#171 Excellent Fairly Low Calorie Desert (01/30/13)

I originally found this pin on Pinterest late yesterday.  I’ve added the original blog link here.  It  It seemed too easy to be good, but seeing I love pineapple and angel food cake is the lesser of evils when dessert is concerned, I wanted to try it.  We made it last night as a quick dessert and was very worth learning it.   Here are the Ingredients/Instructions from Tammilee Tips

Ingredients
1 package Angel Food Cake Mix
1 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple

Directions
Combine Angel Food Cake Mix and crushed pineapple in a Mixing Bowl  by hand. Make sure and mix thoroughly so everything is combined

Pour into a 13 x 9 Baking Pan

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees

Once made we cut the cake into 12 squares, which is a fairly decent size piece and here are the nutrition values after calculating with My Fitness Pal.

Total Calories  166 per 1/12 recipe

Total Fat                                           0 g

    Saturated                                     0 g

    Polyunsaturated                         0g

    Monounsaturated                       0g

    Trans                                              0g

Cholesterol                                       0g

Sodium                                     189 mg

Potassium                               52.2 mg

Total Carbs                                38.8 g

Dietary Fiber                                0.4 g

Sugars                                             28 g

Protein                                           3.4 g

Vitamin A                                        0%

Vitamin C                                     7.5%

Calcium                                           6%

Iron                                                0.8%

The slight downside to this recipe, you really want a second piece.  But we did manage to resist and save the rest for another day.

#170 Diet Derailment Day (01/28/13)

This weekend was a great weigh in.  I lost 1.1 kg so that is great.  Today however, I just want to eat everything.  I’m not sure why.  I’m even craving to go for a buffet dinner.  This thought process is very counterproductive.  I’m trying to stop the cravings, I’ve drank a fair amount of water, trying not to eat every available snack, but so far, I’m having issues stopping munching.  At this point, I’m just trying to stop from going completely overboard.  

But I will log everything.

#169 hCG? (01/23/13)

Well, yesterday I went for more blood work.  From Friday to Tuesday my levels went from LH 10 > 4 and Progesterone 5.6 < 30.  So timing something didn’t quite work for catching the positive OPK’s properly.  The clinic recommends next month I do follicle monitoring ultrasounds and use the hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) Trigger Shot when the time is right. 

This does increase the possibility of twins I think. This is does make for me being a bit more nervous on this, but I think it is worth it.  The amount of stress I’ve had peeing on three sticks at a time to see which ones work for me, and to try and pinpoint my ovulation has been hair raising.  HCG doesn’t guarantee twins, nor does it guarantee pregnancy.  Just helps things be a bit more relaxed about the process I think. 

One thing is for sure, Deb will have to give me the shot (if I don’t get it at the clinic), as I will not be able to give myself the shot.  I’m too nervous about needles.  So next month is hopefully the first go at this, which is the next step to this long process of getting the TTC journey started. 

From what I have read though, it does mean I can’t take a home pregnancy test early because it will give false positives.  I will have to truly wait the two weeks, or until AF shows up.   

Does anyone have experience with hCG shots?  

#168 My eggs may have stage fright (01/21/13)

The clinic called on Saturday and said my progesterone levels were 5.6, but I still haven’t surged.  So I’m still testing.  Still negatives this weekend and today though.  They said to call back today if I still haven’t had a positive OPK. 

Today is CD18, so there is still time.  I don’t have spin (EWCM) though.  I’ve all ready been through the stages; however spin was a very short window, now I’m back to infertile mucus.  Maybe my eggs were getting ready to go, all systems go, and then Poof decided to stay in their follicle where it is safe, stage fright. 

Friday was a very emotional day, and it took a good night’s sleep to come out of the funk.  However Deb was very glad it happened, as she had slight reservation that I was doing this just for her.  Based on my reaction she now knows, I’m also doing this for me.  So at least my melt down served some purpose.  See everything does happen for a reason. 

At this point, if we have missed this month, I will be ok with that; still sad, but ok.  If the clinic calls for more blood work, I will go in.  I don’t have high hopes for a run this month, but still would be a great turn of events if we do.  

#167 CD15 (01/18/13)

Well, I have peed on a lot of sticks.  Thursday morning the lines were lighter but still there; still a big NO from First Response.  I even started also peeing on Clear Blue.  They had a faint line yesterday but still not strong enough to call the clinic.  Today the lines were almost nonexistent, and spin (EWSM) is gone, however, I haven’t had a spike yet in temp.  I called the clinic and left a message and explained everything.  I’ll see what they say, but I’m sure we have missed our window. 

