Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Chocolate Avocado Pudding- Yummy!!!

Months ago, I heard someone talking about chocolate pudding made with avocados. It sounded like a neat concept but I had no plans to try it out at the time. Now that I'm looking for baby food ideas for when the time comes to make baby food, I went searching for a recipe to try. I found one that was easy and decided to tweak it for my own sweet taste. It really is super simple and allows for substitutions. For example, it looks like you could replace the brown sugar and cocoa powder with a chocolate protein powder. That might be next on my list to try out.



Ingredients:

3 avocados- peeled, pitted, and cubed
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ cup (or to desired sweetness) brown sugar
½ cup coconut milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch ground cinnamon



Blend all ingredients until smooth. Refrigerate for 30 minutes until chilled. Seriously, that simple. Enjoy!

Sunday, May 10, 2015

At Long Last...

Here is Miss Eveleigh's birth story: On Friday March 13th, I knew it was coming soon. She wasn't due until the 28th, but I just had a feeling. I started having mild contractions that afternoon at work but they died down by midnight. My breasts were tender and I was leaking. Which I loved since my milk didn't come in for 2 days last time. The contractions came every evening that weekend but died down after midnight. Monday night, the mild contractions started when I went to bed and kept me up most of the night. Tuesday at work I was exhausted and ready for the baby. My coworkers took me to get Italian food as a joke to get the labor started (the old wives tale of the eggplant parmigiana- which I knew had more to do with the oregano and basil). But, I felt like she wasn't coming that day though since I had quite a few people rooting for the 17th. I went home and put the car seat in the car- figured I'd get that out of the way. I had a feeling of discomfort that was eerie, like my body knew what was coming but my mind didn't.

At 3 a.m. I woke up to a 10 minute long contraction. An actual contraction. I told myself it was just like the other nights but I knew it was different. They kept coming and by 4 a.m. I knew this was the day. But I wanted to monitor them until hubby left for work because I didn't want to drive all the way to the hospital for false labor. Plus it is more comfortable to do my pacing and breathing in the comfort of my home. At 5:30 a.m., I made the decision to go in but I told hubby to go on to work and let his mom drive me just in case it wasn't it. It's a 40 minute drive from our house but he only works about 10 minutes from the hospital so he could be there in no time if this was go time. The contractions were several minutes apart at this point- good thing we left in time to miss rush hour traffic on the highway.

At 7 a.m., I get admitted as the contractions intensify. I was at 7 cm and coming up fast! I told my mother-in-law to call Alex. I sent a text to my parents who were in Las Vegas at the time. At 7:30, I'm in tears from the pain. I was induced my first pregnancy and was told that would be worse since I still delivered naturally. However, these contractions were 10 times worse than when I was induced. They moved me to a delivery room. By the time Alex got there, I was crying out loud from the pain- which says a lot because I have a high threshold for pain. I felt most comfortable lying on my side for the contractions. I was having cold sweats and laid on my side with my eyes closed between contractions. The urge to push was coming on and the midwife asked if I wanted her to break my water- YES! That felt great at that point. Took a lot of pressure off down there.

At 8:30, my body was telling me to push and I did. The midwife rubbed mineral oils on my perineum and began massaging and stretching my vagina to help with any tearing. By 8:33, baby was out! I didn't even have a chance to object to my mother-in-law being in the room- not that she would have listened, I think she really wanted to be there. Eveleigh had been head down the majority of the pregnancy so she just slid right out- which is also why she had fluid in her lungs. Her body didn't have time to get rid of the fluid before she left the birth canal. I watched her pop out and it was so surreal. After trying for so long to get pregnant and then going through a rough pregnancy, my baby was finally here and I cried tears of joy.

This hospital has the rule that for 1 hour after birth the baby is to remain on the mother's chest before they do any weighing and cleaning. And after that, baby will remain with mommy at all times. Love it! She started breastfeeding immediately. I did have some minor tears caused by the scar tissue from where they sewed me up extra tight the first time but it wasn't bad. The midwife and nurses massaged my stomach a lot which hurt like hell at first but my stomach went back down faster and my bleeding wasn't as bad as after the first pregnancy. One nurse put my hand on my stomach to show me the area where the baby had been. It felt like a little softball. This time around, I felt my uterus cramping while breastfeeding. I didn't feel that the first time. It's interesting to see all the differences and similarities between the two pregnancies.

I had her name picked out for 4 years but Alex wasn't sure about it. We hadn't found any other names either so when the nurse asked him what the name was, he told her Eveleigh Rose- the name I chose. My father-in-law brought Olivia to see us and the look of joy on her sweet face when she saw her baby sister was pure bliss for this momma.

