ohhh, hey! happy thanksgiving eve! i am so SO SO flipping pumped for a four day weekend. you have no idea. or maybe you do.
it’s been a little crazy around these parts and the blog has, once again, fallen to the bottom of the batting order. i had plenty of other stuff driving me batty this week, though. i am sure part (most) of it has to do with the fact that i started taking clomid last friday.
i initially wasn’t going to talk about any of my fertility stuff, but quite a few people have asked me to touch on the topic, so i guess i’ll give the people what they want! i was going to keep quiet about it partially because this isn’t the ovulation tribune, but also because every case is different and talking in depth about health issues can sometimes make people think what works for me will work for them (which is what happened with my GI issues awhile back.) but as long as you know whatever i say is what’s working (or not working) for me and i am under the care of professionals, then i think i can talk a little bit about it. soo.. right now following the doctors orders and we have come to a point where i’ve been prescribed clomid. clomid is used for a variety of reasons when struggling to conceive. in my case, i ovulate suuuuper late–like around day 25-27 in my cycle–so they are thinkin’ clomid will move that up and this baby making thing can happen.
anyway, the clomid is making me FREAKING CRAZY. side effects include irritability, mood swings, hot flashes, and the feeling that you are two breaths away from an anxiety attack 24/7. at least that’s what’s going on with me.. maybe not the case for everyone. i hope it works because it’s really a pain in the butt to deal with. i am sure those around me will agree, ha!
okay, only a couple paragraphs in and i’ve already discussed my cycle. sorry about that! i will try to keep hush hush on the baby biz and stick to meals & moves the majority of the time. i just know that others are going through the same sort of thing i am, although all our stories are different, so it’s sometimes nice to relate.
let’s change the subject by showing you a cute photo of marshall and the pups. penny fell asleep on his hand. awww.
that was last night.. but tonight isn’t much different! we are having a mellow night in. actually it’s 10:36 PM and we just finished dinner. yeahhh.. it was a late one tonight! i was caramelizing onions at 9:47 PM.
side note: i love this cute wooden spoon that my friend eden had custom made way back in the day. isn’t it cute?! owl and all.
other side note: to caramelize your onions super quick, use heather’s method.
i made this chicken & onion dish that i make about once every 2 months.
it’s not too pretty to look at (go to the recipe link to see fancy pics)..but it tastes AMAZING! we always serve it over different things.. quinoa, bread, pasta.. this time it was rice! so good.
there was a casualty in the making of this dinner. i freaking grated my fingers off while grating the gruyere. ouch. good thing i had hello kitty bandages to the rescue!
rewind to before dinner–i hit the gym for a late night quickie. i didn’t get to the gym until just after 8 because marshall and i went to see our friends and their new baby! brittany and dave had a sweet little boy the other day and he’s the cutest thing ever. congrats to them!
anyway, my workout.. it was quick and good and i made it up on the fly. i loved it a lot so i thought i would share.
if you aren’t familiar with all the moves, here are the links:
- double unders
- kettlebell swings
- bulgarian split squats
- bench hop overs
- bench tuck crunches
- supinating biceps curls
- lateral box hops
- mountain climbers
this took around 30 minutes, told you it was a quick one. i wanted to get my heart rate up and work up a sweat, but i also was short on time. this definitely did the trick. FYI, i used a 30# kettlebell and used 15# dumbbells for the squats and curls.
oh! guess who won the doggy daycare football pool again?!
yay! that’s the fourth time this season. can you see how excited they are about it???
randy can barely contain his excitement. i’m pretty pumped, though! we have won 25% of the time, so that’s rad. we didn’t win once last year haha. when we win, penny and randy get free baths.. yay!
ok..i am gonna go find this album on iTunes now.. i heard a song on the radio and i shazammed it immediately because my ears liked it…
anybody listen to cage the elephant? i am hoping the rest of the album is as good as this song i heard!
mmmmkay, happy thanksgiving! go pack go and eat lots of delicious food! thanks for reading my random wednesday rambles. love you all.
xo. janetha g.
So cute that they win football! I love that they go to day care.
Also great workout – I’m a little scared of it though!
I really hope the clomid works for you because I can only imagine how hard is to go through these moments and knowing that we can’t control many things.
happy thanksgiving!
good luck with all your fertility meds!!
