Chili-getti and Frango Pie!

I got it!  Yes!  I have it in writing that I have officially made the weight for egg retrieval, they will not weigh me again, and they will move forward with this IVF cycle regardless of whatever bloat pounds the meds put on my frame during the attempt!  Here it is, what I have received in writing:

Hi Alex

You have been approved with proceeding with the Egg Retrieval occurring in our *fertility clinic* Surgery Center with your  current weight at the start of an IVF cycle being 39.5 per our Medical Director

It is to be expected that you  might gain weight during the stimulation and our Medical Director is going to  clarify with anesthesia to make sure that if your weight does bump up as a result of the hormones that they will proceed with your Retrieval. 

Do you all know what this means?  This means it's time to share the recipes for Chili-getti and Frango Pie!  If you want to be a hit at your next potluck, serve either of these.  And if you need to put on weight for any reason, this is your new diet.

Due to my own laziness, you can just print this image.

Good to go

Had my baseline this morning.  9 follicles on each side.  Blood pressure is perfect.  And I weighed in at 230!  Yes!  2.5lbs BELOW the weight required by anesthesia!

Now my nurse said that we're good to go.  No more weigh-ins, this was it, I'm moving forward.

You'll excuse me if I don't quite take her word for it yet.  When I checked in with anesthesia 6 weeks ago, they said I had to be below 232 at suppression check.  That's still a little over 2 weeks, and several weight gaining BCP from now.  She's double checking with anesthesia and every body that could possibly have a say in this and she'll call me back with the final answer later today or tomorrow.

It's possible that my diet is officially over today.  It's possible that I have to keep it going another 16 days or so.

Tell ya what, when I finally get the official, legally binding, no they can't change their minds declaration that my diet is over, I will post the recipes for Chili-getti and Frango pie.  Because that's what I intend to eat!  There is nothing virtuous about this meal.  It's not vegan, it's not low calorie, it's not low fat, it's probably not organic.  One has a whole lotta cheese and the other has a whole lotta butter and sugar.  I'm going to assume that suppression check will be the final word on my weight.

Let the countdown to Chili-getti begin!  16 days and counting.

I didn't want smaller pants

On my way home today, I stopped at Payless to grab a new pair of shoes.  I've pretty much worn through my current pair and we gotta replace those things every so often!

Next door was a plus sized store.  Checked through my little entertainment coupon book to see if I had a coupon for that store, and yup I did.

I have a full supply of jeans that I've purchased over the years, all the same size.  A while ago, I gave away my smaller sized clothes because someone was in need, and I hadn't been able to wear them in a couple of years.  I held on to 2 pairs of those smaller jeans, just in case, but honestly never expected to wear them again.

And then the year of loss began.  At the beginning of last summer, I was 266lbs.  I lost about 15lbs before getting pregnant, and never got fully back up to the 266 again.  Then of course I was suddenly unpregnant and lost a few more pounds in those weeks when I couldn't stand to eat.  And then this most recent whoosh of weight loss from the super diet from hell.

All in all, I'm almost 30lbs lighter than I was a year ago.  I've been wearing my big pants when working in the pottery studio (because they're gonna get muddy and don't need to fit right), and I've been wearing those 2 other pairs of jeans out in public.

But now those two pairs of jeans are starting to sag.  My skinny jeans are officially too big for me.  So I bit the bullet, shopped for a new pair of jeans, a pair that actually fits so I can go to a restaurant with my parents without feeling like a complete schlub.

But you know what?  While it might seem really thrilling to be forced to buy new pants because you've gotten smaller, it really sucks for me.  If all goes according to plan, I'm going to lose another 8lbs (thus really needing the new pants for a month or so) and then immediately start growing again.  We're not in a good financial place, so spending money on pants that I want to outgrow in 2-3 months is yet another exercise in seeing how much guilt I can lay on myself.

I don't want smaller pants.  I want elastic pants.

I guess, on the upside, I have a full wardrobe for pregnancy.  Start out filling out the skinny jeans, then upgrade to my normal jeans, then wearing that pair of jeans that was always too big for me, and finally, in the last glorious month, into the actual elastic front maternity jeans that I own.

Man, even accomplishing stuff I've been desperate to accomplish my whole life (losing weight) SUCKS when battling infertility.

Dieting 2.0

Well, back on the diet!  Took a few lovely days off.  Had a rendezvous with some brownies.  A big mac made an appearance.  The treadmill hath been neglected.

