I finally feel like I am getting back in the swing of things. Diet, exercise, sleep and help have made a huge difference in my moods, though I still don't think I'm 100% "over" this depression.

That being said, I have noticed that I'm itching to start doing my hobbies again which is a very good sign.

I really want to sit down and scrapbook the heck out of June-now, but I haven't had time to order the pictures.

I started yet another blog because I apparently have some sort of sick blogging addiction. (This makes #5 though most don't get updated regularly.) See Carrie Eat follows my low carb lifestyle that I struggle with on and off. I'm officially back on it today and have done fabulous so far.

Exercise has been meh. Between being sick, busy and other stuff, I haven't been getting to the gym much at all. I won't be renewing my membership when it expires this month, but I am keeping the key and can just pay $5 every time I'm able to go. In the meantime, I've been trying to workout at home lately, and it's gone okay. I really need to start getting up at 7 a.m. and working out before the kids wake up.

Sleep is going amazingly well. Maddie has stopped nursing completely and usually sleeps through the night. I still get woken up at least once a night by random whatevers, but most nights I'm getting 7-9 hours of sleep and it's fabulous!

I've reread the first section of The Well-Trained Mind and have started doing some school-related things with Kasen again. He's doing kindergarten work but doesn't like to write so lots of reading, playing with math manipulatives and craft/science projects are happening. Maddie gets involved, too, and loves it.

I'm not completely back on my cleaning schedule, but am slowly getting there. I've hired a friend to come in one day a week to vacuum and mop for me. I have to vacuum twice a week and by the time I get the house cleaned up enough to do so, I have zero energy left to mop. My house is too big and my dog sheds like crazy. Add Maddie throwing food constantly and my floors are nasty within a few days. I'm going to tweak and update my cleaning schedule and then I hope to really get back on top of doing it regularly... it makes such a huge difference in the amount of free time I have available! I've also changed my laundry routine and am noticing it takes far less time to do now.

(No more folding jammies/matching socks/sorting/running between rooms to put things away! It's liberating.)

And since this is my infertility blog, I should note that I'm now on birth control with no plans of trying to get pregnant for at least another year. N and I have discussed him having a vasectomy, but neither of us are really ready to say we are done. I am no where near ready to add a third right now, but I can imagine the baby itch returning down the road. Will it be as easy as Maddie was? Who knows. If not, we still have the adoption money sitting in a savings account...

It took me a month to figure it out, but I'm depressed and have been since... May/June. I knew something was up - always tired, weight gain, low patience, moody, barely able to keep up with basic housework - but it wasn't until I noticed that I didn't have anything to say on my blogs and hadn't updated any of them in months that I really realized it. (Loss of interest in things you like.)

I knew some things had to give, so Maddie is now weaned from nursing except the night time one. She had been getting up 4-6 times a night (at 14 months old!) and since we cut back, she's been sleeping better and isn't as clingy during the day, which has been a huge blessing for my sanity. (Though she only takes 1 45-minute nap a day now. Blah!) On top of that, my nieces have been coming during the week while their mom works 2-10 so they've been a huge help with the kids and housework. I failed at sticking to my low carb diet last time, but the girls need to lose weight, too, so all three of us are on one and doing pretty well on it. I also joined a gym so I've been able to get out of the house by myself a couple of times a week. Kasen is almost fully potty trained, too, so that's cut back on my work. Oddly, he's completely night potty-trained and has his accidents during the day - not making it to the potty in time, generally. He's doing great though!

Anyway, diet, exercise, help with things and better sleep has definitely helped me feel a little better. I'm generally okay in the mornings, but within a couple of hours, I just start feeling blah and want to go to sleep. I have a doctor's appointment at the end of this month for a thyroid check up, so I'll talk to my doctor then. I don't want to go on any medicine, but if all that I'm doing isn't helping me more than it is now, I may have to.

Hello, there.

We have been crazy busy around here lately and I haven't had much to post about.

The kids are great - Kasen just turned 3 and Maddie just turned 1. We had a big joint birthday party for them. Maddie's still nursing, has no teeth and isn't walking yet. She's communicating like crazy though - words and signs - which is adorable. Kasen is Kasen: Smart, independent and chatty. :)

I put all the weight I lost in the health challenge back on - plus some. I am not happy right now, but I think I know why I blew up all of a sudden. My lactose intolerance seems to be gone (?) which tells me maybe I wasn't truly lactose intolerant and just having an IBS flare up that made me sensitive to dairy. My insulin issues are coming back though. I spent a few weeks thinking it was just Maddie nursing and making me need more calories, and maybe that's part of it, but I now can't go more than a couple of hours without eating something. Because I wasn't really paying attention to what I was eating (ie, easy, fast, sugary, carby things), I've put on 12 pounds... I swear 10 of that in the last month, which is when I really started noticing the insulin issues again.

