we were out and about. My phone died shortly after dinner and before I got my pictures uploaded here. Lovely, right? And it's only taken 8 to get me to move it away from the side of my bed. My lovely hubby is ordering me a few more chargers, but for now I'm borrowing a spare that belongs to my MIL

So, several weeks ago I made a pasta recipe that I absolutely loved. I'm trying really hard to get rid of pasta, but it's so hard cause I really love that stuff. I asked Santa for a spiral slicer for Christmas! I'm hoping zucchini noodles will help, but until then, I'm trying to figure out an alternative. I tried with brown rice, but it wasn't all that wonderful. Seemed like it was missing something. That something being my wonderful, soft, delicious pasta :(

Then, I came up with what's pictured above. It's a new spin on an old dish. Vegetable Soup. Normally I make it with tomato juice and your common mixed veggies. You know. The ones that come in the can labeled mixed vegetables. Corn. Peas. Green beans. Yada Yada. Yeah, it's like that, but only different. Instead of tomato juice I used organic veggie broth. Instead of canned mixed veggies I used fresh zucchini, squash, tomatoes, red onion, and raw spinach. Added in a little sea salt and a heap of Italian seasoning and Tada! A equally tasty veggie soup :)

I didn't make a huge batch, but next time I plan to make enough that I can freeze lots and lots of servings. I also plan to put in more raw spinach. I wasn't sure how it would work but it turned out really well. Spinach is supposed to be really good for endo since it's high in vitamin k.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I had mushrooms in there as well :) It was all so delicious. Excuse my poor photography. These pictures do absolutely no justice for this delicious bowl of veggie soup. The hubby doesn't even like soup but he really seemed to enjoy this one. He kept trying to eat all of mine!

Along with that for dinner last night, I had a glass of organic chamomile with lemon herbal tea. I'm pretty sure I read something somewhere that said chamomile is good for endo. I should probably do a a little research on it to be sure. Anyway, I added in a teaspoon of honey and enjoyed. My goal is to have at least one herbal tea a day.

So, all that good stuff was from yesterday. Today is a slightly different story. We were asked to go out to dinner with some friends. We went to this great little Italian restaurant about an hour away. Yes. An hour. It was sooooo worth it. I had pan seared scallops with bowtie pasta and a cream sauce. It was so delicious, and so bad for me at the same time. I can't remember exactly what the sauce was called, but I'm pretty sure it had milk in it. It was so good though.

After dinner we came back home for some much needed down time after spending time with friends, family, and doing a little shopping the past few days. Alcohol isn't great for endo, but the hubby bought me a bottle of my favorite blackberry wine. I was a good girl though and only had one glass. However I did have a glass of mulled wine as well.

Today is 8 dpo, technically 9 dpo since it's 12:15am  now, and I'm pretty sure I'm out. I know there is no way to be 100% sure, but watch and see, AF will show right on time. I'm going to continue with Vitex for at least one more month. I only have two more cycles to try before I'll be leaving for Maryland until the end of March or early April. It sucks, but what can I do? I could probably use the break anyway. I feel like I've become very unstable mentally.

I actually had a pretty bad breakdown today. It wasn't really one thing that triggered it. It was a combination of things, but the root cause is this whole infertility crap. It's making me crazy. Literally. I forgot our library books today when we left and I actually burst into tears and wailed, yes...wailed, that I had forgotten them. I think the hubby was ready to have me committed right then. Luckily, he just turned around and drove back home so I could get them. To make matters worse, we were on our way to that dinner I told you about with friends. I enjoyed seeing them and the food was amazing, but I can't even begin to explain how exhausting it was.

I'm not proud of this, but it happened. I want to go to a therapist and see if maybe they can help me deal with these feelings and thoughts, but we can't afford it right now. We have new insurance and our deductible is not met. With Christmas, Peanut's birthday, her surgery deductible, and our stay in Maryland, we just can't afford it. Hopefully I can hold it together for just a few more months. I just don't know how to stop letting infertility control my life.

CD 5 & Wal-Marts Devil Bakery

So, as you can tell from the photo above, I wasn't exactly a good girl today. In fact, I've had at least one thing I shouldn't nearly day since I've been MIA. Now, before I go on, I should tell you that I did not eat all of them. Although I could have, easily! I had one and a half, and it was so yummy.

I'm blaming the holidays. We've had a dinner every weekend for the past couple weeks. It's har to control what others make, and there's no way I would feel comfortable requesting my own special food. I did good at keeping my plate on the lighter side. The weekend dinners really weren't so bad, it was the leftovers that came back with us that made the weeks difficult.