But it's time.  Time to undo the damage and start pushing those numbers further down.  Yes, my doctor says they should have the backup plan hammered out by the time I'm doing my next cycle ..... just like last time.

New calculations:

I'm 5'4". 

Current weight = 239.2lbs.  Honestly, I'm kind of surprised.  I was expecting at least 2 more pounds to pack on while I ate this weekend.  But okey dokey!  If the pounds don't want to pack back on, I'm not gonna make them!

BMI of 39.9 = weight of 232.5lbs.

Weigh-in date = Unknown.  Estimating AF to be 4 weeks from now and suppression check to be about 2-3 weeks after that, I'm estimating Sept 20th.

Spark people settings - Calculating a goal weight of 230lbs by Sept 20th, my daily calorie range is between 1310-1660.  I will readjust every Monday to keep on top of any weight loss or gain and if we get any updates on the weigh-in date.

What I'm doing to make it easier this time around -

One of the problems with the last diet, apart from it being so few calories every day, was that K is the primary cook in the household.  I would spend all day absolutely starving myself because I didn't know what he intended to do about dinner that night and I needed to be prepared in case it was more calories than I had planned on.  Then K would come home and struggle to find a meal that he could cook with as few calories as possible.

So this time, I've established with K that I will be eating around 700 calories during the day and anticipating a dinner that's anywhere up to about 500 calories.  That way I know what I can eat during the day, what I can anticipate him preparing for me, and that gives him a lot more cooking freedom.  And it still leaves me some calories free for evening snacks, which is really when I do most of my eating anyway.

Since I'll actually be eating a few calories this time, I'm hoping to not be nearly as obsessed as I was last time.  For the time being, I'll be shooting for the middle of the range, or around 1500 calories per day.  It's going to feel darned near gluttonous compared to last time.

All about the control

In the long run, it's probably for the best that this cycle is canceled.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still upset about it, but the rational brain can see that it's for the best.

I got my period only 2 weeks after the failed FET.  So waiting a month to let my body settle after all of those hormones before pumping it full of new hormones, probably for the best.

I had less follicles this time than I've had before.  Since this is probably my last fresh round, the more follicles so I can bank as many frozen embryos, the better.

And losing that much weight, that quickly, well, I wasn't exactly setting up my body for overall success now was I?

Honestly, it wasn't about that.  It was about having some control over something.  I have had no control over losing my girls and the failure to produce more. 

But before that, decades before that, my big out of control issue was my weight.  After years of trying and failing to keep my weight in a healthy place, I had given up and just accepted that I didn't have the willpower, the strength of character, the control to do anything about it.

So when I was tasked with having to do something about it in order to be allowed to move forward with a fertility treatment, I NEEDED to win that battle.  I NEEDED to conquer the one thing that's been conquering me all of my life. 

If I can just control this one factor, then ......

If I can just have the will power to control my cravings, then .....

If I can just win this one damned battle for a change, then ....

If I can force myself onto the treadmill, then .....

I have no idea what was supposed to come after the "then" in those statements.  I don't know what I was hoping would be the result.  I just needed the win more than anything else.

Technically, I did win.  I lost more weight than I was told I needed to (at first) and a whole lot faster than is supposed to be possible.  Because of the BCP weight gain, I lost 4lbs of that weight twice.

Still feel like a loser though.

Clarifying the weight issue

Ok, I'm not sure I've explained exactly why my weight is an issue.

When I did my IVF a year ago, my clinic was attached to a hospital.  So the egg retrievals for fat girls were done in the hospital, NOT the IVF office.  It cost extra, but at least it could happen.

Now that my clinic has merged with another clinic (merged is the wrong word, I think smothered by would be more accurate), they are no longer connected to the hospital.  At least not until the bureaucracies are ironed out.  So they don't have hospital facilities to perform the procedure when the patient is over a certain BMI and has higher risk factors of being under anesthesia.  According to the icy bitch anesthesiologist, if something were to go wrong, they couldn't deal with it, they would have to call 911.  Of course, that really makes me wonder if they should be doing anesthesia on ANYONE if they don't have the capabilities of dealing with it when it goes wrong.  But I digress.

So yes, there is a perfectly logical reason behind this. 

Do I give a shit about that perfectly logical reason?  Hell no!

They set a cut off point.  Is it determined patient by patient?  Nope.  Just a cut off point across the board.  For you see, if it was determined on a patient by patient basis, they would see that I've had this procedure before, when I was bigger, and they can see exactly how much anesthesia was used, how I personally responded to it, etc etc.  So there would be some wiggle room for a judgment call to be made.  I don't see how 5lbs would really change my odds of dieing or enduring brain damage under anesthesia.