The next 7 days were Hell on Earth but that tale is for another story time.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Fertility Frustrations: Baby Fever Blues

I’ve been absent for a while. My last post divulged my fertility issues. I laid it out there, short and sweet, yet still raw. And, clearly, therapeutic because several weeks after I put it all out there, I discovered I was pregnant. And it was the most incredible feeling. Nearly 2 years of trying had brought me to a low point. It was a frustrating journey, to say the least. To be frank, I haven’t wanted to sit down and write about it; I’ve talked about it with people but it was too painful to see in writing. I also felt like there are many others who have a bigger struggle and struggle longer and my own journey was insignificant in comparison. But, I am owning my feelings and my journey is my own.  Therefore, I have a story to tell.

It began with the final decision to go off birth control. I finished out the two months of pills I had. (Side note: I am on birth control to regulate my hormones because, without it, I don’t regularly menstruate; it is normal for me to have only four periods a year). Thinking back, I had been off birth control for a year and half before I got pregnant with Olivia. Granted, we weren’t trying to conceive at the time but it was certainly telling information in hindsight.

Shortly after I stopped taking the birth control pills, it became painfully obvious that conception was not going to be easy for us. Within weeks, I started bleeding. For weeks at a time, I would bleed. I tried to give my body the benefit of the doubt. Maybe my body was readjusting its hormones. But irritation turned to frustration and frustration turned to desperation as the breaks between bleeding became shorter and shorter. What do you do when you won’t stop bleeding? How are you supposed to even try to get pregnant if your body won’t let you do thing that causes pregnancy? This went on for months. I spent my free time researching possible causes and sending emails to my doctor all the while my husband doing his best to keep my spirits up.

At my yearly OB/GYN appointment, I discussed the problems with my doctor. She told me to schedule an ultrasound so they could check for abnormalities in my uterus. But, because of my young age (28 at the time), she couldn’t address fertility treatments until we had been trying to conceive for a year. Again, the frustration was boiling over at our inability to even try to conceive since I was bleeding too frequently.

I made the ultrasound appointment. But I knew they wouldn’t find anything. I knew this was all related to my hormones. I almost wished there was something physically wrong that they could point to as the cause because not having answers is a worse condemnation. I knew this had to be done so they could move on to the next step in the process. Unfortunately, the day of the ultrasound, I had to bring Olivia with me. My sweet 3-year-old daughter wanted a sibling more than anything and I knew taking her to this appointment would get her hopes up but I was out of grandparents to watch her. As we left the appointment, she held my hand and looked up at me and asked, “Is there a baby in your tummy now, mommy?” I cried when we got back to the car. And I cried again when I saw my husband.

Of course, they didn’t find anything wrong with my girly parts. The next step was to have a sample of the lining of my uterus taken and tested to see what kind of hormonal issues I was having. But I had had enough of appointments and doctors at that point, so I never made that appointment. Instead, I wanted to sit in the shower, hug my knees and cry. Or, at the very least, not hear from or go to the doctor’s office for a while. I powered through on my own. I let up on my workouts and diet. I have low iron and low blood pressure so I thought maybe the extra workouts and my diet were putting an extra strain on my body. I figured any little bit had to help.

Slowly, the bleeding began to subside over the next month. We spent the next few months trying as often as we could and I tried to take my mind off of why we were jumping in bed every chance we could. I knew putting too much pressure on myself would only stress my body out more. But the question kept creeping up in the back of my mind: What if I can’t have any more children? What if Olivia was my miracle baby? My husband and I always talked about having multiple children and I’ve dreamed of a family since I was a small child. But that dream was slipping away and that was the heartbreaking truth I was trying to not face. I didn’t want to get to the point of fertility medication. I felt if we got to the point that we were spending money on fertility treatments that we would just put that money towards adoption.

By the spring of 2014, I started to refocus myself. We had passed the one year mark and I started emailing my doctor about my options. That was an irritating month or so of back-and-forths with no results. So, I researched and ordered some supplements that were supposed to help naturally balance my hormones. I took those through their cycle and continued clinging to hope that my body just needed to balance itself out. But, summer slowly crept in and still no baby. I read an article on the benefits of drinking 3 liters of water a day. I thought I was drinking enough trying to get in 64 ounces but decided to give it a go. What the hell? It’s not like it could do any harm. I started drinking 3 liters of water a day around the middle of June. The third weekend in June, we left for the Police and Fire Games to watch my husband play in the softball league. Even with Olivia and our dog Daisy in tow, we still managed some hotel hot stuff.

It was 2 weeks after that, that I noticed my body wasn’t quite right. My breasts were gigantic and painfully tender, I was incredibly bloated- six extra pounds of water weight to be uncomfortably exact- and I really just felt off. At which point, I pulled out the extra pregnancy test I had in my desk at work and saw the most beautiful little positive line faintly appear. But that is another story for another time.

I don’t know what finally did the trick. I don’t know if it was anything I did that helped this process along or if it was just time for baby #2 to finally come along. Whatever the case may be, we have a sweet baby girl due at the end of March.


That is my story.