New Meetup!

I am so pumped! Me and my friend Stefanie just created the first Fertility Meetup in Kansas City!! I've been wanting to do this for several months now, and tonight we finally created it! Our first meetup we'll discuss "Fertility Diet" and throw around ideas for future meetups, introduce ourselves, and share stories. It's called "The Kansas City Not-So-Fertile Meetup Group." Here's the link if you live in or near KC and want to join: http://www.meetup.com/The-Kansas-City-Not-So-Fertile-Meetup-Group

It's 1:18 am and I need to get to bed! It is well past my bed-time. I'm just so excited about getting this thing started, finally! It is sooo past due! Heck, if I can't get pregnant using all that I have learned, someone else surely will, I just know it. And if just one person improves their reproductive health, or even better, conceives!, this will be so worth it!

I am looking forward to the much-needed sense of belonging and community that this group will create for its members. Going through fertility difficulties, many of us good women feel on the fringe in society, even left out, but this group I hope will produce feelings of inclusion. And most important, this meetup will be a fertility resource hub where we can share books, information, and referrals.

My eyes are like half-open right now. I'm dabbling in the whole idea of "lunaception" or "night-lighting." It's a waning gibbous moon and I'm sleeping now with the shades open to let the light of the moon influence my monthly cycles, aided by a night-light. Hmm...I wonder if this monitor influences my monthly cycles as it does my daily sleep/wake cycles? My next post will be all about night-lighting, I promise, but for now, I need to get some z's.

The improvements

My husband and my health has improved drastically this last year. It's been 14 months since our major lifestyle changes, and man, a lot has changed. On top of reducing his borderline high blood pressure, my husbands sperm count and quality is now in the normal range. We are very glad that we decided not to get the varicocele repair in both testicles. A whole food diet prepared mostly at home, exercise, and a regular sleep schedule has worked measurable wonders. Here's the results of his last semen analysis done this May '10. In parentheses are his old numbers from November of 2008.

Count: 25.8 M/ml (13.8 M/ml)
Total count: 95.4 M/specimen (27.7 M/specimen)
Total motile sperm: 43.6 M/specimen (2 M/specimen)
Total progressive motility: 46% (7%)
Progressively rapid: 30% (4%)
Velocity Distribution
   Rapid: 42% (7%)
   Medium: 4% (1%)
   Slow (twitches): 8% (3%)
   Static: 47% (90%)
Kruger Strict Morphology
   % Normal Forms: 11% (1%)

Impressive huh? Even just 6 months into our lifestyle change his numbers improved drastically, but this just shows the continual improvement that has taken place over a year and a half. If only his sperm quality was like this back when my cycles weren't all out of whack. We'd probably be pregnant, but we're not, so moving on.

I have also seen many improvements in my overall health since changing my lifestyle. Mine are not so easily measurable, but there still there. We changed our lifestyle June 2009 and I did a food intolerance panel April 2010.

• I used to experience lower back aches often after a long day at work cleaning other people's homes or upon waking. Now, I rarely have a back ache and usually a good jog/walk bounces me back into alignment. I prevent them by lifting with my butt and hamstrings, rather then solely relying on my erector muscles, and I sleep on my side.
• I used to experience a chronically numb big left toe and red, hot burning feet when standing for a long time in one place. Not anymore.
• Head-rushes almost every time I stood up. I still experience this sometimes, but so much less.
• I used to crave sweets all the time. Now I only crave around PMS time and periodically here and there. This is a personal battle that I'm sure I'll be dealing with the rest of my life. I think I might be a little glucose intolerant...I don't know.
• I used to have a very hard time getting out of bed in the morning and if I had the chance would sleep in to 11 or 12, and would go to bed around 1 or 2 am or even later on weekends. I thought I was just a night owl. Nope. Not anymore. I decided one day that I would like the mornings and started to appreciate the sun coming in my room and the beauty of the earth waking. Now I wake up without an alarm every morning between 7:30 and 8:30 and go to bed between 11 and 12. And I now have more energy in the morning than any other time of day and wake up with a smile most days.
• I used to be more socially inhibited and distrusting, now am more understanding and take things less personal. However this, I feel, will be a lifelong challenge for me.
• I used to experience a yeasty aftertaste when I drank water sometimes, but never anymore. I didn't realize it at the time, but now that I know what that was, yes, I must have had a little overgrowth of yeast. Never noticed vaginal yeast infection symptoms though.
• My chronically cold hands/feet especially in winter has improved greatly.
• My severe menstrual cramps have improved by 90% so far and am hoping it will continue to improve with time, as each cycle so far has been a little less painful than the one before it. This last cycle was the first cycle where I got by using only one ibuprofen on the first night of my period and no pain meds throughout the rest of it. The cramps were still there, but so much more tolerable and easy to ignore.
• I used to experience swollen, sore breasts during PMS sometimes for a whole two weeks, but now I never have this.
• Within the first month of changing my diet/lifestyle my period flow was fresher and brighter.
• I used to have mucus in my bowel movements but never anymore. 
• I used to be bloated and gassy all the time and uncomfortable. Now I just get a little bloated still, but never uncomfortable. The Food Intolerance Panel has helped out with this a lot. I'll post about my experiences with the Food intolerance panel in the future.
• I used to have holes/ lattices in both of my retinas as I am naturally severely nearsighted. (I had corrective surgery -- totally recommend it!) They have not returned since laser treatment on retinas.
• I used to experience a lot of eye pressure/discomfort after laying on my side, one time it lasted all day. I do not experience this anymore.
• I used to spot 2-3 days before my period actually started, but this has been reduced to a slight pinkish tinge the day before I start or the day of if I start in the evening. Tail-end brown bleeding reduced.
• Chronic yellowish pasty discharge from a chronically inflamed cervix. Real fun. Allergens, infections ruled out. Sadly, this did not improve. I did get it cauterized later, but more on that in a later post.
• I used to get congested every night, but now I never do. Being dairy free has helped with this.
• I used to break out easily and especially premenstrually, but since the food intolerance panel, this has greatly improved.
• I used to have a pale complexion, but now have that golden glow of health even in the winter. It's amazing the difference.
• I used to experience dandruff and brittle nails, but now the dandruff is gone and the nails have strengthened and grow very fast, though they could be stronger. Toenails and fingernails are a healthy white with a pink nail bed.
• Since the food intolerance panel I have not experienced indigestion or acid reflux.