Now I’m border-line crying.  We have been waiting and waiting for so long and we thought this would be the month for first try.  Just to miss it, and have to wait again. 

With the emotions pouring, I now want comfort food; greasy, salty, sweet food; pizza, chocolate, cheesecake, brownies, caramel popcorn, cookies, everything.  It is going to take some serious will power to get through this one.  

PS:  I’m trying to keep in mind everything happens for a reason. 

#166 CD13 Part 2 (01/16/13)

Well, I ended up testing again with the First Response.  I had gone to their website to make sure I was using the tests correctly.  The big difference on the ones I’m using is they need to be in the urine for 15 seconds.  So I decided to just test again with the Wondfro (just in case it was a fluke) and with First Response.  Unfortunately I got the same results as before.  So it is being left till tomorrow, where I will test once again and hope for a positive on the First Response or the Clear Blue Easy.  I think I will try with all three tomorrow just for stress and giggles.  

#165 CD13 (01/16/13)

Positive? Negative?  Confusion...Arg. 

The top test is First Response OPK.  The bottom is Wondfro.  In the digital reader FR came up NO.  The wondfro is a clear double line.  Same pee cup sample.

My fertility clinic only recongnizes CB or FR.  Should I go and buy some CB or test again later this afternoon with FR?  Or just test again tomorrow, as my clinic recommends only testing once a day?

Over all going in on Friday/Saturday vrs tomorrow is all around better.  

Anticipation of first Insemination is driving me bananas. 

#165 Temptations (01/14/13)

Well today seems to be testing my will power a bit.  Normally on Tuesdays work brings around a tea cart with a sample of cookies.  This is a fun treat option once a week.  Today they brought it around and will also be bringing it tomorrow, the proper day.  I did have a herbal mint tea no cream or sugar, and resisted all the cookies, even though there were some interesting new ones available from a gourmet pack of chocolate covered cream looking cookies, or the wafer tubes with chocolate in them, one of my usual weaknesses.  Sometime ago it would have taking a sumo wrestler to hold me back from taking one, or four. 

As another temptation today, work offered pizza, which is not a usual thing.  For some reason, today, that didn’t even register as an “ooh that sounds good.”  All I could think of was the grease pooling on the cheese and it didn’t appeal to me today.  There have been days in the past the sound of a good cheesy pizza was the fabulous idea for snack, or dinner, or breakfast, or sometimes lunch. 

Maybe I’m just coming down with the flu, or maybe I’m getting willpower of steel resisting evil food temptations.  Well; probably not either, just getting better in general at excuse #4 Food weaknesses and #6 Resisting Peer Pressure for Food. 

As far as caffeine update, I have been limiting myself to one 16 oz coffee per day.  The first few days were a bit of a snooze by the time I got off work, but I managed.  I’ve been doing this for one week now.  If I must have another cup of coffee, it must be decaf.  This is to have weaned off for if (when) I get pregnant.  I don’t want to have a fetus vibrating from my caffeine consumption.  I don’t think I will be able to wean off the morning cup, but we will see how things go.  

#164 Christmas Recovery (01/14/13)

The weekend weigh in went well.  I’m back down to just about what I was in early December; a loss of 3.7 pounds this week.  That is partially due to TOM the week before, but it is at least nice to see on the scale again.  So I am classing myself to have recovered from the weight gain over Christmas.  Now it is time to continue losing weight.

We are trying to work out every other day; so far doing fairly well.   This weekend we kept fairly busy, and come Sunday night I was ready to just sit and relax and watch some TV.  But, bless her, my wife got us going to work out. 

Our eating habits are getting back under control.  Our main faux over Christmas was desserts and sweets; a typical weakness over the holidays.  Hopefully next year I will be a bit better at this lifestyle change. 

Once pregnant (in theory), I hope to not use that as the ultimate excuse to eat everything/anything.  Relatively in second/third trimester, they say you need an additional 300 calories.  That isn’t much extra, so I hope to be able to maintain my general eating habits and just include extra milk in a day, and a small snack to two.  I think I need to read up on cravings and what they mean to nutrition deficiencies.  Try and be prepared as a defence for cravings.  (One week or less to my first IUI.)

