Friday 8 September 2017

It rained today and felt like a switch flipped and all of a sudden it's fall.

Intake
English muffin egg breakfast sandwich
Frozen pasta lunch
Granola bar
Veggie quesadilla
Beer x1

Hydration
About 48 oz water + coffee

Activity
Just work

Thoughts
I have to go to court next week as a witness and I'm super anxious about it. Also seems like they could have given me more notice but I just found out today. I work the whole weekend and I am definitely dreading it. I would say it's sort of a pessimistic day. I'll try to improve my attitude for tomorrow.

Xoxo little birds

Having a Drink

I've written before about alcohol intake - it's never been a problem for me but I think I have a very low threshold for worrying about it if that makes sense.

Or maybe it has been a problem and I've been in denial about it. It's sort of hard to tell. I didn't have a single bit of trouble not drinking during pregnancy or the initial months of breastfeeding with my baby and I know that's not the only criteria but I do find it reassuring.

I do have a drink most days but also don't find it hard not to. My care of my kid is never impaired. I usually try to follow American Heart Association guidelines for maximum intake.

I feel like I'm going a little crazy this week with it (not crazy, but just like I might have 2 drinks over the course of a day but separated by several hours.)

That's because I am sort of excited and sort of afraid that the next week is going to reveal that I'm pregnant and then it's another year of no drinking so I guess I'm trying to get a tiny little bit more in before that happens. I'm sure if I'm not pregnant I'll back off more.

Because I've been nursing for almost 15 months, and my kid literally just started sleeping through the night without nursing I haven't felt comfortable drinking more than 1 at a time or 2 if he was getting a pumped bottle. I've been tipsy exactly twice in his life and one was last night. I guess I feel like I didn't get a chance to really cut loose and now I might be expecting another. I'm definitely counting my babies before they implant or whatever but I don't know I just have a feeling.

My approach to drinking is so different this time too. I was completely off caffeine and wouldn't drink after I ovulated last time I was trying to get pregnant - so the whole second half of the cycle. This time I feel comfortable drinking until I have a positive test - the research on whether minimal to moderate intake affects fertility isn't very solid but I'm not trying trying - technically I'm "not trying not preventing."

My baby fever is definitely growing exponentially though. We'll see how I feel next cycle if I'm not currently pregnant. I'll know for sure by next Wednesday.

Thanks for letting me think about it and share.

Xoxo little birds

Thursday 7 Sept 2017

I used to write posts just reviewing the day.

It's interesting to look back on them because I was using them to document what was most important to me and health-related stuff.

Intake
Coffee with veggie omelette
Roll and fruit
Black bean and corn quesadilla
Leftover ice cream cake
Dinner will probably be ravioli but I'm writing early so not sure yet
I'll probably have a second beer too

Hydration
Not great - coffee and a beer, maybe 10 oz water

Activity
I mean I left my house - but just to drive to a meeting. Nothing if we're honest.

Thoughts
My kid is sick so that makes things harder. He's clingy and when he's not napping he needs constant attention. I'm only able to write because he's asleep right now. My husband is sick too - pretty sure he gave it to the baby. I work through the weekend this week (that's just every 5 wks or so) but it's not great timing for my people to be sick and need some extra care. We'll be ok though. As long as I don't get sick too. Fingers crossed.

Xoxo little birds

So Defeated

I'm feeling so defeated.

7 days until I'm expecting either a period or a positive pregnancy test - but this post isn't about that at all.

This post is about work. I'm intentionally vague on this blog because I want it to remain anonymous, but I'm a healthcare provider and see patients as part of my daily life.

Today I left work so angry and I don't know what else to say about it.

I saw a patient today who I bent over backwards to see and allowed to reschedule when she showed up 90 mins late to her appointment. Sure she had to wait to the new rescheduled time, but I allowed her to reschedule same day which is frankly really unusual. Unheard of. 

I spent a good 2 hours on this family today between no-showing and the reschedule and it was a super frustrating interaction. She wouldn't hear my recommendations for upcoming tests and treatment - she knew best and seemed offended that I knew about the genetic syndrome she had and that I had recommendations about it. 

At the end of the day she called back to say she wanted a different doctor in my practice to be her doctor. 