But bureaucracies don't function on individual needs and circumstances.  It's all about numbers. 

Oh, did I mention that my doctor confirmed that this clinic is now indeed owned by a parent company who answers to their shareholders rather than pure medical facility?

Yeah.

So honestly, I really do see the validity to their argument.  To a point.

I also see a facility that advertises on the radio.  And that must have success rate numbers that are competitive with neighboring facilities.  And that yes, big girls do carry extra risk factors in terms of miscarriage, and other undesirable outcomes.  And those undesirable outcomes affect success rate statistics that make them competitive.  Don't treat the harder cases, don't have those failures on your record bringing down your numbers.

So yes, they have a point.  They also have a very strong motivation to stick to their numbers very rigidly rather than consider the circumstances and use that wiggle room to treat those of us who are more difficult to treat.

Whatever the reasons, whatever the validity, it still boils down to I'm too fat to be a mom.  I've been judged for a lot of things, but that one really hurts.

My doctor at the clinic is really fighting to get that connection to the hospital put back in place.  We were hoping the papers would be signed last week but negotiations are still hammering out.  I'm told that it's kind of slower than expected because it's summer.  Key players that need to sign papers go on vacations at different times during the summer so it's difficult to get them all around the same table at the same time.

And all I can think about today is that maybe my girls were the only chance at a family that I'll ever get.  One thing after another is costing me a month here, a month there.  I really miss my girls.

I'm 5' 4"

Went in for my consult with the anesthesiologists today.  Upon walking in, the first thing they do is check my height.  I am, without a doubt, most definitely, 5'4".

I start crying because I know how the rest of this appointment is going to go.

They take me to get my weight.  Oh, and they won't let me take my jeans off.  So fully clothed, I weigh-in at 236.8lbs.

I've crunched the numbers a whole lot.  I know what writing is on the wall.  They have me sit next to a hospital type bed, behind a curtain, to wait for the anesthesiologist and I'm just sobbing. 

Bitch was made of ice.  And of course she tells me that we can't move forward with this cycle.

Now bear in mind, I haven't eaten more than 1200 calories in a day in the last 3 weeks.  And I couldn't really eat anything this morning because I wanted the numbers down as far as possible when I got on the scale.  AND, my husbands damned cat kept waking me up through the night by scratching at the door.  She's on a special diet, we feed her in the bathroom away from the other cats, so she's learned this last week that if she scratches on the door, I'll wake up and feed her to shut her up.  So I'm starving, exhausted, and I've just been told that it's going to take even more dieting and at least another month before I can have my kid(s).

I was a wee bit upset.  And I let her know it.  I'm kind of sick of expressing how upset I am to the doctor and nurse that are fighting on my side already so I expressed it to the doctor who was saying no to me.  A bitch who's never met me before and has no frame of reference of what a rational person I usually am.

In the end, I tell her to pin down what number I have to be and on what day of my cycle I have to be that number so I'll know for sure next cycle.  232lbs at suppression check.  Those are the parameters.

And out the door I storm.

I call the husband and cry in his general direction for a while.  I'm trying to calm down before I need to drive to my next appointment for the day.  And then I decide to call my nurse since they said she would be calling me that afternoon anyway. 

Apparently, bitch with no frame of reference for why a person in my position is as upset as I am is kind of freaking out and kind of alerting people that I might need a psych consult.  She mentioned the red flags to me while I was bitching at her and I told her flat out "I've been depressed before, I'm not depressed, I'm momentarily upset.  There's a difference and I'm very aware of that difference.  I'm fine, but I'm pissed."  So my nurse is a bit concerned and instead of venting about how upset I am, I'm forced to ensure people that I'm fine.

Get off the phone her, call Boss #1 who was expecting me in an hour and she's cool with me coming in on Friday instead of today.  By now I'm calm enough to drive so I head over to Boss #2, a poor soul who only met me a few months ago and has never had the chance to know me when I'm not going into a cycle, hormonal from being mid cycle, or dealing with a failed cycle.  I deliver the pots I've made for her this week and head home.

So my doctor calls me a bit later.  He still wants to assure me that we will be able to do this, just not this cycle.  That they are still working on getting the paperwork done so that fat girls can get the procedure done in a hospital rather than in the office.  It's just going to be a month or two before that's finalized.

You'll pardon me if I don't count on that ever happening.

