Changes

I can't begin to grasp the amount of change that has occurred in my life over the past four years. The end of what I thought was a forever relationship. The beginning of what is my true forever marriage. Moving. Leaving my dream job. Experiencing my husband becoming my best friend. Financial hardship. Not being able to have a baby. A new job. And now, more changes are headed in our direction.

Last week, after waiting one month for a cyst on my ovary to clear up on its own, and spending another month taking a Progestin to shrink that stubborn cyst, I went in to see what was going on in the incubator. My cyst shrunk. A lot. Down by 60%, and the overall volume down even more. But I also found out it's probably not a cyst. It's probably an endometrioma. And for the first time, there is a fibroid camping out on my uterine wall. Which scares the living crap out of me. I have never had these before. I have had cysts that have come and gone. My uterus has been pretty normal. All of a sudden, my sloughed-off endometrial cells are making themselves at home in parts of my body where they shouldn't be. Scary. I didn't know much about Endometriosis until last week. I wish I had never even heard of this, because it adds another lovely wrench to this already hellish struggle. What I do know is that Endo is thought to be influenced greatly by stress, inflammation and weight gain. Well, I just hit the danged triple jackpot. 

I.am.so.tired.of.my.stupid.body.not.doing.what.it.is.designed.to.do. But this is likely of my own doing.

I looked back over 9 months of uterine scans and procedures. I have never had this happen before. The only thing that has changed in my life is, well, everything. I went back to work and I stopped eating well. I stopped sleeping well. I worked almost every weekend until 1 AM. I developed a persistent twitch in my left eye. I worked most weeknights nights until 9 or 10. I didn't exercise. I replaced water intake with Cherry Coke. I frequented more drive-thru lines than I could ever care to admit. Hell, I even ate more than one gas-station hot dog wrapped in a croissant drenched in nacho cheese. I ate roller food. From a gas station. The shame is more than I can bear. Those of you that know me and the extreme love for the gastronomic arts, this is a level to which I never imagined I could descend. For the past six months, ,my life became 100% about the 27 sweet, amazing, wonderful, squirrely, energetic and challenging kids that I teach. Doing what is best for them, every moment of each day. And I sacrificed doing anything for me. I wasn't the picture of health or fitness before going back to work full-time, but I certainly was not in the ultimate pits of having let everything that is important just fall to the side. 

I had to choose. The sweet, smiling faces. The moment that a kid truly grasps a concept. The sticky-finger hugs. The crazy ebb and flow of the day. I love it. But I love my future family more. 

The seed of change was planted in my mind about six weeks ago, but at 6:20 AM on Thursday, when my doctor looked at me and told me that next month, after another four weeks of Progestin, regardless of the size of the endometrioma, we would restart my fertility drugs and push through for an IUI, I knew what I had to do. His exact words were, "I need you to do whatever you can to get as healthy as possible in the next four weeks." It hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. I am doing ZERO healthy things in my life. I am dumping money and time and emotion into a pursuit of having a baby, and I am doing ZERO healthy things to support that effort. Reality is a bitter slap in the face. 

I won't be returning to full-time teaching in the fall. I may do some part-time specialized instruction that would be less stressful and demanding. I am not yet sure what the right choice is. I need to work in some capacity because it is good and healthy to have a focus and to be productive. I just can't do 75 hour weeks and extra classes for certification and little sleep and no room in my heart for anything but these wonderful 27 kids. My husband needs my heart. I need my heart. My future children need my heart. I thought about just scaling back. I am a person that puts excess into everything I do. My work process is frenetic. I can't give any less than everything. I need to give my everything to becoming a mom, in whatever way that comes to me.

I really don't know what the road ahead holds for me, but I do know that for the first time in months, I feel a measure of peace. Changes. Time to embrace the change that is coming, and commit to the changes that I need to make in my own life. Freaking gas station hot dogs... 

It's Not About the Thigh Gap

It's not about the thigh gap. 

How many of you have seen pictures like these on Pinterest lately? Yeah, they make me want to punch someone. I thought about blowing these images up throughout my entire workout today. I hate this obsession with the thigh gap.

Today marked day one of being back in the gym on a regular basis. Let me be completely honest, I wish I did not have to go. But Operation Baby is at least partially contingent on improving my overall health, which includes and necessitates regular workouts. But it's not about the thigh gap. I don't want that, nor will I ever have it. I have the legs of an Italian grape stomping woman. It's who I am. But apparently, by today's standards, I am not enough, because I don't have a thigh gap. Screw the thigh gap. I want to be healthy, and for me that picture looks nothing like the pictures I see of women all around me. Needless to say, my workout today was a little emotionally charged.

