I am sorry all for diverting from the main subject of  this blog, but I had to add an account for my weekend experience somewhere, and I couldn't think of any better location!

This long weekend, I was pleasantly surprised by our weekend trip to Rylstone, a small country town couple of hours drive west from Sydney through the blue mountains. We did face a bit of a traffic on our way there, probably due to the Anzac Day parades, and took a few stops on the way, but that did not dampen our excitement as we waited in the hospital in Rylstone for our host, Jan, to pick us up.

RELANO village

Our accommodation, the Relano Village, turned out to be a series of small pretty cottages, built by the current owner, Jan, in his vast 200 acres or so of land. The main cottage had three good sized bedrooms with very comfortable double beds, a nice kitchen and lounge, and two decking areas. Other cottages included the bar complete with a pool table, the 'Wimbledon Hall' which had a Table Tennis table and some fold-able beds, a cute library with an tiny attic, a BBQ hut with wood-fire barbecue and a table setting enough for 10 or so people, and finally another hut with a bunk bed. There was free welcome drinks, and breakfast was provided, but we cooked our own lunch and dinner which we had brought ourselves. There was also plenty of wood for us to light up a campfire and enjoy it as early or as late as we wanted. 

Initially the plan was for 4 couples to make the trip, but finally, two of the couples decided to bring their kids, so there were 13 of us. But even while all the kids enjoying in their own way, and the parents (or those without kids!) were enjoying themselves, peace prevailed, and I immensely enjoying staying in front of the fire, doing nothing but looking at the millions of stars that appeared in the sky. Seriously, I had never seen so much stars in my life, and felt I was looking at one of the pictures taken by a powerful telescope. I was really impressed.  

Jan Burrie

Jan, our host, is by far the sweetest person I have ever met, and at nearly 80, he managed to surprise us all with his agility, good-humoredness, and his pride in the 'village' and the business that he had built. But more importantly, he was friendly and at ease with everyone, drinking and joking and telling about his life stories to the grownups, and telling interesting stories to the kids and even joining them for a comedy movie in the lounge, laughing along with them. But like a good host, he did not ask too much about our stories, unless of course we wanted to share. He even walked with us in our almost 2 hour walk (see below), and rowed for us!

I have never seen someone so lively and active at such an age, and I hope that I have half his spirit and energy when I am his age! I was truly inspired by him, and he is the main reason I wanted to write about this trip here. 

Activities

On Saturday, we went for a walk in the nearby reserve (Ferntree Gully Environmental Reserve). It was a nice walk with medium difficulty. We first went down a couple of steps and were surprisingly soon in the midst of tropical vegetation, with tall ferns and huge trees and roots between huge rocky mountains. Again, I was amazed by the silence and peace I could 'hear' here. I HAD to stop, stay back for a few minutes and listen to it. It was just too wonderful to put into words.

On our way back, we also went rowing in the lake in the Wollemi National Park, about 1 hour from our accommodation. Here are some snaps of the route and lake itself. Excuse the dark photos as the sun was playing hide and seek all day yesterday, and I unfortunately did not manage to take any sunny ones.

If you are planning to visit Rylstone, the town itself is a small neat row of few small shops including a Chinese restaurant, which I am told sells nice dumplings. Further shops, including a fair sized IGA with a bottleshop, are located in Kandos, less than 10 minutes drive from Rylstone town centre. But I do encourage you to visit Jan in his Relano Village (4263 Bylong Valley Way, Rylstone) if you do think of staying for a day or two. Jan will take reservations at 0428482650.

My TTC Update

Back to my main topic, I am at the start of a new cycle, and I have emailed my clinic to book me in. I am hoping that when I meet my FS on Thursday, she gives me a go ahead. Its going to be a long down cycle, so I still have few days before I start any jabs, but I am already eager to start, just so that I can move on.

During the trip, I did not mention to anyone that I had gone gluten free. So I am sure when I refused to eat this and that, they thought I was too fussy. Hopefully they were in a holiday mood, and so not in the mood to judge me. Even if they did, I am going to not care.

