So, as may be expected (and perhaps bending prior to the inevitable soft pressure already applied in encouraging words and gifts of leftover fertility kits, tests, monitors, and books from more than one or two of my already-married lady-friends), Andrew and I are officially not trying not to conceive. Which is not quite trying to conceive (a state-of-apparent-purgatory casually referred to as TTC, as I have come to realize from brief internet dalliances on the subject). I stopped taking birth control about three months ago in the hopes that I'd be one of those lucky gals who burst forth from her suspended fertility with pullullating ova abounding. Perhaps not. But, as a lawyerly type, I did want to anticipate any potential problems and either address or make peace with them before we age into that murky territory of mid-thirties. In a sense, I just want to know if it's something I even can do, having children. And ovulating seems like a good start towards ascertaining that.
And I have reason to be a little concerned that the road to tabloid blarings about baby bumps may be stymied by some other bumps along the road: I'm over thirty, for instance, meaning I am no longer of the ripe young age to sneeze and have triplets; I haven't gotten my period back quite yet (I know, early for some women), and I'm underweight as I know from the semi-annual . While most people constantly battle their habits and set-points to grasp downwards, I've been on the "I'm working on gaining a few" treadmill (treadmill possibly not helping here!) since about December 2011.
When I first posted about my weight gaining resolution, it was met with an olio of responses from unhelpfully "helpful" advice to appropriately delicate support to a few notes basically protesting "but you are so slim and graceful as you are!" Life is complicated. I have already mentioned that it can be psychologically challenging to battle one's own habits to do something that I would still say society views as morally shady. Losing weight has become a paragon of twisted virtue in American society, and the vociferousness of the opposition to that idea perhaps proves that fact more readily than anything else. Being thin, if anything, is also a sign of status in this country, being as it is associated with more disposable income to spend on healthier foods and time to spend thinking about fitness. More so, though, it's just been a challenge, as all major changes are. When I'm stressed, I revert to old habits like every one. These just happen to be not eating as much and moving more. And tastes alter depending on how you eat. I don't like the kinds of foods that make people pudge up. I like celery! Genuinely! People still basically think I am willfully dieting when I refuse the added butter or cheese in food, and have the kind of feedback that could be boiled down to "why can't you just eat more pizza?" Mostly, because I don't like pizza and the binge eating guilt-free fantasy many people think I've just stumbled into... not appealing and it makes my stomach hurt.
Of course, I have made some significant changes in my diet over the last year: worked in all kinds of calorie dense fats from nuts, avocados, grains, legumes, etc. I've been eating full fat dairy and having more of my cafes au lait. I'm weight training for a different kind of weight gain (different story, but I am thirty, after all). And it was gradually working... but then I went off and (1) got married, (2) went off that darned birth control. I may not have thrown a bridzeillatastically explosive kind of wedding, but it still was apparently a bit stressful. And, well, my body seemed to have a lot of water weight to immediately discard as I begin continue this journey back through my awkwardest puberty (I'm expecting to grow a few more inches before second-menarche, here!)
If only people really could just give me a little bit of their fat like they're always joking. In the meantime, I've been slowly recovered the pre-wedding poundage, but at this pound, it's just too gradual.
As plotted out in my post-pill timeline, I checked in with the doctor this week. We went through the same script that we have for the past couple of years: (1) he tells me that my career is awful and the older lawyers ate their young by screwing us recent grads, (2) he asks a few due diligence questions to ascertain whether I've suddenly become anorexic, (3) he spends about forty minutes brainstorming various foods I could eat that sound kind of hippy-dippy, but maybe have some caloric value gravity about them. This time he seemed to have given up a bit and finally said "you know I would recommend your diet to basically 99% of my patients, but for the time being, if you want to start cycling again, start getting some junk processed foods." We did agree that I could eat falafel more often. And he was a big fan of Great Harvest Bread (as he often is). Otherwise he liked the idea of frying all items in my current dietary repertoire and eating ice-cream. He thinks my body continues to be in survival mode and maybe I just need some processed foods that efficiently deliver calories for the body without all the hassle of natural foods. Regardless of whether he's right, it appears to be my next step in not trying not to conceive. Unless the obligatory blood test says something else, but I doubt it will (other than "you have difficult veins and lots of puncture marks now!")
We'll see how far I take that, but I guess that's my mandate: remember how to like oreos? As another acceleration to my gradual changes, I think it means adding oils to more things, adding even more calorically dense grains in preference to vegetables, drinking more juice, doubling up anything dense, and considering more processed foods for a while.
This morning I started with a double helping of teff for breakfast number one (eggs, flaxmeal and avocado sandwich is number two, followed by a snack of cashews and rye crackers mid-morning and some dark chocolate with Andrew when he wakes up - really, I do eat nearly all the freakin' time). I can't decide if it's appropriate or ominous that I started with Ethiopia's staple grain. Aren't they starving over there? I welcomed the morning with that (W)right run-gym extravaganza, also not exactly burning a hole in my calories-in-over-calories-out ratio.
So consider this my official war on fat-lessness... for a while. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. And if you see me around and it looks like I've gained weight: it's ok to congratulate me on it. Really.
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