So, I'm now on day 3 of a low carb diet. (Which I blew yesterday at a graduation party because they had 0 veggies and all carby food.) I picked up some of my favorite go-to low carb items yesterday just to get me through until I can get to the grocery store today.

Some friends and I just started an exercise group to meet Mon-Sat at 7:15 a.m. at the local high school and walk/jog at the track so that'll at least get me up and moving... hopefully. I went Thursday, my alarm didn't go off Friday and Maddie had me up FIVE times Friday night so we skipped Saturday. :/

Because my insulin issues are back, my cycles are all over the place again, my libido has tanked and I'm moody during ovulation. No fun. :( I'm hoping getting my insulin under control with my diet will help level my hormones back out again. It worked before!

Anyway. I wanted to document those things. We have no immediate plans to try to get pregnant but that doesn't mean I want to let my PCOS get out of control again.

This post is boring so I'll leave you with a cute picture of my science-made children :) This is a picture I took to send out with their thank you cards for all the people who got them gifts for their birthdays.

Well, I didn't win the health challenge. I pretty much gave up about 5-6 weeks in. Between trying to find time to exercise with a clingy baby and continually forgetting I'm lactose interolant then having to deal with pain for days, I just threw in the towel. However, I DID lose 8 pounds, 8 inches and am down 2 pants sizes! I want to lose 5 more pounds and get down one more pant size and I know I can do it... I'm just not going to worry about it right this minute.

I'm doing better remembering that I need to take Lactaid before having any dairy, though I still forget on occassion. (Ahem... at lunch today.) I seem to be getting more sensitive to it though, which is very uncool.

My thyroid is doing good! I just got results today that it's now 0.92... we were hoping to get it around 1 or 2, so this is good. I have TONS more energy, am sleeping better (minus Maddie still waking up at least once a night) and feel better overall. The best part is that my libido is finally back!! Neal's happy, if not a little annoyed, and I'm thrilled. :)

Because of said libido, our interest was piqued this month when my period was more than a week late. My period has been incredibly regular since it came back and I'm 99% positive of the day I ovulated. I started having some nausea, dizziness and sore nipples so we were really thinking I might be pregnant. I took a pregnancy test and it was negative, which relieved and saddened us at the same time.

Speaking of sore nipples, there's definitely something about this cycle that's messing with my breasts. My nipples feel like they did right after Maddie was born and are killing me, I feel like my milk supply has gone down and my bras are a bit lose. She is not ready to stop nursing, though I'm not completely against it. (She's 10 1/2 months now so we are way beyond my goal of 6 months.) She's definitely getting frustrated at how long it takes my milk to let down now and how quickly she empties it. We'll see what happens after this period ends.

I am pretty darn annoyed with myself right about now for multiple reasons.

1. There are 3 weeks left to this health challenge and I'm not doing so great at it. That's not true, I'm doing okay but I'm only down 4 pounds (was 6, but I gained 2 back) and I wanted to lose 10-15, which was totally doable. I haven't been eating terribly. My veggie intake is way up and even when I do allow myself a little bit of sugar - it's just that. A little bit. The main problem is that I haven't been exercising like I should, for many reasons. I rocked the first week of the challenge and then got sick. Exercising while sick is very difficult. I managed to get in some light exercising during those two weeks, but not a lot of cardio. I finally got over that and was good for a few days and then my period came, along with lovely cramps and zero energy. After that went away, I did well and was down 6 pounds and 5 inches with like 5 weeks left to go. And then my favorite ice cream place opened for the season. Which brings me to:

2. It's not that I ate some ice cream that was the problem. The problem was that I seemed to have forgotten that I'm now lactose intolerant. So the following couple of days were filled with crazy bloating, nausea, lots of time in the bathroom and pain to the point that my husband kept commenting on how I was walking. (Slowly, gently and bent over holding my stomach. You know, like I was last summer when I landed in the ER because of this stuff.) And then. THEN! I'm such an idiot that a few days later I FORGOT and got ice cream again! Seriously. Idiot. So, rinse and repeat = no cardio exercise. Any movement that jolts my stomach is out of the question.

