Picture Update!

So I've got some pictures from the end of October and into the beginning of November to post up today :) Let's start with the phone camera uploads!

Here's a funny shot of Belle cuddling with Ramin. She literally has to be touching you every time she sits near you. It's pretty ridiculous - and she always finds a way to sneak in to every crevice that's open...:P Weird dog!

This is my typical workout I do at the eBay gym 2-3 times per week. I usually go between 30-35 minutes right now on the "Cross Country" setting. 

My AMAZING co-worker/friend Jenn baked/made this awesome ice cream cake for me for my birthday!! 

Here are all the yummy layers of the cake - chocolate cake, mint chocolate chip ice cream, cookie crust and some oreo whipped cream! AMAZING!!

Last weekend (my birthday) Ramin and I drove down to southern Utah and spent some time in St. George AND Las Vegas. In Vegas we met up with my cousin Maria for dinner and breakfast the next morning...it was so awesome to see her. We got some better pictures on her camera but I'm waiting for her to send them to me!

This was a picture my friend Cindy took while we were at her house in St. George to celebrate her son's 5th birthday - this also happened to be my exact birthday :)

I just realize that I never posted pictures from our Mesa Verde/Moab trip AND I still need post the pics from last weekend to Zion's National Park. I will create separate posts for those!

Diagnosis

So my fears were confirmed at the specialist today: I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome). I'm not going to go into massive amounts of detail about what it is because you can research on your own via Google if you want. But to say the least, a big part of the reason I'm fat is because I have PCOS and the reason I have PCOS is because I'm fat. It's a vicious cycle.

Nonetheless, I also had an ultrasound done of my ovaries. I've got about 15 cysts on EACH ovary - I saw it black and white for myself. Apparently the acne I've struggled with since I was a teenager is a major give away as well. Of course, the most definite indicator of PCOS is my irregular periods.

I'm not ovulating because of PCOS even though my eggs are trying so hard to grow and come out of the ovary. There's just too many receptor inhibitors - namely insulin - blocking my ovary's response to FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). So obviously I can't get pregnant if I'm not producing any eggs!!

The first step we're taking is to put me on Metformin (this was the same thing the mean endocronologist prescribed me in September) to help regulate my insulin levels. The second step is to take Provera - it contains progesterone. Basically I need to take that for 10 days and after that is up I should "bleed" and clear out everything that's old and been sitting for a while. Once the bleeding is done I'll start on Clomid to help me ovulate. During this time I'll be going back to the specialist so that they can monitor all of my progress.

I'm hopeful just to get my cycles regular again. From the reading I've done, all of the cysts should clear up on their own after a few cycles. So I shouldn't have to really worry about them.

The biggest thing I've got to worry about is my carb intake. Essentially I need to maintain a very low-carb diet in order to manage my PCOS. I'm REALLY sad about this because I love my pasta, ice cream and of course bread!! But I probably love them because I'm addicted to them. Ramin suggested I stick to around 100 carbs a day. I'm not too sure how hard this will be just yet but I'm definitely going to try it.

When I went to get my prescriptions today I also loaded up on eggs, yogurt, meat and veggies because those will be the staples of my diet for a while. I basically just need to reset my body and then I can slowly add in some carbs at that point.

So...we have the news. I'm relieved and excited to actually know what is wrong and to have a plan. It feels SO much better than not knowing!!

Doctor Visit

Ramin and I are headed to the fertility specialist today, not because anything's wrong, but because we just want to be SURE nothing is wrong.

It's technically been 9 months since we've been trying to conceive, with February and March being months of not trying very hard because of our wedding. So it's been 7 months of actually trying and I'm starting to get nervous.

I'm nervous to see the doctor because on one hand I do want them to find something "wrong" so that we can work to correct it. On the other hand I don't want anything to be wrong and for them to just tell me to be more patient and keep getting healthy.

I don't like to post too much detail about this sort of thing...but I figure that this is a big part of our lives and we're ready to have some children. Since it's not happening right away, I might as well post my thoughts about it.