At the start of each weekend or long weekend, or any other holiday, I am surprised at how much the holidays mean to me, although I am staying at home practically doing nothing rest of the week these days. The search for work, trying to improve my skills, or simply obsessing about TTC must be more draining than the 5 days of work I used to do! Anyway, here is what my extra long Easter weekend held for me:

Kids, kids and more kids

It started off with visiting a very good friend of ours, who now has a 3-month old son. It was really nice to hold the small guy and just watch him watch you. Then we went to pick up my sister-in-law, and her 2 and half years old son to spend the Easter weekend with us. The little guy was hilarious, cute, exhausting and impossible at the same time. Through the tantrums and the nursery rhymes and his never ending stories which didn't make sense, we found ourselves laughing and cuddling him a lot. They went back on Monday morning, and I then went on Monday and Tuesday to volunteer at Sydney Royal Easter Show and saw children of all ages, sizes, and temperaments! I was helping children board on/off the Aero Medical Simulator provided by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Eastern Section), and was amazed by the excitement with which the kids wanted to get on the plane and inside the flight deck, pushing buttons, and trying the controls. Two or three kids persuaded their parents to come back 3 or 4 times, and among them was a small kid less than 2 years old! Its a pity I didn't take my own pictures at the event, but I took a few related pics off their website,  facebook page and twitter below.

The Royal Flying Doctors Service provides excellent service to the Australian community, providing 24-hour emergency support wherever required, but additionally, also provides primary health service and programs to the rural communities, providing medical assistance to over 290,000 people every year. It was an honour to help them out, and if you are interested too, you could support them here, or just visit them in one of their shows or their bases if you are nearby.

Continuing our TTC story

We also discussed this week that we are ready to be back in the IVF train. I am expecting my periods in a day or two, and I will book myself into the clinic when that happens. Its again going to be a long down cycle, so the transfer will probably happen in June. It however depends on my thyroid levels. I have an appointment with my FS, who is also an endocrinologist, on May 1, and I am hoping that by that time, my thyroid levels will have come back to normal as they were quite low last time.

Having so many kids around me this Easter scared me a bit at the beginning, as I felt myself so inexperienced dealing with them, but I got the hang of it soon, and I was even more sure that I wanted this for us sooner if possible.  

Infertility around me

On Saturday, we had the couple from next door and a mutual friend (through DH's work) over for dinner. The friend is pregnant and has gestational diabetes, and while talking about pregnancy in general, I found out that our neighbors were also struggling with infertility, and thinking of starting IVF. The lady had Endometriosis, and that was probably her main cause. We talked about the emotions we go through every month, and how it is so draining, and also talked about how people don't understand and keep asking about when we are planning to have a baby. I have made a mental note to help and support my neighbor out in the process whenever I can, as I really understand how lonely and frustrating the journey can become at times.

Gluten and dairy free living

It has just been about a month since I started this diet, and I am already wondering how people who follow this diet are doing it so gracefully? I am already struggling with what to eat, even though my main diet has always been rice. How do you people manage when travelling? For example, during the Easter show, although I had lunch before I left for my 1pm shift, I was hungry by the time I had my first break, but I couldn't find anything to eat. The gluten free sandwiches were gone, or had butter or cheese. The Gluten free muffin had no ingredients written, so I wasn't sure if it was dairy free (probably not). I was given a breakfast bar one day saying it was gluten free, but next day, they said it wasn't! I had quickly looked at the ingredients before eating it the day before, and it had looked fine to me, but when they said it wasn't gluten free, just flour free, I wasn't sure anymore. The worst part of it was that I asked if they had anything else gluten free, and the woman laughed and said water (I had a water bottle already in my hand!), as if I was following this diet to lose weight, and I was being paranoid, because I obviously didn't die eating the bar the day before! I was lucky to have a few small "samples" of gluten free sausages in the food section at the end of my shift, and bought some dairy free chocolates and a nice caffeine free herbal tree, so at least I wasn't still pissed off when I boarded the train for my 1-hour ride back home. 