I have a love-hate relationship with the gym. The love part comes from the fact that when I am working out regularly, I feel fabulous, both mentally and physically. I am healthier, in a holistic sense. It has been a wonderful aspect of my life in the past. The hate part comes from a variety of experiences, and that fabulous mental script of inadequacy that runs through my mind the entire time I am there. Let me clarify.

When I lived in Colorado, I worked out at 24-hour Fitness for a few months before I moved. Every time I went there, I saw them. Those people who come to the gym as part of the gym-rat culture. You know they are there multiple hours per day. They always look like they have been lubed up with baby oil. Their workout clothes cost more than the equipment they are working out with. Women in full make-up and jewelry with rhinestone blinged "sexy" scrawled across their velour-clad butts. Listen, I am all for people being healthy and working out. But I seriously have a hard time handling it when people come into the gym, give me a look like, "hey chunkers, you don't belong here," and then sashay away to lift 5 pound weights while they stick their chest out for the Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna-be across the room. I know some of this is mental, but there is a lot of judging that happens at the gym. I am trying really hard to live by the mantra of, "you are here to get healthy, and nobody else matters."  

The mental script of inadequacy is the other part of the gym that I really hate. Egged on by the very real judgmental looks that can be thrown my way by spandex-clad women as I huff and puff on the treadmill or the elliptical (yeah, I may be going at a snail's pace, but I'm going!)  in my oversize basketball shorts and t-shirt, I begin hearing those annoying little thoughts (Brene Brown calls them Gremlins) that love to kill my motivation. "You're wasting your time." "Go home, chubby." Or my favorite, "You're not thin enough to show your face here." Gotta love that one. I'm working on beating those down in my brain like a whack-a-mole game with my aforementioned mantra.

The gym that I go to now is our local Rec Center. And it's great. It caters to a wide cross-section of people, so in the mornings when I go, I encounter a lot of cute mamas trying to lose the baby weight and older gentleman that have a penchant for working out in jeans and flannel shirts. It's like a gym full of Al Borland's. I feel minimally judged there, and that is really nice. Plus, with our insurance discount, it is incredibly affordable, and they offer a ton of classes at no extra charge. 

So this is what happened today. I went to the gym at 7:30, did an hour of cardio, lifted for 25 minutes, felt really great, and came home to make my giant green drink for breakfast. I sat down at the computer, made the mistake of going to Pinterest, and was whacked in the face with my least-favorite internet craze, Fitspiration. I seriously hate things like this.

I know some people find these motivating, but I believe their end goal (even if not the original intent) is shaming women into hating the body they have. It's not about health, it's about appearance. Let's take a woman, chop off her head and anything that makes her a person, and show only the parts of her body that we as a culture focus on to decide whether or not she is attractive. 

The lowest weight I have ever been since puberty is 135 pounds. I was a size 4-6, was working out insane amounts each day, weighing myself every morning and evening, and not eating well or nearly enough to truly sustain health, all to be what I thought I needed to be for someone else. I felt like crap. The best I have ever felt was closer to 150, working out because I loved how I felt by alternating the gym with walking, hiking and enjoying the outdoors. I ate a well-balanced diet chock-full of fresh foods, and felt amazing. I was comfortable with me, I was comfortable in my size 8 jeans, and I was the healthiest I have ever been. But my stomach never looked like that. I never saw my hipbones. I never had a "thigh gap" (apparently enough of a rage with young women that Rush Limbaugh brought up his concern about it on his show the other week). Seriously, look thigh-gap up on Pinterest and see what you get. Oh, and I am only 5 feet tall. To the world, popular culture, and media-driven standards, I was still fat. In reality, I was muscular, toned, fit, healthy and loving life. The standards and images we perpetuate as women (particularly online and at the gym) are not about health in many cases-they are about image. For those who want to learn some more about this, Beauty Redefined has some fascinating research on the subject.

I am going to keep working out every day and making awesome choices about what I choose to fuel my body with, because my health, my fertility and my future children are worth it. I will learn to deal with the occasional judge-y attitudes of people at the gym, and I will self-filter these unattainable and unhealthy body standards that are all around me. The only thing that matters is how I feel, and how I improve my own personal health. To anyone who is struggling with the same thing-whether you feel underweight, overweight, or you simply dislike where you are right now, know that you are not alone, and that it is about being healthy-not if you have a thigh gap in your skinny jeans. Here's to health.

Answers and Elephants

Yesterday, my afternoon ended with a phone call to my best friend. At some point during the call, I busted this gem out:

"I have this fear that the doctor is going to tell me my uterus is eating itself from the inside."

