Since it is now February, with most of Chicagoland covered in an ungodly amount of snow and all of the parties finished, I have found a few moments to catch up.  In doing so, I started blogging a little more, and when I did, I took some time to go back and look at my <a href="http://www.karolineskitchen.com/12-the-why">first posts </a>from 4.5 years ago.  Wow, life sure was different back then: young married couple in our twenties, living in San Francisco, baking bread for a living, just home from 6 months in Argentina....  I think you have a pretty good idea of how things have changed.  I mean, heck, my passport expired 2 years ago, and I failed to even notice.  All of this is not to say that life is bad, in fact, it is incredible, but we have moved on to a VERY different stage of life.  Ben and I have been together for 10 years now, married  for 8.  We are in our mid-thirties, we have 2 cats, 2 cars, a nutball of a daughter and a big house in the suburbs.  Life is boring and exciting all at once.

But, 4.5 years ago when I started writing, I wanted the same thing I want now: to be healthy enough to manage my PCOS and have a baby.  Somewhere along the way, I lost track of that on this site.  Sure, I was practicing a lot of it in real life, but I never took the time to write it down.  With less than a month to go before we can officially begin to try again, my health has never been so important.

PCOS (only one of the fertility issues we are facing) affects the body in many ways.  One very important way is that it messes with your ability to regulate insulin.  And when the insulin goes unregulated, weight gain goes up, hormones get out of whack, and ovulating simply doesn't happen.  One of the positives of a PCOS diagnosis is that there is a great deal of nutritional and holistic therapy that can be monumental in improving one's chance of conceiving.  It allows the person with the diagnosis to feel like they can control at least one piece in a puzzle that is otherwise completely out of their hands.  I imagine that "undiagnosed infertility" is exponentially more frustrating because if you can't identify the problem, where do you even begin treatment?

In May of 2013, a few weeks after my miscarriage, I went full speed into the world of holistic infertility treatments.  Everybody tells you that you'll be pregnant in a few months, that this happens all the time &amp; women become pregnant immediately afterwards.  I thought I was one of those women.  I booked a fertility massage, designed to cleanse the body of toxins following a miscarriage.  I started seeing an acupuncturist, and I began working with a nutritionist.   I was gung-ho....until June when I learned about my retained placenta.  With comfort nowhere to be found, I turned to eating and drinking again.  Why bother with the damned fertility diet if trying again wasn't even on the table?  So, I continued with the treatments all summer to try and removed the retained placenta.  Every thing they tried gave me hope.  So with each new procedure, I started my diet anew.  And with every failure, I returned to my old dietary habits.  I yo-yo'ed through 1 D&amp;C, 2 rounds of methotrexate (a chemotherapeutic drug given to kill off the placental tissue without damaging the uterus), 1 hysteroscopy to remove the placental tissue, 1 hysteroscopy to remove the scar tissue from the first hysteroscopy (Asherman's syndrome), months of estrogen supplements designed to regrow uterine lining, and one pivotal HSG (an x-ray wherein they fill the uterus with iodine and check for any blockages, scars, or foreign bodies in the uterus).

And, finally, we had crossed a bridge.  In January of 2014, 11 months after we conceived and 18 months into our journey for baby #2, we were given the ok to try again...on one condition.  We have to wait until the "next cycle".  Well "cysters" everywhere know how maddening this can be.  Irregular periods means it can be 6 days till the next cycle or 6 months.  Still, it was the first glimmer of hope in an entire year.  I began the diet again.

In November, I had returned to my Vinyasa yoga practice, and in December, I switched acupuncturists hoping that the miracle worker known as Peter Harvey could work his magic on me.  Peter suggested that I begin an even more strict version of the diet already prescribed to me by several nutritionists: no gluten, no dairy (with the exception of limited goat cheese), no sugar, no soy, no alcohol (except for one glass of red wine per week), no caffeine.  Eat plenty of organic fruits and veggies (especially berries and beans), clean and low-mercury seafood, grass-fed &amp; organic meats.

Let me back up a little and say that I started Weight Watchers on January 1st, 2014.  I have done the program already (prior to conceiving Olivia and to get rid of the baby weight after she was born).  Months of estrogen supplements and emotional eating left me in a position to lose a few pounds  this year.  Plus, women with PCOS tend to see a positive shift in their hormones when they lose only a small amount of weight.

I started my diet by limiting portions and cutting out obviously bad foods, but I was still having daily wine and too many carbs for someone with insulin-resistance.  When they finally handed down the green light, I began Peter's diet in earnest.  Let it also be noted that they one part of the plan that I have been able to stick to since May 2013, is no caffeine.  With the exception of a few early mornings requiring a high-octane cup of joe and a couple of hangovers that necessitated a can of real Coca-Cola, I have been caffeine free for the whole time.

These days, I eat a TON of cage-free, antibiotic free eggs, organic berries by the vat, some clean meat and fish sources, and loads of veggies.  And, yes, my grocery bill has skyrocketed.  My favorite vegetable to chow down on is anything cruciferous: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale etc.  Lucky for me, they help fight "bad" estrogen and part of the diet is to eat at least one serving of cooked cruciferous veg per day; prior to learning this, I was eating kale by the bunch - I'm pretty sure that's how I got lucky with O (that and metformin, acupuncture, yoga, and weight loss).  Unfortunately for me, there has been a little bit of press about too much cruciferous veg being hazardous to your thyroid function.  Well, my thyroid has been underperforming since 1998.  But, the good news is that iodine in your diet (I found some delicious iodized sea salt), eating your cruciferous veg cooked (not raw), and a reasonable consumption seems to have minimal effect on the thyroid gland.

In addition to all of the dietary restrictions, I am also taking a freakish amount of supplements.  Every day, I take metformin (for blood sugar stabilization), myo-inositol (same), cod liver oil, coQ10 (egg quality), probiotics, prenatal vitamin, vitamin D, iron, and unithroid (hypothyroidism)...for a whopping total of 22 pills per day.

I'm resolving to make a few diet related posts per week in the coming months -- even if it is just a picture and a brief description.  Hopefully, it will give you some ideas on how to still enjoy your food while also eating in a way that is truly good for all of your systems.

Tomorrow, I will start 2 weeks of progesterone to bring on the period that (of course) failed to show up.  And, after that, well, I guess it's baby making time.  By the start of our first Femera cycle, I will have been dieting hard-core for 2 months, and I'm hoping it will be worth every sacrifice.  We still have to contend with less-than-ideal egg quality due to the PCOS, a "sticky" uterus and the possibility that the scarred lining will not maintain a full-term pregnancy.  But, I have a good feeling about this.  2014 is going to be our year for baby #2.  It's our turn, and I just know it.  I am doing everything I can, and now, I pray that God, the universe, and any other miracle worker out there is on our side.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and stay tuned for more posts on dieting for fertility.