Have a FANTASTIC thanksgiving!!! Good luck with the clomid- keeping my fingers crossed for you. Caramelized onions? Gah- so so good. Congrats to the puppers ;)
jenn nims and I were talking about you yesterday. Yes, i got to meet up with her. And i wish you were there. Minus the clomid.
I’m on clomid at the moment as well and I can relate! Luckily for me it’s just been the hot flashes so far. Good luck with it all, I’m just on it to try and sort out my periods, not to try and conceive just yet, but very hopeful it’s going to help get my body to the right place :-)
It’s funny you posted about “cage the elephant” because when I first heard it (and shazammed it), I thought, ” oh, that’s the band Janetha likes.” Until I realized it’s “minus the bear” who you like. Ha! Bears, elephants, they’re all similar. ;)
eek good luck with clomid, a friend of mine did it on/off for years but she finally did get her son! i quit BC pills a couple years ago and i’m ‘regular’ for me but for most it would be strange. i use iPeriod to track and i average anywhere from 32-50 day cycles so i feel your pain! but then again, i feel like at least i am getting it on my own one way or another right?
happy thanksgiving!!! MOAR turkey :)
Wow, I have forgotten about bench hop overs! Thank you for the reminder. Dang, when I do those, my shoulders get tired before anything else, isn’t that crazy?? Happy Thanksgiving!!
Happy Thanksgiving, Janetha! Sorry to hear a out Clomid, but I am so excited to hear that you are trying! You and Marshall will be in my prayers! Here’s to some good news, soon! Hang in there! Much love!
Girl, you should never feel you need to apologize for what you choose to share (or not share) on YOUR blog. :) Hang in there!
Janetha! What an awesome workout! Apparently I wasn’t paying attention when my boxing club said they were closed today, so I drove over to Club Fitness and did the above workout. What a great workout…talk about sweaty! Thanks for the workout inspiration, now I can enjoy my turkey and all the fixins guilt free. Have a great Thanksgiving!
Oh man, I can relate to the clomid nightmare! Fertility things are no joke. Pregnancy has been sort of dramatic too, but I’m so excited to meet our little girl. I’m excited for you guys!
Clomid is rough, but worked for me.
Good luck!
I blogged about that Cage the Elephant song on music monday a couple weeks ago…I’ll be honest, I like the song but not really the rest of the album that much. Historically, I’m not that big of a cage the elephant fan so I was more surprised that I even liked the one song, BUT to each it’s own. Go listen to it on Spotify!
I’m on clomid too right now! I think it’s great to share what you’re going through, because at least for me it makes me feel like I’m not alone. And P.S. the hot flashes ARE awful.
haha glad you can relate. good luck with everything :) xoxoxo
janetha – please let me know if i can be of any support to you during this time… i’ve been through it :) and like you said, everyone is differently, but i can always be an ear to listen (or eyes to read?) just want you to know I’M HERE & you’re not alone xoxo
thank you, love! so excited for you!!
I’ve done the clomid thing as well (6 iuis, non-consecutively). I didn’t notice any side effects the first month, but by the last cycle I had some insomnia, crabbiness, bloating, and hot flashes in the night. Yarg.
It seems like the luteal phase is more important than the day of ovulation, however I’m no medical doctor!!!
It took me a few YEARS to get a regular cycle of 29-33 days after going off of the pill. Now I’m a huge proponent of using the pointers in Taking Charge of Your Fertility to time birth control or trying for a baby instead of using the pill. Those artificial hormones can have some long-term effects. Blech.
Anyway…one natural supplement that I tried for 3 months and seemed to lessen the days of my cycle by several days was Vitex (Chaste Tree Berry). Take that for what you will! I also see sort of a casual relationship between my body fat percentage and length of my cycle…the lower my bf, the later in my cycle I ovulate. Ho hum.
And now you know everything about me.
I appreciate all this! Thank you for commenting and opening up! Very interesting.. all of it. I was on the pill for 10 years, I am sure that has a lot to do with this. Thank you again!
Hey, Janetha! Just wanted to throw it out there that I am 100% not a baby person, could care less about any of it, but I still don’t mind when you talk about it! It’s your life, it’s relevant to a lot of people, and you still write in such an engaging and entertaining way that I read it all with interest! So you just keep on doin’ you, and I’ll keep on reading!
awww that is so sweet! thank you, colleen! xoxo
STOP taking the pill ASAP! There horror stories all over from taking that pill.