And he kind of gives me a parental speech about not saying red flag things when upset.  Gee, thanks.  I control myself 99.9% of the time.  Yes, I let my mouth fly today, because I wanted someone to actually feel something in regards to what their policies are doing to actual people.  But I still confirmed that I was fine before I left.  I think the fact that I didn't throw anything at the icy bitches face is a testament to how controlled I actually am.

So here's where my 5'4" frame stands - I'm hungry.  I've starved it to the point of starting to have dizzy spells the last day or two.  For the next few days, I'm going to just eat whatever I feel like eating (within reason).  I understand that my weight is going to spring back up 5lbs or so, but I need to put a halt to the starvation process.  Then starting next week, I should be at a point where I'll need to lose about 10lbs and I should have 6-8 weeks to do it.  So I'll start a 1,500 calorie a day diet and try to get that weight down at a more reasonable pace, knowing I can probably crash the last couple of lbs if it comes down to the deadline.  And, by then, they might have a backup system in place anyway.

Got a Subway sandwich and some cookies on my way home.  Drinking the Coke that's been taunting me from the back of the fridge these last 3 weeks.  And picked up some Jr. Caramels at the gas station so I have a little bit of chocolate nibbles in the house this week.

Harry Potter at a luxury/gourmet movie theater tomorrow night.  And I intend to enjoy my meal and movie thank you very much!

Parameters shall be established

My RE nurse calls me this morning to give me some news.  And I had to call her back and have her repeat the conversation because she woke me up and I realized after coffee that I didn't fully understand what she had told me.

Apparently at this clinic, if your BMI is between 35 and 40, you have to have a consult with the anesthesia department before moving forward.  Who knew?

So there is now a bunch of rushing around trying to get me an appointment for tomorrow because suppression check is the following day.

But here's why this is good news.  At the consult, they will finally establish exactly what my weight has to be below, and on what day it has to be there.  In theory, they should decide that I have to be below 240 either on trigger day or egg retrieval.  But once that is established, we will no longer have to worry about those parameters changing when I show up for egg retrieval.  So if we opt to move forward this cycle, we won't be stopped by someone remeasuring my height and taking away that seventeen thousand dollar inch that I'm worried about.  As long as I do my part and keep that weight down, we're good.

Waking naked weight yesterday - 236.5lbs
Today - 237.4lbs.  Only slept a couple of hours so I didn't get that usual 3lb drop while sleeping.

What do you think guys?  Can I do it?  Can I keep my weight under 240 until egg retrieval around the 16th?  Stay tuned!

Not what I wanted to hear

Just got a call from the RE nurse and she did not have good news for me.  They have not come to a final protocol for fat girls.  If the BMI is over 40, it's officially a no-go.

They will be taking vitals at the suppression check (August 4) AND at the egg retrieval (est. August 16).

Things that can go wrong:

1)  I don't make weight at suppression check, diet continues for a full extra month.  Don't think this will happen.  I'm at 238.3lbs as of this morning (have to be below 240) and it's only a few more days so I'm pretty sure I can keep it down.

2)  They measure my height again and decide that I'm 5'4" instead of 5'5".  At 5'4", my weight has to be 232.7lbs or lower in order to make the proper BMI.  Not going to happen so that adds another month of this hell.

3)  The stimulation meds cause me to gain a couple of more pounds that I can't fight off and I tip the scales at egg retrieval.  All of the work and expense of an IVF attempt without being able to finish it.  We start all over again with more diet and full IVF attempt for another month.

4)  They check my height at egg retrieval on a different scale (it's at a different facility) and after all of the work of keeping the weight off despite extra hormones, they still cancel the procedure because I'm shorter on that scale than on the other one.  Once again, all of the work and expense, none of the reward.  Considering that everyone will have an hour set aside for my procedure anyway, they can instead spend that hour in the operating room with me ranting and screaming and crying directly at the people who made this decision.  Yup, that's what will happen, right before security physically removes my screaming and ranting ass from the building.

Sooooooooo, continuing hard core dieting.

Fellow IVFers, I've never kept track before, how much weight did you gain between suppression check and egg retrieval?

How I did the diet

It occurs to me that while I've been bitching and moaning about my dieting, I haven't actually given any details that might help someone else.

I am the anti-dieter.  I decided years ago that I'm happier being fat than I am being on a diet.  Seriously, other than not having kids, the whole trying to lose weight thing is the biggest source of misery in my life.  So this need to lose a lot of weight really fast has caused me a lot of tears and absolute terror that I would inevitably fail.  I haven't fully succeeded yet (my weight has popped up before and weigh-in is still 7 days away), but I'll give you a few of the things I've been doing.  Hopefully there's a tip here that might help someone else. 