Over the past 6 months and especially the past 3-4 months, I've really stepped up my game in terms of getting healthy. I do have lots of things going for me:

• I don't smoke
• I don't drink (alcohol or soda)
• I don't even drink caffeine (haven't since at least the beginning of the year)
• I don't take medications (only in rare instances will I take something for a major headache)
• I take daily vitamins (pre-natal, Vitamin D, B Complex and fish oil)
• I exercise 2-3 times a week at the least (sometimes more)
• I don't eat fast food. If I do, it's very rare and I'll only have Chik-Fil-A (no fries, just nuggets)
• I keep track of my daily calories
• I drink loads of water
• I keep my stress level low (walking and doing crafts - haven't noticed a grey hair in LONG time

Ramin even matches most of these things on my list as well. So I know we're both healthy.

The one thing I have working against me is my weight. So that's why I'm trying to lose it (and have been trying since the start of the year). I also have very irregular cycles. This is the major cause of my anxiety. I chart my temperature every morning and chart other things as well (too much information for this blog) - I even use an ovulation predictor kit every morning - but I still never know when it's going to happen because it's not regular. 

Based on my charting, I noticed I have very low waking temperatures. My fertility bible (Taking Charge of Your Fertility) says that along with low temps and irregular cycles, it might be an indication of hypothyroidism. So back in September I went to an endocronologist to check for it. Needless to say it was the worst doctor experience of my life, despite my efforts to choose the doctor wisely and be as informed as possible. He told me I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) just by looking at me - without taking any blood and prescribed me Metformin to control my insulin resistance.

Well, because the experience was so horrible I decided I needed a second opinion and to NOT go back to him. Problem is, my usual gynecologist can't see me until March!! She's completely booked up. So I decided to schedule an appointment with a fertility specialist who specializes in PCOS. The other interesting thing is that two of my co-workers have also visited the same place with good reviews.

So today is finally the day. After waiting a month to see that original endocronologist and then another 2-months to see this specialist, I can finally go and *hopefully* get some answers or at least get on the right track. Ramin is going with me because of course he needs to be tested as well to make sure everything is working properly for him.

I'm nervous, anxious and excited all at once. I'll provide an update (if there is one) once we're done.

October Phone Photos

I've got LOADS of pictures to post from our trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado last week but before I do that, I'd like to post my recent pictures from my phone. There is a bunch of random stuff in here!

It was Boss' Day the other week. Our small team decided to make our boss Misty a little gift basket with random stuff. We got her Diet Dr. Pepper (her favorite soda), a Fabreeze air freshener to freshen her desk, a "stressless" candle for home, the book "What Color is Your Parachute?" (she likes work psychology books like this), some strawberry shortcake and a Wonder Woman cup because she is Wonder Woman to us! I actually picked out all of these things but my team thought it was good. I also got her a cute balloon bundle to go along with it :) It was fun!

I'm so glad I took some final pictures of the fall colors at our house because we had our first snow of the year this year and now everything is really starting to die and fall off...winter is here!

I cleaned up the back porch and moved all of the tomatoes to the back fence so they'd get more sun. That left additional room on the actual porch for my other plants.

Here are the tomatoes in the sun glory! I tried to get more of them to turn red before the first freeze, but it didn't really happen. You don't even want to see what this bundle looks like now...it's sad :(

This tree started out as a small "weed" according to my Dad almost 5 years ago when we first moved in. Now it's taller than our house! It's amazing and I love it. In the picture you can just start to see the leaves turning yellow - now most of the leaves are on the ground.

This was on our way to Mesa Verde last weekend. The entrance to the canyon near Spanish fork has 8 wind turbines...these things are HUGE and so awesome to look at from the car!

Ramin drove the whole way of course. Here's a shot of him contemplating when to pass the vehicle ahead of us hahahaha....we passed LOTS of cars.

Cool shot of the sunset during our drive in Canyonlands National Park.