My husband has planned a get away with three more couples for this long weekend the coming weekend, and I am already dreading it. I only know one of those couples, and I am not too comfortable restricting where or what they all can eat because of me. I don't even want to have to explain why I am doing this, cause obviously, the first thing a lot of people think about when they hear gluten free is that I am trying to lose weight, and I am the exact opposite. I can say I am not looking forward to it at this stage...

10 years ago, on 04/04/04, I celebrated my birthday, and cut a cake for the first time in my life. At 25, I was at the top of the world. 10 years later, I wasn't looking forward to this day which would mean I am over the 35yo mark - the mark I was determined to not cross before having a family, because I had read of increased risks and difficulties faced by both the mom and the bub, and just didn't want to do it. How life changes your view on things! Now, I just admire the courage with which women (of any age) climb mountains just to be blessed by a child. 

Well, my update is that the results of my Coeliac screening came out negative. Although a biopsy is said to be the sure way to confirm the presence or absence of the disease, I decided against doing a biopsy since I do not have any definite symptoms that makes me think that I may have the disease. At least nothing that Hypothyroidism doesn't explain. So, since this Monday, I am now completely on Gluten free diet on top of the Dairy free diet that I was trying out before, in order to try to rule out any food insensitivity I may have. I didn't think it was going to be this hard though - my main meals almost always consists of rice due to my Asian background, so all I had to do was to healthily snack in between with fruits and nuts and stuff. But that was easier said than done. I have never been a fan of nuts, and fruits, there is a limit to how much I can eat a week. I can't change my fussy eating habits in a week. So what did my gluten free week look like? Besides protein, I ate lots of different varieties of rice based dishes - rice with curries, fried rice, pancakes made of rice flour, rice puffs, rice noodles, beaten rice (specialty of my country back home), risotto and the list goes on. Although that does not sound like fun, I didn't mind that part. However, I found that I am getting hungrier between meals each day. I really need to learn new gluten free dishes, and incorporate them to my daily meals soon.

I did try baking a gluten free cake today using gluten free flour I found in the supermarket. It wasn't the best looking cake, and I mistakenly put a bit more cinnamon than I intended, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised with the taste. I had read a lot of people say it took them a lot of experimenting to get their gluten free cakes right, so I guess my expectation was pretty low, so maybe that helped! I hope I can improve the post the recipe online after trying to fix a few ingredients soon. I also tried some home made dumplings (my favourite food in the past) using the same gluten free flour, and although it looked great and tested fine, I could not eat a lot of them. And so my journey continues on....

Officially, since I am on a 'break' from IVF for a while, I should not be here, I should not even be thinking about TTC related things. But of course that is easier said than done. So these are the items that are keeping me sane, thinking that I am still doing something:

Thyroid checkup

I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism back in 2004. Stupid of me, but I did not take any action until 2008, only when I was barely able to keep awake due to my extremely fatigued thyroid. But since then, after taking Thyroxine regularly, it has been in control. Or so I thought. My thyroid levels seem to fluctuate between various tests. Also, I hadn't noticed earlier that my blood test ordered by my FS back in August contained results for Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies (TPOAb), and that it was quite high (>1000 IU/mL, where normal range should be 0-35). So in the last few weeks, I read about TPOAb, and how it could cause infertility (basically, the antibodies could attack the embryos thinking it was a foreign substance). There is no scientific solution yet to reduce these antibodies or reverse the immunity war inside my body unfortunately. However, I came across a few bloggers mentioning that the antibodies may be triggered due to certain food allergies. So, my first plan of attack is to keep my thyroid regularly checked up, and next is to try to eliminate common allergens from my diet. 

Good food bad food

As the first attempt to see if I have allergies to food items, I have gone dairy free for more than two weeks now. Its not been easy for me as I depend on dairy items, I just love them. One of the few Hypothyroidism symptoms that I don't have is weight gain. Instead, I have always struggled with gaining weight. In fact, my FS warned me not to lose any weight. So this restriction of food I love is killing me. So while I am waiting for the fuller control of food to kick in (see next section below), I am feeding myself dairy free food from the fast food nearby to attempt to gain some weight before it falls all over again. It is probably 1 step forward and 1 step back, but I think the real test will be the next stage of my food watching anyway, so I am going to keep my faith in junk food alive till then. 