Disclaimer - I do NOT recommend that anyone restrict their diet as rigidly as I have nor to lose weight as quickly as I have.  What I've done is drastic, but there's simply nothing I won't do for my kids so I did it.  Ok, so now I'll try to give tips without giving a how-to guide to doing things the unhealthy way.

First and foremost - have a supportive partner.  Poor K has had his diet restricted too so that he's not waving food under my nose and he's had to sit through a few sobbing nights where I screamed about my hungry stomach, how impossible my goal is, and how dare those bastards in white coats force this on me.  He's gone out of his way to figure out how to cook small meals (large snacks) with as few calories as possible and will look up the numbers for me before we eat so I don't accidentally eat more than I'm allotted for the day.  If I tell him I did a mile on the treadmill, he gives me footrubs.  Ok, he expects a backrub in return, but still!  Footrubs!

You know what?  That's my advice for all of this infertility bullshit.  Have the right partner.  No matter what gender combination you prefer, having the right person by your side is just about necessary for survival through all this.

Second - I'm already on metformin to prevent gestational diabetes and that really helps.  Last summer when I originally went on it, I lost 14lbs with no effort at all.  If you're really overweight, and your body is threatening diabetes, discuss this with your doctor.  So yeah, I'm kinda cheating in that I've got some medicinal help.

For the most part, I went old school.  Eat less, move more.  More calories going out than in.  According to calculations, it takes my body 2300 to run and maintain its current weight at my current lifestyle (of sitting on my ass doing practically nothing).  3500 calories = one pound whether that's going in or being worked off.

I signed up for Spark People.  No matter how obscure the food, someone has put in the calculations.  I have yet to find a food that wasn't already entered.  I plugged in my weight goal, the date of that goal, and it came up with my daily target range.  Tracking seriously helped and not having to enter every little bit of the nutrition label myself made tracking actually happen this time.  I've done Weight Watchers before, but this was SOOOOO much easier.

I bought some hydroxycut products and coincidentally had an appointment with my GP the next day.  I took those to him, had him read over the ingredient list, and he threw them away.  In their place, he gave me some samples of Alli.  Disclaimer again - this stuff won't do the work for you, but if you work to lose 5lbs, it will help take off an extra one or two for you.  I only took a pill when I ate something with fat in it and did NOT go over 3 pills a day.  I often only took 1 or 2 per day.  Apparently it grabs the fat you're eating and flushes it out of your body before it can be absorbed.

Protein, protein, protein.  This is the key.  It's filler, it's energy, and it's low calorie.  When we went diet grocery shopping, we stocked up on snackable proteins.  90 calorie packs of lunch meat that I just eat on it's own, one slice at a time.  Mush up some beans and put those on celery instead of peanut butter because they are lower in calories.  Cheese sticks.

Shellfish - great source of protein.  We got some precooked shrimp that we kept in the fridge.  I would snack on that when I just wanted one or two bites to tide me over for an hour.  The cocktail sauce for shrimp cocktail is also pretty low calorie.  Crab was on sale so we had a dinner of nothing more than a steamed dungeness crab and some melted butter.  Took forever to eat but even with the butter the whole meal was less than 200 calories and I felt stuffed.

I made lattes at home using this thing and an old espresso maker who's frother is broken.  Instead of my usual 16oz white chocolate mocha, I made a 12 ounce with sugar free vanilla syrup and 1% milk.  Sometimes I would use half a shot of regular sugared syrup and it only added a few calories.  Honestly, this is the best balance for me.  I tried a lot of other breakfasts, but as soon as I went back to a latte of some sort, I felt decent during the day.  The milk has the right amount of fat and protein, and the espresso gives you a little caffeine kick to help you get going.

Fatty spread substitutes - I love the texture of fatty foods like cream cheese.  But obviously, those were out.  Instead, quacamole, bean dip, cauliflower puree with some fat free cheese.  Sorry, but I couldn't find any kind of low calorie peanut butter.  I tried, as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist.  Oh, and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray for popcorn and rice.

Thin out the fat so a little goes a long way.  I had a veggie lunch platter with ranch sauce.  I emptied out half the sauce and replaced it with a fat free ranch.  Mixing the two took away the bitter of the fat free stuff, and then I only ate a little bit of it on my veggies.  Yes, it's more calories than going with the fat free stuff alone, but much more satisfying for only a few calories.  A good trade off.