This monolith was on the drive between Mesa Verde and Moab....it reminded me of the Sphinx for some reason.

Yesterday (October 26) was eBay Halloween....the day when everyone could dress up and you could bring your kids to work to Trick or Treat - here I am with my teammates (the boys failed to dress up of course!)  Jenn Fairbanks is the creepy Willy Wonka - she even made REAL Wonka Bars with Golden Tickets in them! I was Malice in Wonderland (evil Alice) and Misty was Roz from Monsters Inc. - she did a great job! It was super fun!

Finally....the weather finally cleared up from the snow and most of the snow on the ground in the valley melted away so I took Dingo for a cold weather walk. You can see our Wasatch Mountains in the back capped in snow :)

Taking a break from the Facebook madness

Thrifty Decor Chick

I came across the link above today as I was reading my blogroll of subscribed blogs. I still read blogs because unlike Facebook, they actually contain helpful/useful/informative/true information most of the time...

Everything about her blog post reiterates my decision to give Facebook a break!

Fall 2012

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take some photos in Butterfield Canyon for lots of my friends. I had one friend ask me to take hers and then I had some others ask me and I decided to just do everyone on the same day to make it easy on myself!! I also took the opportunity to get some taken of me and Ramin as well as Chris and Tara. Here are the results from that day - I've included my favorite picture from each of my sessions as well as the pictures of us :)

This is my friend Angie. I just LOVE the way this picture turned out!

Here is my co-worker/friend Charlie and his wife Gayle along with their dog Miley - super cute!

This is my friend Christene and her cute family - 3 little boys!!

Brian and Jillene I know from eBay. Jillene always comes to my wreath classes!

And here are Chris & Tara's cute pictures!

Here are some of all of us - taken by Jill of course.

This is one of the funnest photos we've done!

Chris and me.

 

Had to get one of me and Jill together.

And finally, here are my favorites from my photos with Ramin.

 

My absolute favorite one!

September & October Phone Pictures

Here's the monthly dump of photos from my phone :)  Taking photos on my phone is basically the easiest way to document the happenings in my life. It's the lazy person's way of remembering life :)

Let's begin:

Very random picture of my desk at work. I have no clue why I wanted to take this picture...but now you know what my desk looks like at work. I'm tucked away nicely into my own little corner and I LOVE IT! 

 My FIRST red tomato from my tomato garden!! Too bad the weather is getting cold and I still have tons of little green tomatoes on the plants.

I was just watching TV and Dingo was being cute hiding behind Ramin's shoes for some reason.

One weekend Chris and I spent the entire DAY over at my mom's house cleaning up her yard. We pulled out tons of weeds in that little circle and near the large tall trees by the fence. Then we laid down weed fabric and covered it all with new mulch and I even planted some Fall mums. I also mowed the grass. The neighbors were even appreciative of our hard work to make the yard nice again.

Picture of my house with my Halloween deco.

Update pictures of my flowers. I CANNOT get enough of my petunias. I'm going to be so sad when they die!!

A project for work. Shaun (my co-worker in this pic) and I are creating a training video and we needed someone to narrate the content. So we created a makeshift sound booth using a cardboard box and my blankets :)

And here's my friend Genevieve talking in the sound booth as she records the narration!

I had an AWESOME walk with Dingo last weekend. On our trail we have some amazing wild flowers and I just had to get a picture of them because they were so beautiful!

Another picture from the same walk. Whenever I walk past this bush I think to myself "Wow, this thing is really yellow!!" And it really is compared to all of the other weed bushes in the canyon - so I took a picture of it :)

And this is just a view from the canyon trail in our neighborhood.  Pretty cool shot with the sun and Dingo.

We had a work meeting this week - we have so many people that we have to go to a theater to have the meeting. Here's my team - left to right is Shaun, Charlie, Misty (boss) and Jenn

Last night while Ramin and I were watching the Nascar race, Belle came and sat on his lap. Of course, that means picture time!

Then end....so far ;)