Coeliac disease screening

Coeliac disease is an another autoimmune disease, this one is caused by intolerance to Gluten (protein found in Wheat, rye, barley, and oats), which in turn causes small intestine cells to be attacked/inflamed resulting of course in low absorption. But besides other symptoms, infertility is one of the known outcomes of the disease. So while waiting for the next round of IVF, I decided to get myself checked for this disease, hopefully to rule it out. I have given my blood sample today, and will probably go for intestinal biopsy after the results are out. One of the requirements for Coeliac disease screening is that I should not be currently following Gluten free diet. But, with or without the test being positive, as soon as the tests for this disease is complete, I plan to go Gluten free. I may not have the actual disease, but I might still have the allergy (to be confirmed). Meanwhile, I am continuing my research on the disease, and Gluten free life. 

If you have any tips on how to maintain a dairy free and gluten free diet, and not break your budget or go crazy, please, I'd love to hear from you!

I had to try and see if writing this out helps. I wrote about my BFN before. I wrote about my faith being shaken, but I was actually still quite calm for quite a while after that, probably because my periods were not here yet. Well, its here now, and with it, the emotions, and positivity went downhill as expected.

Yesterday, two days after my official BFN, my sleep was broken by something at the very early hours of the morning, and the first thing that appeared on my mind was the line from Pharrell William's song 'Happy' - I was 'singing' "Because I'm happie ee ee" in my mind before my mind was sane enough to think anything. A few long seconds later, the next thing that came into my mind was "I wish". Of course, the second thought was the one that suited my circumstances better. Because I started spotting soon after midday.

I think this article sums up quite well what happens after a BFN - Kübler-Ross model, commonly referred to as the "five stages of grief" - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, although I did not have those steps distinctly and in that order. Wednesday to early Friday morning, I was mostly in the Denial phase. I was thinking - the two different brands of pregnancy test strips that I used might just had been ruined by the summer heat in the past few weeks (although they were not in direct sunlight of course). Or like the very small percentage of women out there, maybe it won't show in the tests until I am 5 or 6 weeks. Just imagine the surprise my FS gets when I tell her that actually, the test result has changed. Or so many other crazy things like that. The sane side of my brain was saying that my periods is delayed just because I just came off crinone, and although I am a bit late according to my O date, I am still within the 28 day cycles that I sometimes have. But who listens to the Mr Sane Corner?

By the end of Friday morning, Anger had started to creep in, as I could feel what was in store that day. My usual morning prayers were distracted and forced at best. I was mostly asking him what I had done wrong (although someone who saw me praying probably thought I was an epitome of someone with total faith and at perfect zen). The Bargaining phase had started quite early for me, before the official test date for me, as I was not getting ANY symptoms. It continued till Friday afternoon. Reduced or no caffine, more healthy food, water, fruits, nuts, you name it. But by Friday evening, I was thinking what's the point. Depression kicked in quite quickly. I could not see any sense in controlling anything anymore. Wine, here I come. Forget about getting ready for the difficult interview that I don't have a lot of time to prepare. In fact, since we decided to get some time off IVF, maybe I should go back on pills so that I don't obsess about conceiving naturally. I even blamed myself for not taking care of my hypothyroid early as soon as it was detected in 2004. I was young and foolish thought that I am not going to depend on a tablet daily for rest of my life. Without reading into the consequences. I was sure that is coming back to bite me now.  Maybe I deserve it for being so arrogant. I cried myself to sleep. And got angry at my husband that he was not weepy like me (who does that?).

I am yet to get to the Acceptance phase. I am waiting to get the "its going to be OK" perspective. I know it will be difficult as there is no concrete pliean for now, except to wait a bit longer before doing anything. But I know I will at least be counting my blessings soon enough.

Maybe the song was stuck in my mind for a good reason. Even if it is totally opposite to what I am feeling, the music does lift my spirit. A bit.  And I find myself tapping my feet and even dancing to it sometimes. Even though I am feeling sad inside. See, I am already counting my blessing. This time for the Pharrell William's song. Baby steps is what I am deciding to call it.

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I'm happie ee ee