I guess the good news is that I haven't gone up in weight. As of this morning I am at 191.5.

This morning I actually started off eating well. I had a leftover veggie stuffed pepper. Not exactly breakfasty but it was pretty good! Since I had the doughnuts I decided to have a salad and a small bowl of lentil soup for dinner.

I should have put those doughnuts in the cabinet! 

On to the ttc news...

I'm 5 dpo today and have nothing spectacular to report. I've been reading a lot about an herb called dong quai and I'm considering adding it to my vitex and vitamins. I want to do a little more reading about before I dive in head first.

I joined a ttc with endo group on Facebook the other day. It's kind of nice to have other girls going through a similar experience as myself. I just got around to introducing myself today.

Come on universe! Let this be the month!

CD 10 & Roasted Mushrooms, Grape Tomatoes, and Red Onions

Life kind of took over after my last post so I'm late to update, but I didn't do too horrible after our early Thanksgiving meal. I stayed at 192. Yay! I had a bit of the leftovers the next day, but I've been back on track since.

I'm still on a mushroom kick and wanted to try something different. Today, I decided to toss some in a pan with grape tomatoes and chopped red onion. Sprinkled in a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasons and stuck it in the oven. I let it all bake for about 30 - 45 minutes. I'm not really sure? I checked occasionally and pulled it out when it looked like it does in the picture above. It was actually pretty yummy. That ended up being my entire lunch. I think I used a little too much red onion though. It was a little more sweet than I would have preferred.

Today's cd 10 and there's not a whole lot going on. Still taking Vitex every morning. So far I'm not having any pains throughout the day. I'm anxious to see what my pain levels are like when AF arrives this month. Hopefully it'll be a repeat of last month. My temp from yesterday really freaked me out. It wasn't really higher than my highest temps, but it sure was dramatic. I was glad to see it back down this morning. An early O would be nice, but not that early.

Of course, getting a BFP instead of AF would be so much better than having a not so painful I want to die AF.

CD 7 & Recovering From Early Thanksgiving Dinner

I'm sorry to report that you won't be seeing any updates on my meals from yesterday. I did horrible! And paid for it with pain and bloating. I had planned on taking a picture of the table loaded with cheese and butter, but I totally forgot. Well, it wasn't really loaded with cheese and butter only, but that's what killed me later. I'll be checking my weight in the morning to see how much weight I gained. Hopefully not much.

Today is CD 7 and I'm so ready for it to be O time. I'm anxious to see if a full cycle of Vitex brings me any luck. A friend of mine is using Vitex as well to try to help with her PCOS. She said AF came a few days ago for the first time in months. I hope it helps her get pregnant. Her youngest is 8 years old so it's been a while.

Today has been a pretty down kind of day. I even found myself fighting back tears a few times. It didn't help matters any that we had my niece and nephew with us early today and then spend the rest of the day with friends. I just needed some quite down time, but that just wasn't going to happen today. I've been so snappy and irritable all day despite knowing the problem and that I shouldn't be this way.

The worst part is that the hubby is now irritated with me because of my short fuse, and I can't even tell him what my problem is, which makes it even worse. If I do, he won't touch me for a week thinking he's protecting me from getting hurt. Funny thing is, protecting me from being hurt is the last thing ending our efforts of TTC will do. I don't know how I would cope if he told me he didn't want to try anymore.

I'm just ready for this day to be over.

CD 5 & A Paleo Breakfast

While I was trying to find recipes that are endofriendly last night I came across a recipe I've seen fairly often. It's the Paleo Banana Pancakes. This isn't exactly 100% endofriendly because we're not supposed to have eggs. A friend from where the hubby works brought us some fresh eggs from their chickens and I had to have one. I've read that some people are able to have eggs if they don't have an allergy to them. I haven't had any for over a month so I guess this will be a little experiment to see what happens.

At first I was a little worried about how they would cook up and flip. I read that you should let it cook for a while before trying to flip, so I did. It surprisingly turned out pretty well. It was super easy to flip and looked great. I let the last one cook a little too long. Oops. 

They weren't my favorite breakfast, but they weren't bad. I actually liked the first one I made better. I know that sounds weird, but I made it thinner than the rest and I think that made the difference. It wasn't nearly as eggie as the other two. After the first one was done I was over it and ready for them to be on my plate. So, I rushed it by pouring more out. If you decide to try this, I suggest nice, thin banana cakes.