Veggies - the "well duh" of dieting.

Fruits - go for the filling fruits and eat them with a dash of protein so you don't get a sugar crash later.  The protien (like cheese) will carry that sugar energy in your body longer so you don't spike then crash.  Fruits have some calories to them, so make them count.  Melons are good.  Cherries are nice and dense but are also a diuretic, so be careful with those.

Water - I keep a plastic cup and straw with me at all times.  I like a lot of ice so it's hard to measure how much water I'm actually drinking.  So I put a 72oz jug of water in the fridge every morning, told my hubby to leave it for me, and then made it my goal to finish off that jug every day.  Didn't usually make that goal, but I got close.

Split servings in half.  Half a chicken breast.  Half the cocktail sauce.  Half the bread.  If you want the other half, you can go back for it, but you'll often find you don't need it.

Deconstruct what you usually eat and only eat certain components.  I like Reuben sandwiches.  Today, I put 2oz of deli corned beef on my plate, half a cup of sauerkraut, and indulged in a tablespoon (serving size is 2 tablespoons!) of thousand island dressing over the sauerkraut and ate it with a fork.  130 calories and the flavors I actually wanted.

Think a lot of snacks, not meals.  If you're hungry, eat 100-200 calories and make sure some of it is protein (again, I love the deli meat packs).   That will hold off hunger for an hour or two.  Then do it again.  If you satisfy yourself like this all day, if you're awake 16 hours per day and you eat something every 2 hours, that's about 1600 calories per day.  That will get you there and your body will know that you're going to keep feeding it and hopefully not go into starvation mode.

Exercise is my nemesis.  I tried a Krav Maga class and I wanted to die before we finished the warm up.  20 minutes in, I was in the bathroom trying to stave off the dry heaves.  But I knew I couldn't do this on diet alone.

The acupuncturist recommended that even if I could only exercise for 5 minutes, do it before eating anything in the morning to ensure that the body is burning up its own reserves and not what you just ate.  So every day, I've been on the treadmill at a slow speed for 10-15 minutes first thing in the morning, and then again later in the day for a total of around 30 minutes a day.  Thank you Mom and Dad for the hand-me-down treadmill!

We hooked up an old computer on a table next to the treadmill which also serves as a DVD player.  Nice screen, and you've got all of youtube and your dvd collection to keep you company.  Hubby got me The Kids in the Hall: Complete Series Megaset for Christmas last year and I've been working my way through those.  It's really good because it's only 2-5 minutes of commitment to watch through the next sketch.  Keeping yourself on the treadmill for just another 2-5 minutes, until the next sketch is over, it tacks on a lot of minutes when you otherwise would have gotten off the darned thing.  If you go to a gym, get the Netflix app for your phone and stream from that.


Ok, and I'll also say get a hobby that keeps your hands busy.  I have a new job doing pottery which in one way doesn't help matters.  I have to sit on my butt when I'm working.  On the other hand, it's really hard to eat when your hands are covered in clay!  Just decided that I don't care if my water cup is dirty on the outside and that's all I have in my studio with me.  If I want to eat, gotta make some effort to do it.

Hopefully something here can be integrated into what you're already doing for yourself.  I've been miserable, but I'm surviving.  And I'm succeeding at the one thing in life that I've failed at every single day for more than 30 years.  It's not fun.  Others aren't enjoying it.  But, when it's important enough, if I can do it, ANYONE, and I'm looking at YOU "but I'm the exception that will always fail" person out there, ANYONE can make progress.  I'm not going to claim that anyone can be thin, I certainly don't expect to ever be, but anyone can make some progress, turn that into the new status quo, and then make a little more progress again later.

My current weight is lower than it was at my wedding 6 years ago.  I'm still fat, but I'm in a range of numbers I never thought I'd see again in my lifetime.

PS - as soon as I'm done with this dieting bullshit, I'll post for you the recipes for Frango Pie and Chili-getti.  The two most anti-diet dishes ever dreamed up and put on a plate!

Happy feet

That's right!  Oh yeah!  Those are my mutant toes on that scale!  Now it's all just wiggle room baby!

Almost there, no guarantee

Sorry this has kind of turned into a diet blog.  It's temporary, I promise.

So as of this morning, I'm only about half a pound away from my goal.  I still have 9 days to get there, so it's in my grasp!

