Feeling renewed

Sorry I've been a bit remiss in posting this week... I've been so caught up in #IranElection I pretty much forgot I had a blog.

Camping was incredible. Fort Z. braved the rainstorm Saturday night, despite very heavy rains for about 10 hours. Saturday day, the weather was gorgeous. Also, our campfire spaghetti dinner on Friday was delicious. Added bonus: I packed two tealights and we celebrated Shabbos in the woods. It was deeply calming and recharging. Friends joined us on Saturday, and we had a ton of fun swimming in the lake (my first time in a lake, ever), playing Apples to Apples, and making s'mores. And then Sunday, I went to a friend's book club she had arranged. It was great to spend the afternoon surrounded by intellectual women.

My birthday massage (rescheduled twice due to life) was amazing. Hot tub soak, hour long deep tissue/Swedish massage... what a wonderful gift from my husband. So wonderful, that we're going back tomorrow for a private hot-tub soak together!

No real updates on the IF front. My next appt is July 10; I'll need to have some b/w done to check out my thyroid levels beforehand, and I might call my Dr. to see if he can order a semen analysis before that appt as well. Recently, I've actually been in a very good place, emotionally; I think I had one random crying jag late last week, but otherwise I've been ok. The cold & cough I had been fighting from last month is finally gone, so I have a ton of energy back. Also, my new Levoxyl dose seems to be working wonders- a lot of energy back.

New blog widgets! My Inspire.com badge to the left. I just stumbled on these boards and found a wealth of new support, as well as a lot of fellow POF-ers. The RESOLVE board seems to be more active than the Inspire IF board, but both are chock full of regular posters. I like finding new support networks.

Also, if you click on the any blog post title, there's a Tweet This button at the bottom of the post. Feel free to tweet me into the tweet-o-sphere.

You may have noticed my weight ticker on the right. That's right, I'm on a diet. Ari and I are doing Weight Watchers together. We did it last summer and both lost a good amount of weight... and then the last 5 months of craptitude happened and we put a lot (and then some) back on. If I'm going to have kids, and if I want to be a successful candidate for IVF, I need to lose some serious weight. So I'm starting with my first goal: 5% of my current weight so far. Baby steps. I've almost made it through my first week, and I've been a little grouchy. That's probably b/c I also stopped consuming caffeine, entirely, 5 days ago.

Why the caffeine cut? Well, I drank WAY too much soda before the diet (no soda, not even diet, for 5 days now). And the soda eats away at the calcium in your bones, and since POF messes with your bone density, I really needed to wean myself off. I really need to think of soda as the occasional treat as opposed to daily staple. The first 2 days, I had a bad headache, and was walking around like a junkie looking to score. Now I'm more of in that calm, Zen-like acceptance, although I've been craving oolong tea really badly. I'll see how many days I can go w/o caffeine, period. My goal is to start at a week, and go from there. I've already noticed a huge difference: I sleep like the dead at night, hot flashes have decreased significantly, and that general sense of anxiety doesn't feel like it's looming over my shoulder every 10 minutes.

So that's life right now. Not thinking too much about babies, or my inability to have them. And it's a nice feeling, for a change.