After all the work and kindness I put in she figuratively slapped me in the face and I'm having a real crisis with this. 

I never get upset when patients switch to a different doc - we all know we have different personalities and it's easier if everyone feels comfortable. In the end I guess this is a good thing - clearly she wasn't comfortable with what I said or something about our interaction.

I guess I'm just feeling really sad about it anyway.

I put so much of my heart into these patients and to get thrown away like that from a single interaction after I was so kind about allowing her to be seen so quickly and frankly super thorough and apparently me recommending she get routine surveillance for her syndrome is offensive. 

I don't know I just want to quit everything. 

It also makes me want to never let new patients reschedule like that. Screw it I'm not required to accept them when they no-show. I can say they're not welcome. I don't know why I attract these freaking disasters and just keep trying and trying and trying.

I'm sick of it. I'm not going to do it anymore. I work so hard to provide a service. I don't deserve to be treated like shit.

Thanks for letting me vent.

xoxo little birds

Let's Talk About Weight

[Source]

I want to talk for a minute about weight. Please skip this post if you're triggered by mention of specific behaviors, numbers, etc. This is a very honest post about some eating disorder history along with where I'm at now. 

This blog started as an eating disorder blog. Not pro-ED but recovery and intake and how I was dealing with my life.

I struggle less with that now - I've been recovered for about 4 years. That said, I still struggle with a lot of vices and sometimes I just want to say whatever I think of with censoring it, and that's the purpose of this space. 

So let's talk about weight.

So you know where I'm coming from:

I struggled intermittently with restriction and weight throughout my teenage years - nothing too severe, nothing that really met any specific diagnostic criteria, just a lot of disordered behavior and thoughts.

In college I was sort of "orthorexic" but physically pretty healthy. 

In graduate school [about 8 years ago] I really began to struggle more. If I focused on weight the overwhelming stress and my vague suicidal thoughts faded to the back of my mind. I could calculate calories and not think about my fear of failure and it was a coping mechanism I clung to tightly.

I'm 5'4" and was about 123 pounds. Perfectly healthy and that's a good set point for me.

I restricted a lot through the first year of grad school and it got pretty serious as I approached summer. I lost 20 pounds pretty quickly, I lost my period and I was all the normal things - cold, tired etc.

It was time to start the next year of grad school and I shifted my focus to being "healthy" - so I ate minimal calories but more than before and trained for half marathons. I gained weight rapidly as soon as I stopped seriously restricting and that was really hard. I had all these clothes I suddenly couldn't wear and all my body checking was devastating and it was really really tough. 

I spent the next 3 years trying to be that small again while still being able to function and stay out of treatment. It was very Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Sometimes it was strict calorie counting. Sometimes undereating. Sometimes over exercising. Sometimes a strict meal plan that I found on the internet. I became vegan. I did a rotation in the eating disorder for part of my training and that was super weird because I really identified with all of the patients in treatment but I didn't want help and didn't feel "sick enough." I went to counseling for a bit because I started binging and purging but it wasn't a good fit and I was got scared about the danger of doing that and went back to over exercising. It was all about the weight and numbers but it was really all about avoiding my stresses. 

I don't know if I've ever really tried to summarize this period of my life before - it's hard to do. 

I joined Overeaters Anonymous for a while thinking it would help me eat healthy and not binge. I went to meetings for about a year. It's a really strange world and I found some women I really admired but ultimately it was a terrible fit for me. I wasn't binging because I needed to admit my mistakes and share them or whatever - I was binging because I was still starving. I lost a bunch of weight living on restriction and alcohol. I was tipsy a lot. 

I started the next phase of my training and maybe it was the dramatic change in location or stress or the pattern of my life or the security of my marriage but it just got suddenly easier. I don't think people outgrow eating disorders, but I started coping better, I was really ready to let those behaviors go, and I settled back in at 123-128 pounds, stopped weighing myself, stopped counting calories and just went about my life. I probably replaced it with a TV addiction, but that was ultimately less damaging to me both physically and mentally.

When I felt ready to try to get pregnant, I was so grateful for the progress I'd made, because it didn't feel scary to gain weight or have these drastic changes in my body. It was still weird, but I felt great during pregnancy. I gained a total of 27 pounds (healthy for pregnancy) and it was a lot easier to be healthy while growing a tiny human. 