So I've been careful since and then on Monday I had some Greek yogurt. My low carb yogurt doesn't effect me at all so I didn't think anything about it. And spent the next 3 days in the bathroom. ARGH!

This morning I ate a little bit of cottage cheese after researching it and reading that it's pretty low in lactose and most people can handle it fine. I'm apparently not one of those people because a little bit ago N pointed out that my stomach was huge. I had noticed I was feeling a bit nauseous but didn't think much of it but after he said that I looked down and holy cow. Bloated. I measured my waist/hips and I've gained 2 inches on each.

And of course I was waiting for Maddie to take a nap so I could go do some cardio exercise and now I'm feeling crampy and even more nauseated. I'm still going to attempt it but I have a feeling it's not going to go over very well.

3. Non-medical related, I think I've been coming off as bragging to people about Kasen/that I think I'm (we're) better than others. It's not how I intend to come off, but some things have happened lately that make me think that that's how I'm being perceived. One of my favorite quotes is "Perception is reality" and I really need to try to keep that in mind when I go about my daily life. The main problem I think is that I still struggle with being shy and when I run into people I'm not super close to, I generally freeze up and can't think of a single thing to say. I think I mentioned this on here before, but sometimes if I know I'll need to talk with people I don't see often, I'll sit down and write out a list of things to try to remember to talk about/bring up/remember to ask them about. It's... well, sad really. I've been trying to change this for years, but I'm not getting very far with it apparently. Anyone have any tips on how to deal with this? For now, I've cut back on how often I post on Facebook and am trying to keep it general like waht we did that day or maybe something funny Kasen said. I'm pretty much going to stop posting videos because we have reason to believe he is gifted and I think people may be getting annoyed (offended?) at some things I've posted lately. (For example, he's reading. Now if I read that a friend's 2 1/2 year old was reading, I'd be commenting like crazy and love seeing videos of that child in action because it's amazing, but I worry that not everyone thinks that and that I'm just bragging.) My plan is to post anything education-related about him on our homeschooling blog and just leave it at that. My husband's family knows the link so they can choose to check it or not.

Anyway, mostly I'm annoyed with myself that I'm in my 30s and still dealing with feeling socially awkward.

Tis sucky.

Go here to maybe win a Visa gift card! http://www.jennepper.com/2012/02/i-am-sooo-excited-that-i-get-to-be-part.html

Oh. My. Goodness.

I love my Synthroid. Guys. I feel fabulous!

At the two week mark of taking it, I woke up and felt like a cloud was just gone.

Let's go through that list I posted a little back:

Forgetfulness: Better, but there's still room for improvement.

Insomnia/light sleeper: Better, but I can't truly comment on that until Maddie starts sleeping all the way through the night again.

IBS: FINE! Oh, how amazing it is to be regular and not have pain!

Depression: Lord, no. I feel great! I'm even more outgoing now!

Cramps/joint pain: Nilch.

Libido: Coming back, much to my husband's delight!

Cold extremeties: Still have this.

Dry skin: A little better.

Thinning eyebrows: Yes, but they haven't gotten any worse.

Energy level: way up! We've all been sick with a nasty virus, but before I got that, I was getting up at 6:30 a.m. ready to go and managing to get an hour of exercise in first thing each morning. It was awesome.

Cut on nose that I've had since before September: FINALLY healed! Even though I've been blowing my nose like crazy. I keep expecting it to split open again, but it hasn't.

So, yeah. Fabulous :)

It's true that when you aren't cycling your infertility blog sort of becomes something else.

I don't want to use this blog as a place to talk about nothing but my children because I don't want someone currently ttc to come across it and see it's nothing but kids, kids, kids. Of course, that's what my life is now, but it doesn't make it easier to read about when you are in the trenches of infertility... even if you can find hope in the outcome.

(For the record, if you are interested in what my kids are up to, then you can let me know and I'll give you the link to our homeschooling blog.)

I don't want to close this blog because we want at least one more child and although I'd be thrilled with a surprise pregnancy, I'm under no illusions that that will happen. Whether we do try to get pregnant or decide to try adoption is to be seen, but either way, I know this blog will become my go-to freak out place.

In the meantime, I guess that's why it's become about my medical issues outside our infertility. Boring to most who come here I'm sure, but I like being able to document all of this stuff. My blogs were invaluable when I went back through and started making a list of symptoms over the years. I'd forgotten about a lot of things and it was nice to be able to put together a timeline. (Even if it did make me feel like a hypochondriac. It also pointed out that I have lots of random medical issues.)

