Doctors and Disappointment

“Do you want me to be your surrogate?”

That isn’t a question you want to hear from your mother, it's not an option you’d think to entertain, and it’s definitely not something you’d ever want to explain to your child.

“Yes, Timmy, you’re half your father and half your mother, but you came out of grandma.”

If that’s not a recipe for identity crisis, I don’t know what is.

I know my mother wasn’t being serious. She was only attempting to cheer me up after my disappointing doctor’s appointment where I was told I’m not ovulating and there’s nothing I can do about it aside from continue trying to get my thyroid under control and lose the weight the bum thyroid put on.

Not exactly brightening news when you’ve only lost ten pounds in the last year you’ve been trying and been on the meds everyone said would fix it.

But, you know, “Thyroid problems take time. You have to be patient…”

Meanwhile, I’m rocking forty extra pounds and want to have children in the very near future, but my uterus is on thyroid time.

It really doesn’t help that Facebook has turned into Babybook, and everyone I know is on baby number 2 with just a small sect of us in the corner with our empty wombs shaking our fists.

But, the key is positivity, right?

I gotta keep looking up.

So, I’m reinstating the no-holds-bar diet and exercise plan. That means it’s back to highly regimented days, food journaling, and strict guard duty of my cupboards (coincidentally, this is also happening for my dog who’s gotten a bit chunky).

Plus, since going sans gluten, they’ve cut my hormones in half as I went a bit high and had some reoccurring heart palpitations—never fun—and I don’t want any fallout from the changes.

Ugh, all kinds of fertility fun happening over here.  

Weight Loss Journey Update

Driving shot on my trip up north 

I’ve mentioned my numerous struggles with weight loss that started a little over a year ago before, but I haven’t updated that story very much considering nothing’s really happened—just 7 or so months of me teeter-tottering a one pound weight loss, a very self-deprecating journal entry, and more doctor’s visits with no help moving forward.

Then I gave up gluten a little over a month ago and things started changing.

The pain relief was pretty immediate. I’d become accustomed to an all over aching, slow post workout heal time, sore joints, etc. To have all that disappear was kind of jarring.

The constant nausea and bloating lessened about a week in, which—according to an old journal—started persistently back in 2007. I’ve been dealing with nausea for so long that I couldn’t remember what it was like to eat and not feel sick immediately afterwards. For the first two weeks, I was over eating simply because nausea had always been how I knew it was time to stop.

About a month in, I stepped on the scale. 5lbs down. I can’t describe the feeling at seeing those numbers. I became a bit obsessive with weighing myself then, afraid that maybe it was just a fluke in the scale.

But it kept dropping.

6lbs

7lbs

8lbs

It’s been two weeks now, and I’ve managed to maintain an 11lb weight loss.

I’ve decided to stop weighing myself now as to savor this successful feeling. I know it’s going to slow soon, and I don’t want to be disappointed.

But, I’m excited about working out again and actually seeing results.

I’m in a funny clothing place now. My fat pants are too big but my next size down are still too snug. No matter though. My closet could probably support a small clothing shop with its variations in sizing. I have pants in five different sizes floating around in there.

I do want to make it clear that this loss isn’t simply from giving up gluten. I’m not saying I have Celiac disease, because I haven’t been tested, but it has become abundantly clear post giving it up that something about gluten containing products was making me ill and affecting my metabolism.

Case in point, my heart palpitations are back. I haven’t had problems with those for a couple months when I adjusted to my higher thyroid medicine dosage. But a couple weeks after giving up gluten, they returned and I have a feeling my dosage may be too high now.

This gives me great hope my hypothyroidism might be from the gluten. Maybe I’ll be medicine free again soon!

Also, my period is back, which is probably the best thing about this process as the hubs and I are planning to start trying for kids in the coming October. I’ve spent the last couple of months worrying that I wasn’t going to be able to conceive since a working womb is kind of central to the process.

I will update a lot more on this now as I progress…now that I am progressing. I have a doctor appointment at the end of the month, so hopefully I’ll get the heart issues straightened out.