I emailed my RE nurse and asked her to get someone who is making these decisions to guarantee that once I do the weigh-in at suppression check, that's it.  I can eat like a normal person and I won't be weighed again.  It's pretty obvious that the day I start eating a standard diet again, I'm going to pack on a couple of pounds overnight.  Especially once we add more hormones to the mix.  Once I get that suppression check weigh-in done, I want to start strengthening my body to support a pregnancy, not continue depriving it.

The last thing I want to do is think that I've finished, all is good, go out for a meal, and then have to weigh-in again a week later and having all of my hard work be thrown out the window.  It would be deathly devastating to have to look at myself in the mirror and know that I sacrificed my kids for a fucking cheeseburger.

She called me and said that as of right now, they can't guarantee that.  She's forwarding my email to the doctor, but he's not the final decision maker either.  He's the one fighting the corporation to get some policies in place that will allow them to treat us fat girls.  But because those policies are being written right now, they are changing every 5 minutes. And until they are solid, I can't count on any leeway at any point.

It's pure serendipity that my cycle is right now, that I happen to be right on the borderline of the cut off weight, and that this is the month that the policy war is going down within the clinic.

I told her point blank that if we have to stop my cycle, I want the person or people responsible for that policy, not the front line people like her and my doctor, I want THE person that put it on paper to come into the room and tell me to my face that I'm too fat to be a mother and force him to sit there awkwardly until I stop crying.  Because if some asshole is going to seal my fate without a second thought, the least he can do is sit there and watch the results of that decision.

She'll be calling me tomorrow with an update.

Yay! Argh!

Here's the Yay - Spot has been found alive and well!  The cougar didn't get him, he got trapped under the neighbors house when they were setting rat traps.  She heard him meowing last night, checked this morning, and came over to tell K that he's been found.  A whole lot of dust and cobwebs and a can of food later and Spot is running around the neighborhood as he should be!

Here's the argh.  I weighed myself last night.  245.5.  Cried for an hour or so.  I'm eating less than 1,000 calories per day and my weight is bouncing back up instead of pushing down.  I think that 241.2 was as low as it's going to bounce and that's not good enough.  So we might not get to do this cycle.  This morning, 244.5.  I've only got 12 days to get it to 240. 

I'm miserable because I'm eating so little and I'm terrified because I'm not getting the results I need.  I'm practically back to where I started even though I haven't eaten anything.

K recommended we donate a pint of blood the morning of weigh-in.  That outta be a pound or so.  Yes, I'm actually considering it as a viable option.

Kind of afraid to eat

According to the website where I'm tracking my food, I've eaten just under 1,000 calories today.  In order to reach my goal weight by the last week of August, I'm supposed to eat between 1,500-1,850 calories per day.  So in theory, I've only eaten 2/3 of my daily allotment of food, and I made sure it was decent food. 

But I'm afraid to go to the fridge or cupboards and get something else.  If I eat one more thing, I'm afraid I'll eat 20.

Maybe it's because I really haven't eaten very much and yet a lot of calories have been used up.

It's only a goal of 8lbs over 6 weeks.  Nice and slow and everything.  But I feel like if I count on the plan working as slowly as it's designed to, it won't work at all.  Like if I do that standard diet thing of losing 5lbs really fast in the first week or two, then I'll have a lot of time left to lose the last couple of lbs.  But if I try to do it slow, I can't count on those last 2lbs coming off in those last 2 weeks like they need to and then I'll be totally screwed.

The stakes are so high, and I've been failing at losing weight for so many years, I'm kind of petrified myself into severity. 

I'm such an all or nothing person.  I need to work on that.

The Do or Die of Dieting

So we had our consultation with Dr. Douchebag today.  You'll notice that he has retained his unflattering nickname.

Here's the big fat issue in the room - my big fat butt.  They have established their policies and settled on only doing egg retrievals for patients under a BMI of 40.  And the reasoning makes me want to tear my hair out.  They have the anesthesia people in one building who are willing to do a retrieval for us fatties.  They have transfer facilities so that the retrieved eggs can be placed back into a big fat uterus.  However, they do not have a means of transporting the embryos from one place to another.

For all sorts of legal liability issues, none of the various companies involved in this process will take legal responsibility for the potential for problems to occur while transporting the embryos from one place to another.  Basically, nobody wants to be held liable in case of a car accident causing your maybies to splatter all over the highway.

So for the want of a Frozen Fed Ex, I can't get pregnant right now.  Yes, my entire future is put on hold because of traffic issues.