So did I talk you into changing your lifestyle for the better? I hope so!! However, even though I have many improvements in my overall health, some things are taking their sweet time to improve and some things have just gotten worse!

The new lifestyle part 2.

My naturopath, Dr. Johnson, recommended a diet to help with my urinary symptoms. I also brought up our lack of success with trying to conceive. Turns out fertility is her specialty. After discussing my symptoms, asking some seemingly unrelated questions, inspecting my tongue and feeling my pulse in three spots on my wrist, she recommended a sugar-free diet for 8 weeks to starve candida (yeast). I'm thinking, okay, what does this have to do with my bladder? I don't think I've ever even had a yeast infection. But I chose to trust her and went with it, even though this was a complete 180 for me. This is what she recommended:
Breakfast: I c. blueberries (frozen), 2 T flax, 2 T soy lecithin, scoop of pea protein, milk alternative (I use Dream Almond milk).
Snack (before and after lunch): fruit or veggies with nuts, nut butter, or some type of fat/protein like hummus.
Lunch/dinner: 3 oz meat/fish, 1/2 c. whole grain/beans/sweet potato, veggies
I thought that this was the end of good food as we knew it. 
She asked that I go to her weekly class to learn more about recipes, diet and lifestyle, and to make a follow-up in two weeks after I use up all the Snake and the Dragon teapills.
I brought my husband to the class, and we made an appointment for her to see him about fertility right after. The following week he was thoroughly evaluated and we both had our first acupuncture session. I did NOT want those needles in my body! I tried to stay calm, but that whole first session sucked! I just wanted to pull those needles out! Luckily, it was only for about 15 minutes. My husband, however, was as calm as a Hindu cow, though he looked like the dude from Hellraiser.


The first couple weeks I didn't feel so good. My whole body had to adjust/detox from eating dairy, sugar, refined flours, and fake food, to getting its energy from real, whole food. We started out just making huge batches of beans and whole grains and meat and eating it over the next couple days, and just sauté or steam up a bunch of vegetables. After a little while we became more confident with using herbs and spices and got creative and started to make some very delicious dishes.


We both started to work out in the mornings. My husband was a little more disciplined than me in the beginning, and worked out almost every morning. He lifted, ran, did the stairclimber, he worked hard. He lost his excess 30 lbs. over a matter of months and now looks better than ever. I started out little by little with the exercise. I started just walking for about 30 minutes on most mornings, then after about a month of that I eased into running. I could only run about 3/4 mile the first time, and it was torture! My very hilly neighborhood didn't help with that. The hills got me in shape within just a couple runs. I used to run Cross Country in high school, and my muscles got back in the groove very quickly. I got to running a regular fast-paced 3 mile loop around my hilly neighborhood within a matter of weeks. And it felt great! I missed running. Once I started running regularly, I also started going to Bodypump every week at my gym down the street. It's a really great class to get you started on and to keep you going with weight training. I ran into an old friend from high school who also ran regularly and we started running together about once a week. Having a friend to run with you is a great way to get over those mornings when nothing sounds good but the bed. Me and my husband were well on our way to better health, and it just gets better (well for the most part).