I was only up 5 lbs from pre-pregnancy just 2 weeks after and I settled in at 10 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight for most of the first year of my kid's life.

I've since gained a few since stopping pumping at work, but I'm still lower than my normal set point of 123-128. 

And I think I might be pregnant again, which means I'll go back up again. 

Weight is so weird. Sometimes I care so much and sometimes I don't care at all.

The hardest part is when I outgrow clothes I like. I have to put them away out of sight immediately or they make me sad. 

And that's all I wanted to say for now.

xoxo little birds

Am I Pregnant?

It's 100 degrees today outside. I'm inside though and it sort of feels nice.

I mentioned in my last catch-you-up post that I got super obsessed with trying to get pregnant in 2015 when we were trying. We were very blessed to have a healthy pregnancy within about 6 months (after a loss unfortunately).

So now it's been 2 years since I was last trying to conceive.

I was thinking about how I really wish I had a different personality when it comes to this kind of thing.

I sort of picture myself going about my life, so busy with interesting things but having great, spontaneous sex with my husband every so often and all of a sudden thinking "Oh wow my period is late," and taking a test and being surprised about being pregnant.

But that's really really opposite of my actual personality.

I'm actually super Type A and even though technically for the past 2 months we're "not trying not preventing" (NTNP) I'm still super aware of my cycle and when I'm fertile and how likely I am to get pregnant and how long I have to wait to know etc.

The first month not using any contraception I felt nervous and not ready for another pregnancy, but this month I found myself excited and hoping I'm pregnant.

It's only been a couple days since ovulation this month - so even if I'm going to be pregnant this month, I can't say I am yet. Implantation wouldn't even have happened yet.

And yet I'm doing all this symptom spotting and hoping. We'll know in 11 days I guess.

In the meantime, I'm having an extra drink because if I turn out to be pregnant it's another long 9 months of sobriety.

xoxo little birds

The Past 2 Years

I haven't written a post here in over 2 years.

Trigger warning: miscarriage

In part I was writing on another blog that isn't anonymous, and in part it was just a very busy part of life and in large part I stepped away from writing all together.

My last post I wrote about feeling like I was drinking a little too much and that I was planning to start trying to get pregnant soon after. I do think some of what I wrote was just a little reactionary to being hungover when I hadn't been in ages, but it was still good to cut back a little.

I'd like to catch you up on the past 2 years. I'll try not to make it too lengthy:

- I started trying to get pregnant in April 2015, it was easy to stop drinking for that.
- I was totally obsessed with trying to conceive - I took ovulation tests, I charted my temperature, I made sure we had our best chance.
- I got pregnant in July 2015. I was so excited.
- I was on vacation at a wedding when I started bleeding at 7 weeks. I slowly bled through the whole trip with in-laws all around knowing that I was probably losing my baby and not being able to do anything to stop it. We hadn't told them I was pregnant, and we didn't want to ruin such a happy event, so we kept it between my husband and me.
- When we got back home I went in to be seen for the bleeding. They measured me at 5 weeks, but I should have been 7. Since I'd been so obsessed with the whole getting pregnant thing I was very sure about that. They couldn't confirm then that it was a miscarriage because things looked intact and if I really had been 5 weeks, they wouldn't have expected to see a heartbeat.
- I kept bleeding for a week until my follow up appointment.
- At my follow up they confirmed what I already knew - that it was a miscarriage. Since it was already progressing I didn't need a procedure.
- I was on a night shift in the intensive care unit when I finally miscarried. It happened and I had to go right back out and admit a patient. It was horrible even though I was expecting it.
- I had a hard time with the whole thing, but felt ready to try again within a couple months.
- I got pregnant again at the beginning of Oct 2015.
- This time it was healthy and I had a baby boy. He's a toddler now.
- I finished training for my career in June 2016 as well.
- I moved across country with my new baby.
- I started a new job.
- I bought a house.

I wouldn't say I'm doing a great job with my life right now - there's so much I'd like to work on to be healthier, happier etc. But really things are ok.

xoxo little birds