It's the same as what you find all over the web. A banana smashed with an egg, only I added some cinnamon in mine.

CD 4 & My Experimental Lunch

I had such good results with nearly eliminating dairy that I've decided to get rid of white pasta as well. I happen to have brown rice so I figured I'd try to throw together some meals with that before I go shopping for new stuff. Food can be expensive, especially the good, healthy, organic stuff, so I can't bring myself to just toss anything. Once it's gone I'll be buying better stuff all the time.

I tossed some shredded carrots, diced bell peppers, 2 red onions chopped, and a can of diced tomatoes into a pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. It's pretty much the same way I do my vegetables for my noodle meals. This time, however, I just switched out the noodles for brown rice.

My original intentions were to add in some kale at the last minute, but I totally forgot. I'm glad I did though, because I just cooked it up in a little olive oil with a some garlic, salt, and pepper, and OMG it's so yummy! I don't think I would have liked it in the rice stuff though. I do think this is more than likely going to replace my greens. I'm even excited to try the kale chips I've seen online before.

The rice dish was okay, but not my favorite. It's not so bad that I need to toss it, but it seems like it needs something. I'm not sure what though? I'm not even going to bother trying to feed it to the hubby. I already know he'll hate it. He never has been a fan of rice.

And this is it. My lunch. Not nearly as pretty as yesterday's lunch, but it served its purpose well. I think this is actually a better endofriendly meal than the others I've posted. I'm still learning, but I think the only thing that isn't really that great for endo is the canned tomatoes. Maybe not though?

Since I'm not going to bother with feeding any of this to the hubby, I went ahead and divided it into one cup portions. I'm letting them cool down a bit and then they'll be heading to the freezer. I was able to get 8 servings out of this. It's not that awesome, but it'll feed me for 8 meals. I have no idea how well rice will freeze so I'll let you know on that.

Today is CD 4 and there's not a whole lot going on. I'm continuing with Vitex today, as I will until AF arrives. I've been super tired the last couple of days and I'm sure it's due to AF and hormones. Hoping my energy levels pick up a little soon.

Still CD 3 & Lunch

So, to be truthful, not much has happened since breakfast, but my lunch looked so awesome I wanted to share :)

I fixed the pasta (not gluten free) about a week ago. The hubby hates leftovers so I've been measuring out a serving size and freezing it in baggies. I was actually able to have this for lunch for over a week. I'm down to one serving now though :(

Anyway, I cooked some white mushrooms in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. Yum! I'm addicted.

I had the Italian Blend Dole salad with Maple Grove Fat Free Balsamic Vinaigerette. I realize that the Fat Free stuff isn't really good for you, but I don't like the idea of just tossing it and I'm the only one that eats it. Once it's gone I'll be buying regular. It is Gluten Free though :D

As I was fixing my plate I realized that I had decided to do so right in front of my daughters Halloween candy and her box of cookie packs. I'm proud to say I didn't even sample the smallest crumb! Can't say I didn't think about it though.

I don't normally leave snack foods sitting out on the counter like this, but for whatever reason this stuff doesn't bother me.

The picture below is upside down and I'm too lazy to fix it, but I wanted to show you my frozen pasta.

It actually freezes and thaws really well. It doesn't change the consistency of the noodles at all. In case you're curious, here is the recipe for the pasta...

2 zucchini chopped

2 squash chopped

1 medium red onion chopped

2 bell peppers chopped (I used whatever color I had)

I fried everything above in a little olive oil with salt, pepper, and a decent amount Italian seasoning. Once everything was soft I added a can of diced tomatoes. After boiling my noodles and draining them, I simply mixed it all together. It's so yummy and easy. Next time I'll be adding fresh spinach. I don't really measure anything so I'm not 100% on the spices.

CD 3 & Breakfast

This has become my favorite go to breakfast. It's pretty much the fried apple thing I was making before, only I'm not frying it anymore. It's so fast and easy. When I buy raisins and nuts, walnuts this time, I separate 1/8 a cup of each into a bag. This keeps me from being greedy and "accidentally" dropping more into my bowl. 

If it's not this, I usually have a bowl of plain oatmeal with honey, raisins and nuts. It's pretty good as well, but my taste buds haven't exactly adjusted to honey sweetened oatmeal vs. sugar sweetened oatmeal. I'm determined to stay away from added sugar though.

I’m sure I’ll get burned out on it eventually, and will be forced to find something else, but for now, I’m hooked. This is quite normal for me. I tend to find certain foods or meals that I really enjoy and it’s all I’ll want for weeks. The hubby is the complete opposite. This can make meals a little annoying in our home.