But here's the good news.  When they took my height and weight measurements today, they established that I'm 5'5".  I'm really, really not that tall.  I've always been 5'3 1/2", maybe 5'4" on a really good day.  When she said I'm 5'5", I corrected her like a good girl, and she measure again, twice.  And the technician still claims that I'm 5"5".  I did my part in correcting her, I'm not going to argue and force her to say I'm shorter than she wants to say I am.  And my weight (once I took my jeans off) was measured at 247.4.  That puts me at a BMI of 41.  By their calculations, if I can get under 240, I'm eligible for IVF again.

Now honestly, knowing how tall I REALLY am, I would need to get under 233lbs to get a BMI of under 40.  But if they want to put my weight loss goal at 240lbs, who am I to argue?

So an August cycle is off the table.  I officially have 6 weeks to lose 7.5lbs so we can go for a September cycle.  It's going to be one hell of a challenge for me, but it's still a lot more doable than 14lbs.  But I'm really scared that I'm going to fail.  I was 244lbs when I got married 6 years ago.  And 18 months ago, I was 266lbs.  So by the way, can I get a little credit for the nearly 20lbs that I've already lost?  And 4 months of that time was spent pregnant with twins, so I think I've made a shit ton of progress in the last 18 months.

We hit the drug store on the way home to get some hair dye remover stuff (K had to darken his hair for a play a few months ago and we need to remove the color from his hair because it's growing in white and he's looking like a redheaded skunk).  And we got some Hydroxycut Fiber Full Drink Mix, along with some  HYDROXYCUT MAX FOR WOMEN.

Personally, I think these products are bullshit.  If there really were a magic diet pill that actually worked, America would be thin and it ain't.  However, the fiber full drink actually tastes pretty good and fiber can't be a bad thing.  If having that extra fiber puts off my feeling hungry for an extra hour, bonus.  And the Hydroxycut, well, I really think that's bullshit, but it does have a lot of folic acid in it.  I couldn't find any ingredients that seemed harmful and folic acid is a primary ingredient in prenatal vitamins (which I'm not taking while taking this stuff) so I don't see any harm in trying this product.  But, there's a very slim chance in hell that these products might assist me in losing weight (on top of the move more, eat less real diet I'll be trying to follow), that few extra ounces could mean the difference between getting pregnant in September or having to wait another month.  I hate to be an idiot buying into the hype, but it's worse to disregard a potential avenue for assistance in order to save my pride.

I will also be calling an acupuncturist and hopefully starting treatment.  Studies show that they do increase pregnancy odds.  Again, I'm calling bullshit, but even though I think it's a hippy dippy fad, I'm gonna go for it.  And some people use acupuncture to assist with weight loss as well.

The onus is on me of course.  Move more, eat less.  And on that note, I'll be trying my first Krav Maga class tonight.  I'm fat, angry, and feeling powerless.  I'm hoping that kicking learning how to kick some ass for an hour will assist with all three of those problems.

And as for Dr. Douchebag.  He's got some things going for him.  Behind the scenes, he really is trying to get these issues worked out so that they can offer treatment to us big girls.  So he is fighting on my behalf in that regard.  And who knows, by September, he might have the transport issue figured out so I can go ahead even if I do fail at the weight loss (but I'm certainly not counting on that happening).

However, I brought up the little joke he made.  The reaction I wanted was a truly remorseful apology for making me feel so crappy.  Even if he couldn't see the problem in what was actually said, I wanted him to feel bad simply for making me feel bad.  But what I got was a defensive list of rationales for why it wasn't so horrible and a placating apology.  And for that reason, he remains Dr. Douchebag.

And as for why I'm sticking with Dr. Douchebag - well, the other primary clinic in the area has the same BMI restrictions.  So by the time I worked my ass off to find someone who would treat a big girl, do all the preliminary testing that needs to be done, got the money back from my prepaid plan with Dr. D and applied it to somewhere else, well frak, it's September before we could go ahead anyway and there's no guarantee I'll like a new guy any better anyway.  If I stick with where I am, I don't have to deal with all that bullshit and I'll have the added bonus of being a pant-size smaller come September anyway.

I'd love some encouragement from everyone over the next 6 weeks.  I'm going to be tackling the biggest failure in my life that has been a consistent failure for over 30 years.  And I'm doing it with a deadline and the highest stakes imaginable. 


PS - just a little note about an hour after I wrote this post.  Don't take the 2 pills of the hydroxycut on the first day, especially if the only thing in your body is your favorite Starbucks drink.  I think I'm currently a little over caffeinated and a bit jittery.  Can't wait to see the results of what I make on the pottery wheel in the next hour while I'm like this.