After appropriate laughter and snorting from best friend, I felt better. See, yesterday was D-Day. Doctor Day. It was also job interview day. Which was probably a bad scheduling move on my part. I am pretty sure that when I told the interviewers that the one piece of information I wanted them to know about me, and I said "I'm a really awesome teacher. I am excellent at my job, and I need to be teaching again. I need to be in your classrooms, and I want to spend my time and talents here" I had tears in my eyes and was .5 seconds away from hyperventilating. They scribbled on their interview sheets and for the love of all that is good and holy, I pray that they didn't write down that I was a basket case. The thing is, I totally was. Sigh.

Yesterday was my first appointment with my new OBGYN. I hate the gynecologist. I mean, going to get a pelvic is outranked on my list only by getting a root canal without anesthesia. Or having bamboo shoved under my fingernails. After 18 months of trying to have a baby with no success, my rational brain kicked in and I made the appointment and canceled my hotel room at the Hanoi Hilton.

I actually really liked the Avenues Women's Center. The people were very helpful and kind. The office setup was sort of strange, but the overall experience was really positive. I especially liked the Nurse Practitioner, Hillary, that I saw for my first appointment to get me established as a patient. She was an older woman with a really gentle tone and approach, and talked to me with a lot of compassion and empathy. As a mom of adopted children, I think she has been in my shoes before.

We talked for a long time about everything I filled out on my patient history. Hillary had read all of it before the appointment, which really put me at ease. We discussed all of the trials of the past year and a half, the necessary tests needed for my husband, and the possibility of PCOS being a factor. She wrote a referral, and ordered a round of blood-work and tests to check for some signs and markers. We discussed prenatal vitamins, genetic testing, two months of temperature charting, and all sorts of things that I can't remember anymore. After the inevitable awkwardness and discomfort of the usual happenings of an exam, we hit the big, rotund elephant in the room. Weight.

I have struggled with my weight since puberty. It went something like this. Hormones flooded my petite body, and all of a sudden, I wasn't a flat-as-a-board girl anymore. Between 5th and 6th grade, things developed and I shot up in sizes, reasonably at first, and then at a rate that I am sure raised parental and doctoral eyebrows. And it stayed that way through high school. Never on the really bad side of things, but enough to be a concern. Then, I went to college, lost a bunch of weight because of lifestyle changes, and I worked really hard to keep it off. Too hard. To the point of not eating nearly enough and killing myself in the gym to satisfy the image my then-boyfriend desired. Since then, I have fluctuated up and down. A few years ago, I lost a lot of weight again, to once again satisfy the image of a guy I was seriously dating. When that relationship blew up in my face, I realized how fabulous and healthy I felt, because for once I had lost weight the right way-an awesome, balance diet and consistent, healthy exercise.

And then, I got married. And everything in my life changed. I left a job I loved. I moved. I remained unemployed. I had very few friends or social supports. I became pretty discouraged and depressed. My husband worked his tail off and was so stressed trying to support us on one income that I think his stress entered my body as weight and kept packing on. For a variety of reasons, I haven't made the healthiest choices over the past year or so, and now, I am confronted with their consequence: They may be impacting my fertility.

So in the kindest, gentlest way possible (and only after she told me I had to take off the awful open in the back robe and put my regular clothes back on because being almost naked while discussing weight was a bad idea), Hillary told me that to maximize my chances of getting pregnant, losing weight is important and is a factor. That really, really sucked. And it's not like I didn't know already. And I am grateful that she was so gentle and honest in her communication. And she is right. But that doesn't make it hurt any less. As hard as I have tried to move past this connection, weight and worth have always been tied together for me.

Last night I just cried myself to sleep. I am going to make the changes I need to, because not only is a baby worth it, my health and quality of life is worth it. But that doesn't mean that this experience didn't rip every bandage, split every stitch and burst open every scar connected to how I feel about myself and my weight.

So while we remain in a holding pattern for two months, wait for test results, make more appointments and I take my temperature each morning to chart my cycles, I am holding onto this self-talk I had in the car yesterday as I drove to my interview: You do not need to be ashamed of yourself. You are not bad. You have made choices that have not been the best. All you can do now is make better choices. If you do your part, the doctors will do their part, and Heavenly Father will do His.

I feel all twisty and jumbled inside right now, but I feel pretty good about that self-talk. If my appointment gave me anything, beyond the answers I will get from my tests and the help from medical professionals, it was the gift of honesty and reality. I can deal with that versus the unknown, especially with the help of my Heavenly Father and my Savior.

So here's to early morning gym workouts, green smoothies, mindful eating, and living a truly healthy life. Here's to prenatal vitamins. Here's to temperature-taking. And being teary and overly honest in job interviews. And being able to call your best friend to tell her you are pretty sure the doctor is going to tell you  that your uterus is going to try eating itself from the inside.