Dairy is the Devil! 

I've discovered that reducing dairy has a pretty big impact on my pain levels during AF. I’m on CD 3 and I should have almost or completely threw up or passed out by now, but I haven’t! I didn’t even have to camp out in the tub for hours. And for what pain I did have I was able to ease it off to manageable status with 2 generic Ibuprofen.

I say reducing because I didn't exactly cut it all out completely. I did have some pizza twice in the past month. I suffered for it dearly the next day or two. Cutting it out completely had been my original goal, but who doesn't love pizza??

I think I'm going to work on sugar and process foods next. Mostly because I've already started on both. In all honesty, I haven't had too much of either for the past month. Well, I haven't added any sugar to my food, but I have had several processed foods. Not nearly as much as I usually have though.

It sucks that I'm back at the beginning of another cycle, but I am looking forward to continuing to eat healthier. In almost two months, I've managed to maintain better eating habits and I've gone from 205.5 lbs. to 192 lbs.. I think the best and hardest change I've been working on is to stop blowing it big when I do blow it. If I have something I shouldn't, I enjoy it while it lasts, then move on.

No more beating myself up. Endometriosis does that well enough for me.

That's All Folks

Well, today is supposed to be 8 dpo, but it's beginning to look like I had my O date wrong. I'm pretty positive that I'm starting the first of 3 of my usual days of pre-AF spotting. Yay. I suppose I'll be temping next month so I don't have this problem. The sadness and disappointment I always feel is no less this month despite knowing this cycle wasn't the one.

I guess I should be thankful for getting my wish from yesterday.

I'm on cd 25 today. AF should be here officially by cd 28-29. I haven't had any horrible side effects from the Vitex I've been taking. It's supposed to take a month to see changes, but I'm hoping that my pain during AF this month will be reduced. I've been taking Vitex for almost 2 weeks now. I'll be using opks again, but I'll be temping as well so I can be sure of O day.

No more guessing.

On the upside, I'm still doing well with my no dairy goal. I'm also planning on giving the No Poo shampoo a try very soon. It doesn't have the sulfate chemicals that store bought body wash and shampoo have. I'm not supposed to use store bought because the chemicals absorb through my skin and flare up my endo.

It seems pretty easy. You use a baking soda and water mixture followed by a apple cider vinegar and water mixture. There's supposed to be an adjustment period, but after that it should do pretty good at keeping your hair clean. Apparently the vinegar is supposed to be good for detangling as well. I plan on testing this with my daughter. She also told me about a natural body wash you can get online, but I'm going to spend a bit of time looking into making my own.

7 dpo & Zero Hope

We visited with friends and family and enjoyed a great dinner with them. We laughed, talked, and just had fun together. But, deep down, I felt this tightness in my chest the whole time. I had to remain constantly aware of myself because it only takes one small moment for my thoughts to pull me in.

I can't let them see. If they do, they ask questions. If they ask questions, I cry. And it's all because...

I'm out. I know it.

I know, I know. I'm only 7 dpo, but just wait and see. AF will arrive right on time. Well, give or take a few days since I'm not charting.

Today is just a really bad day. No hope. No point in hope. I don't even want it. It only makes the fall harder. I'm exhausted. I know that it's over. Done. Finished. The End. This cycle's a bust and I'm so tired. I just want AF to come so I can start this miserable, endless journey all over...

6 dpo & Candy Candy Candy!

Due to storms on Thursday we had our Trick-or-Treat last night. We had dinner with family before it began. I came away feeling super proud of myself, too! I had potato soup, which has milk, but I couldn't say no since the hubby's grandmother made is special for me since I don't eat meat. I had a bit of a bellyache, but I only had about a cup and a half. Go me! I also managed to avoid the yummy looking Halloween cupcakes! It was hard, but I did it.

This morning I was rewarded for my efforts. I'm down to 196.5 pounds!!!

Now, if I can just keep this up for the rest of the weekend. My eating always goes to crap over the weekend. I've started using the Myfitnesspal app and it's making things so simple. I used it a couple years ago, but the app pretty much sucked. It's 100 times better now.

Well, today is 6 dpo, or around about anyway. Not really much going on. Have had some pinching feelings in the uterus area still, but I'm pretty sure I feel this in every cycle.

Found out a friend of mine that had a baby a year ago is pregnant with #2. Wonder how many babies the people around me will have to my one?