#163 Consumer Debt (01/08/13)

Well finally my wife and I are consumer debt free.  In order to do so, we did cash in some of our investments, but we wanted to make sure debt was gone before trying for baby, as we wanted to get our spending under control before Maternity leave, as we didn’t’ want to accrue any debt while on reduced income for Maternity leave. 

We are pretty good at penny pinching, but pretty bad at large unnecessary purchases.  Prime example, we bought a hot tub at a sex show.  Not the usual purchase.  Recently we had been discussing getting a tablet.  While at Chapters a couple weekends ago, we came across a deal for a Kobo tablet that came with a mini B&W one that only reads books.  It was a good deal and we almost jumped at purchasing it on the spot.  But as we were discussing, I brought up the “Is this one of the drop $200+ without thinking about it moments?”  We left the store and discussed it throughout the day, as to why we “need” a tablet.  We decided it is a want and didn’t go back to purchase.  This is a good step in spending trends.  We will need to be very aware of bad spending, as baby items can run a lot of money if not kept in check.    

As far as spending, and tracking it, I have been the spreadsheet queen for a few years now.  It started with my ex husband not understanding that life costs money.  He would say “you’re making all this money, where is it going, and why can’t I buy (miscellaneous item/alcohol/pot)?”  I couldn’t tell him where it was going specifically; I just knew we didn’t have any money.  So I started a spreadsheet to see where our money is going.  That turned into a compulsion.  However it has been a very good tool in the past.  Even after showing my ex where the money was going he still didn’t get it, but at least stopped throwing that in my face.  Now I use it to regulate cashflow and know if we are managing well, as well as seeing how purchases now will affect us down the road.  The one thing it doesn’t do well is track the budget vrs spending.  In the end it did say how much we spend in categories, but that was after the fact, as I updated the spreadsheet.  Over the years it has become a fairly complex spreadsheet with tabs for each bank/credit account, subtotaling the month and this and that, but it acts more of a reactive tool or a planning tool than a current monitoring tool. 

We have recently found Mint.com.  It looks like it will be the missing link we needed to track our budget on a day to day basis, and it is free and works on smart phones too.  This will allow us to know where we are as we go shopping for groceries and what not. 

Yay for being debt free and staying there. 

#162 CD1 Came Early (01/03/13)

Well, I had this dream, my first cycle ovulation day would be on a weekend day.  Have acupuncture, have a relaxing insemination, go back for acupuncture, and have a relaxing day with my wife.  Poof, that dream is coming to a probable end.  AF came a few days early thus I will more than likely be ovulating on a regular week day, and thus have to try and fit these things into my schedule.  Maybe I can try and swing my work schedule to work on a weekend, to have my ovulation day off, or a half day. 

This does explain my extreme chocolate craving yesterday though.  I had figured it was way too early to be PMS cravings and just thought it was my diet enemy Amy coming forth.  Which I did cave in to and had some chocolate. 

Yesterday I had scheduled my appointments for acupuncture on January 19^th, which would have been a great day.  I even had to reschedule after looking at the Fertility Clinic’s times for weekend IUI’s and found they only do afternoon appointments on weekends.  Now I will more than likely need to reschedule again.  I think I will talk with my boss a little bit to see how they want to handle these appointments.    Alas, all the talk about starting this month and my body reacted “Ooohh it’s time to start here we go.”  Hopefully it is open and receptive and we have compatible healthy sperm and we get the one shot trial.  We’ll see how it goes. 

But the insanity of officially Trying To Conceive is beginning and it is CD1

#161 Happy New Year (01/02/13)

Well, over the holidays, the diet went out the window, exercise didn’t really happen, and I’m back down to only 10 pounds lost.  Alas, it is an old habit that is going to be hard to break.  It is the new year and time to get back on track. 

We had a wonderful holiday season though.  My wife made me a lovely command centre for the kitchen.  It is a beautiful up-cycle of an old picture frame.  It has a calendar space, a white board area for our weekly meal planning, and a magnetic space to hold the note pads for grocery lists and post-its she put magnets on, as well as clips for notes for each of us for to do or things for the week, and of course in my favorite color, Purple.  I’ll try and post a picture of it soon. 

As far as New Year Resolutions, I don’t really have any per ce.  Still working on the typical, trying to exercise more, lose weight, eat right, organize the house, purge clutter, pre house nesting, and get pregnant soon. 

In my heart I do feel 2013 is going to be a good year.  Let’s hope my heart is right.