The new lifestyle, part 1

I made an appointment to see Dr. Alicia Johnson NMD at the O'Brien Pharmacy and Holistic Center in Mission, KS in June of 2008. We discussed my urinary issue and she recommended a diet for me and The Snake and the Dragon teapills by Plum Flower Brand to reduce inflammation and help me heal from any residual infection I might have. Taking the pills was easy, but the diet, I didn't even know where to begin. I had been looking up body alkalinity and had a general understanding that the more fruits and veggies in the diet, the better. I read that having an acidic diet can make one more susceptible to urinary tract infections. The whole week before my appointment I practically starved eating only fresh veggies and fruits, because I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know how to prepare food. This was my typical diet before:
2 bowls of cheerios with chocolate syrup all over them with skim milk.
Some raisins, baby carrots, or a banana with fruit flavored yogurt and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain wheat bread.
Then by the time dinner came around I was ravenous and chowed on Burger King, pizza, or whatever tickled our fancy at the time.
And we topped it off with some kind of dessert almost every night. Cookies, Sheridan's custard, brownies...etc. I would be stuffed and bloated.
The ironic part is that we started to really hate what we ate, but we felt stuck. We liked the convenience and the fun of going and picking up our already prepared food. And well, let's face it, I did have more free time then. 
It sounds like I should've been overweight, but oddly enough I was still within a healthy weight, even being accused of being skinny and never eating. (It's funny how we think it's ok to call someone skinny, but not fat.) I did like to be active and me and the husband and the dog would go on walks often, even in the winter. I also clean houses for a living, so that kept me moving. However, I cringe when I think of the chemicals I would expose my bare skin and lungs to on a daily basis. It's funny how invincible we tend to think we are; nevermind the rash I would get on my lower back every time I used bleach. I just thought, it goes with the job.


My persistent urinary symptoms was a huge wake-up call for me. It wasn't until later that I connected my overall health with my reproductive health.

I've got so much to tell! But first, here's my story.

My husband and I have been ttc for about 4 years now beginning around mid- 2006. I was 24, he was 25. (I don't know all the ttc acronyms, so bear with me while I use just plain old English) We're young, and were led to believe it would happen if we would be patient and just keep on trying. We discovered my husband's poor sperm count and quality after two years, in the summer of 2008. The urologist said his count was around 7 million and motility and morphology weren't even mentioned. And on top of that he was diagnosed with varicoceles in both testicles. The theory is that this stagnant blood can overheat the testicles. After a few months taking Fertility Blend, he did another analysis at the Reproductive Resource Center of Kansas City revealing 13 million sperm M/ml (normal is greater than 20 million), 7 % Total progressive motility (normal >50%), and 1% normal forms (normal >14%)(Kruger strict morphology). So it improved, but was still pretty bad. I think our chances of conceiving was about 1-3% each cycle, and that's assuming I'm not a factor. At the Reproductive Resource Center where my husband had his analysis, they told us that we would not be good candidates for IUI (artificial insemination), but that our only choice was IVF (In vitro fertilization). IVF costs tens of thousands of dollars, and even more with each failed attempt. We simply didn't have the money so we did not pursue that route. Knowing what I know now, I'm so glad we didn't attempt IVF or a varicocele repair.


At this point I was charting my cycles based on the results of my LH tests. According to the results, I ovulated between day 15 -18 of my cycle and had a very predictable luteal phase of 14 days every month. I never missed a period. My periods were always 7-8 days, heavy to light brown bleeding.I did have a history of painful periods to the point where if I didn't take preventative Ibuprofen every four hours, I could end up thrashing around in so much pain I'd say that childbirth had to feel like this. And even the preventative measure didn't always ensure a thrash-free period and only made the pain bearable. Also, I would have pre-period spotting from time to time, and had a constant profuse vaginal discharge due to an inflamed cervix all throughout my cycle. I had many infections and STD's ruled out, and even some allergens. Still just a chronically inflamed cervix. This was obviously not normal and I found out later that, spotting and brown-bleeding was also not normal. At the Reproductive Resource Center, they did do an ultrasound on me and found a small complex cyst on my right ovary, and two more on my left. I chose not to continue with the Center since I would have to redo all the tests and laparoscopy right before IVF, and that was just too far from our reach financially, and me and my cysts walked out never to return.


In the early spring of '09, I came down with a seemingly persistent urinary tract infection. The symptoms were very mild, like it was the very beginning stages, but never progressed to that awful burning sensation, it was just a dull feeling that something wasn't quite right. Around this time, my luteal phase (the phase of the cycle after ovulation and before your period starts) had shortened by a day or two and the pre-period spotting could last for three days. 


After a couple months, five rounds of antibiotics, and still feeling that mild burning sensation down there, I decided to visit a naturopath. I grew to distrust the conventional way of dealing with my health issue. I never visited a naturopath before and don't even recall what exactly led me to that idea, but am so glad I made that decision. My life has changed forever.