The western medical industrial complex (hospitals, doctor’s offices, emergency rooms, etc and yes, even OBGYN clinics) love to hand out pill for all our ills, ailments, and/or to stop something from happening/start something, when really, they don’t know much about the after affects of that pill. Girl, get rid of the food you eat and go Paleo. Stop working out like you do to look like some man with muscles, and let your body be what it is, womanly, while putting nutrient dense (which DOES NOT include, wheat, pasta noodles, coffee, or grains of any kind; they are all really bad for us humans) foods in your system. Start googling some of the horror stories from that pill you’re taking and then googlehomeopathic ways to become fertile again. You will be thanking yourself.
I tried not to respond to this because Janetha certainly doesn’t need a white knight. But really, the last thing that any woman struggling with infertility or pregnancy loss needs is to read that above nonsense.
Just…what an insulting, inane and utterly asinine comment. And that’s me being nice.
Thanks, Meagan!
I appreciate your concern but I don’t believe the Paleo diet is the cure-all for fertility issues. I realize I will get comments like this when opening up about my health issues, that’s the way it goes. However, I don’t think you have any idea what my body fat percentage is. It actually is at the top end of the normal range–not even in the lean or very lean range as it has been in years past. I am not trying to look like a man with muscles, last time I checked it was beautiful for women to be strong and possess muscles. Since when did only men get to have muscles? And women are supposed to be skin, bones, and fat? Um, no. Muscle mass is very important, not for appearance but for health. I eat very nutritious foods, I know some people love Paleo, but I personally do not. My infertility issues have nothing to do with my muscle mass, body fat percentage, or diet. I have had all those things looked into and I am in a healthy spot with all of the above.
Good Luck!! I feel that way for a week before my TOM its horrible!
thanks for the tip on how to caramelize onions quickly!
no prob! it’s such a game changer!
Sorry to hear you are having a hard time on Clomid! After the demise of google reader I fell off the blog wagon and decided to catch up on my favourites this morning. Happy Thanksgiving!
awww so happy to hear from you xoxoxo
I love that you’re sharing your trying for baby stories! You’re a few months ahead of us on the let’s make a baby train (going on a 10 day vacay in Feb, I don’t want to be the pregnant one a midst all the partying :)), but I’ve always assumed it will just “happen” for me. More and more, I’m hearing of friends/acquaintances my age really struggling to get pregnant so I’m grateful for people like you that share and allow me to get an idea of what I might be in for.
Good luck with the baby making! I was on Clomid for a few months awhile back…I finally know what menopause feels like! Those hot flashes are insane!
I have no idea if you have read this book by Toni Weschler, Taking Charge of Your Fertility but I highly recommend it. The book is amazingly informative and charting really helped us to conceive. My cycle was 45 or so days prior to children. We never would have had children had I not figured that out. There is a website as well: http://www.tcoyf.com. I recommend this book for all women. It is eye opening!
i haven’t even heard of it! ordering it NOW. thank you, katie!
I just wanted to send you a fellow late ovulater some hope! I’m currently pregnant and always ovulate late, between day 23-27 ending up with around 40 day cycles and actually ovulated cycle day 23 the cycle I got pregnant. We had been trying for a year and I had just started taking Vitex. I would also recommend the book Making Babies and their 3 month program. Hang in there! I know it’s hard to hear when you’re going through it but it will happen when it’s suppose to!
thanks for sharing! good luck with the clomid :) i’ve been going through similar fertility struggles. haven’t dipped into the clomid yet (though i feel it’s coming soon), but i have found that weekly acupuncture has started to get my cycles back to something “normal.” as you said, everyone is different, but i’ve also heard many use acu in conjunction w/ clomid to alleviate some of the symptoms you mentioned above :)
ALSO, highly second the recommendation of “taking charge of your fertility” and would add on “making babies.” it’s co-written by Sami S. David (a western MD) and Jill Blakeway (holistic). I’ve found it incredibly informative and definitely depicts a fair yin and yang (pun fully intended, mwaha) of both medical approaches.
good luck!!
thank you for the input! i love acupuncture and totally believe in it. i have been meaning to get back there, really need to!
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