I got my lab results back and there were no thyroid antibodies which rules out Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. While my TSH was back within the normal range at 2.7, it was still on the high side of where my doctor likes to see it. He wants it at a 1 or 2. the FT4 was also within the normal range at .8 (0.8-1.8) but he likes to see it at 1.1 or 1.2. So, since my TSH has been all over the place, both results are just on the edge of "normal" and since I'm having symptoms, he went ahead and put me on a low dose of Synthroid. He said I won't notice anything for 2-3 weeks and he wants to recheck my levels in 6 weeks. I've got to say though that I've been sleeping better this past week, although I've also got a nasty cold which could be helping in that department. :)

In other news, I'm starting this health challenge through my friend's church this Sunday. I should have posted on here earlier about it because anyone can join as it's all on the honor system via e-mail. I'm excited about it because I've been putting on weight instead of losing and am now up 3 pants sizes from last year. Some of my maternity pants are even too tight!

I have 15-20 pounds to lose and want to go down at least 2 pants sizes.

So the health challenge... it's not anything crazy strict. It really just gets you to follow the guidelines we're supposed to anyway. You get 1 point for doing each required thing each day for 9 weeks. For example, you get a point for each well-balanced meal a day. 1 point for getting at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies. 1 point for drinking 64 ounces of water. 1 point for flossing. 1 point for no sugar. 1 point for no caffeine. 1 point for no alcohol. You can earn 2 points for 1 hour of exercise and then an additional 1 point for another hour of exercise. Anyway, that kind of stuff. It was $20 to enter and there are 4 ways to win - most weight lost, most inches lost, most percentage of weight lost and most points. My neighbor will win most points because she already does everything on the list so it will not be hard for her, but I think I'm in the running for all the other categories and I'm going to attempt (ha, ha) to beat said neighbor. (Though getting 2 hours of exercise in a day is just not going to happen so... yeah. My goal is 1 hour and hope that she doesn't always do the 2 hours!)

The hardest part for me is going to be no sugar but I also know that after the first week, it will be easier to avoid it.

I went ahead and made an appointment with my OB after finding some more lab work that points to a thyroid issue. The very first labs I had done with the infertility doctor in the military showed my TSH was 2.72 with the FT4 at .60 which is low (the range is .77-1.61.) and a note below it that said "Normal or decreased TSH with low FT4 indicates patient may have hypothyroidism secondary to decreased TSH secretion. Possible hypopituitarism."

And, being the military health care, no one said a word or elaborated or ever did anything beyond hand me the lab results. Kind of like when I was told I had PCOS. (Seriously - you think government healthcare is a good idea? Deal with the military healthcare system for a day and you'll change your mind. It's a joke. Anyway.)

So that was in December 2006. Since then my TSH has been all over the place (generally from mid-2s to high 4s) and the more random health concerns I remember popping up over the years, the longer my list grows of things I have going on that can be attributed to hypothyroidism. (The newest ones are adhesive allergy, hair changes and slow healing wounds. I have a cut on my nostril that has been there pretty much 90% of the time since September. It's January now.)

I saw my OB today and as soon as I mentioned my TSH being 5.01 he started talking about the tests he wanted to run, which were all on my list of things to ask him to look into. He said he likes to see TSH at a 1 or 2 so combine my TSH with the symptoms I'm having and he's pretty sure I do have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. He drew blood and said he should get the results back later this week. I'm assuming he'll go ahead and start me on a thyroid replacement therapy.

Of course, being distracted talking to him and excited that I may actually have a diagnosis for all this stuff, I forgot to tell him not to use a bandaid on me. A couple hours later I noticed that my inner elbow where he drew blood was bothering me... I removed the band aid and my skin was all blistered and on fire. I should have taken a picture - it was awful. Thankfully, it's pretty much better already, though that surprises me because I seriously thought I ripped off some blisters with the bandaid.

In good news, while trying to hunt down all of my medical records from the past 10 years, I found out that my favorite doctor who I used to see before I moved is accepting new patients again so we're moving the kids and me and Neal all over to him. I am thrilled by this and will be getting his opinion about all of this at my new patient visit with him mid-February. Depending on what he thinks, I may or may not cancel my appointment with the Endocrinologist. If he thinks he can manage it fine, then I really don't see any point in seeing a specialist.