Hello World…or well anyone out there.
2020, like every year, is another year of starting new goals, plans, and adventures for the future. One goal I decided to do is create a Health and Trying to Conceive Blog, Vlog, and instagram. My Vlog will be a bit later but my Instagram and Blog start today. For those interested in following my Instagram the handle is: Tintinttchealthjourney.
To give some background on me I have always struggled with my weight, drugs, bulimia, and mental health. My weight has always fluctuated and I struggled with bulimia since I was about 15. My mental health has been a contributing factor to my drug usage. I was always a mixed up kid and struggled to be clean. Then in my senior year I got clean from barbiturates. Then as I entered college I got involved in an abusive relationship that lead me to being addicted to cocaine. Thankfully now I am married to an amazing man that really loves me. I have been clean from Barbiturates for 11 years (almost 12) and from cocaine for almost 8 years. I started seeing a therapist in October of 2018 and really started getting my mental health to a better place. My bulimia has continuously been a struggle and while I haven’t thrown up my food in years I still have thoughts here and there about it.
This year my husband and I are not only looking to get healthier, but to start the process of having our first baby together. I say process as due to some circumstances with me it looks like we have to go to the fertility clinics. I have a clean pap smear and I am fertile, I just do not ovulate enough (typically every other month…). I also have high blood pressure that only effects the bottom number and I have hypothyroidism. I will be using this blog, the vlog, and my instagram to discuss our journey with conceiving and my journey to getting healthier. There will be healthy recipes, discussions about processes, and any other relevant topics.
Since there will be a bunch of different acronyms used through out my blog I will have them listed at the end for future reference.
Today I received a package that will really help me get started on this journey. The package was a bunch of vitamins and fertility sweets to add to my daily regimen. I have been taking a preconception multi vitamin and biotin: 10,000 mcg nightly before I go to bed. Now I am adding in: Super B-Complex, Omega-3, folic acid 800mcg, and D3 5,000 IU. I know that may seem like over kill especially when adding in the fertility sweets that have vitamin B6, zinc, and folate, but after speaking with my doctors and doing research this seems to be the way to go. From here I will be adding them at night with my biotin and pre-conception multivitamin. In the morning I take my thyroid medication when I wake up and then my blood pressure medication before I leave for work. See the photo below for all of the products I will be taking at night. Excluding of course the fertility sweets. Those I will be bringing to work for my desk and having one a day around lunch time.
Next week or the week after I will be heading back to the gym to start getting more work outs in. I plan to not focus so much on the number on the scale, but rather focus on feeling better and seeing myself thin out a bit.
My goal for this blog is to post once a week at minimum to keep myself accountable and to really have an outlet for everything. In next weeks blog I will discuss the books I am reading on conceiving and pregnancy, give a review on everything I am taking, and let you know my typical day of eating to help jump start my journey to get physically healthier. In other blogs I will discuss my mental health and as we start doing the clinics in a few months I will let you know the step by step process.
Thank you for taking this journey with me! It means the world to have you here! Please leave a comment, follow, and share!
Acronyms:
AF: Aunt Flo, menstruation
BBT: Basal Body Temperature
BD: Baby dance. This means having sex for conceptive purposes, or any other form of insemination such as IUI or IVF.
BFN: Big Fat Negative (pregnancy test)
BFP: Big Fat Positive (pregnancy test)
CD: Cycle day
CM: Cervical Mucus
CP: Chemical pregnancy (a very early miscarriage
DPO: Days past ovulation
EWCM: Egg white cervical mucus, the most fertile kind.
FSH: Follicle Stimulating Hormone
FP: Follicular Phase
HPT: Home pregnancy test. Measures levels of the hormone hcG.
HSG: hysterosalpingogram, a test that looks inside the uterus and fallopian tubes.
HcG: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Hormone detected by pregnancy tests.
IUI: Intra-uterine insemination
IVF: In-vitro fertilization
LH: Luteinizing Hormone
LMP: Last menstrual period. The first day of your last period.
LP: Luteal Phase
LPD: Luteal Phase Defect
MC: Miscarriage
MFI: Male Factor Infertility
O: Ovulation
OPK: Ovulation Prediction Kit. OPKs measure luteinizing hormone, which surges about one day before ovulation.
POAS: Pee on a stick
RE: Reproductive Endocrinologist
SA: Semen analysis
TTC: Trying to Conceive
TWW: Two Week Wait, the roughly two week period between when you ovulate and when you’re supposed to get your period (and when you can take a pregnancy test)
Tintin's Blog 