Not The Whole Story...

Some of you may have seen the recent addition of Consumer Reports--in which the cover basically asks, "Will a gluten-free diet really make you healthier?"

The answer, according to Consumer Reports, is that the gluten-free products available on the market (i.e. the processed foods available that are labeled 'gluten-free') can actually be less healthy for you than conventional products.

Well, duh. Eating a bunch of processed, pre-packaged food of ANY kind isn't healthy. The implication of the Consumer Reports article is that cutting gluten from your diet isn't healthy for you. The unfortunate assumption here is that eating "gluten-free" means you don't make any of your own food and only eat things that come in boxes. :)

Part of the reason I try to bake stuff from scratch is that it lets us use ingredients that are better for us. For example, I made homemade waffles about two weeks ago. The husband, a Type 1 Diabetic, dosed for these waffles as if they were similar to white flour waffles (about 30 grams of carbohydrate PER waffle). In the end, he took way too much insulin because the waffles I made (with flax meal, almond flour, and bean flour) were 9 grams of carbohydrate per waffle. !

The best advice from Consumer Reports comes at the end of their article:

• Get your grains. Whether you’re on a gluten-free diet or not, eating a variety of grains is healthy, so don’t cut out whole grains. Replace wheat with amaranth, corn, millet, quinoa, teff, and the occasional serving of rice. 

• Shop the grocery store perimeter. Stick with naturally gluten-free whole foods: fruit, vegetables, lean meat and poultry, fish, most dairy, legumes, some grains, and nuts. 

• Read the label! Minimize your intake of packaged foods made with refined rice or potato flours; choose those with no-gluten, non-rice whole grains instead. Whenever you buy processed foods, keep an eye on the sugar, fat, and sodium content of the product.

In related news, I have yet another friend who has been told by a doc that she should try going gluten-free. To date, I've had four health professionals suggest eating an anti-inflammatory diet--no processed food, sugar, wheat, or dairy and more fruits, veggies, and water.

Gluten-free by Vlado; freedigitalphotos.net

I Love Someone Who Has Type 1 Diabetes

T-Shirt Available from Cafepress.com

I saw a shirt that said that: "I Love Someone Who Has Type 1 Diabetes".

On this, the day of our family walking in the American Diabetes Association's Step Out to Stop Diabetes*, I wanted to post that a) I love him and b) Harvard is trying to CURE diabetes, and it's amazing: "With human embryonic stem cells as a starting point, the scientists were for the first time able to produce, in the kind of massive quantities needed for cell transplantation and pharmaceutical purposes, human insulin-producing beta cells equivalent in most every way to normally functioning beta cells...hopes to have human transplantation trials using the cells under way within a few years."

The dudes who are in charge of the research both have kids with Type 1 Diabetes. Amazing.

*Lord willing, we'll make an annual thing out of it. We're terrifically bad at doing something year after year after year...

When Life Doesn't Look Like You Thought It Would...

I haven't blogged here in awhile because I don't want to. I don't have anything terribly uplifting to say. But I think it's time.

I just got rid of the last of our baby stuff. Well, that's not true--there's a stack of three bins and one trash bag full of baby girl clothes in the corner of the garage. I had one woman who was interested in buying them all at once but, as with so many Craigslist endeavors, it fell through.

This past July (my daughter's 4th birthday) marked two years that we've been trying to have a third child. If you've been keeping up with me, you know that during and after my daughter's pregnancy were kind of dicey. My body hasn't been the same since.

I was hoping that after this much time I'd be able to announce on this crazy blog that we had successfully had another baby!

Alas.

After two years of hoping, I decided it might be time to purge the leftovers of babyhood--the swing, the high chair, the clothes, the toys, the changing table, the books, the idea...

After four miscarriages and a chemical pregnancy, I don't make any baby name lists. I can't afford to get excited about another kiddo. I realize now that more cynical, pragmatic people are often less disappointed. I'm finally ready to get rid of all the crap I've been saving. Really, it's an act of self-defense. PURGE.

I know quite a few of you who struggled with/struggle with infertility or secondary infertility and I don't want to diminish any of our experiences by comparing. I do have two healthy, beautiful kids. I think what I mourn is the expectation and the idea that I had in my head of what my reality would be. I hope that makes sense. I think ALL of us do that, just in different ways:

• "I thought I would have as many kids as I ever wanted as easily as I dreamed!" 
• "I thought I would be married by now." 
• "I thought I would have my dream job by now." 
• "I thought I would like being married more." 
• "I thought I would not live in _____ anymore." 

You probably have your own version. So right now I'm trying to envision my life differently. I'm trying to see it as it IS with two kids and just be CONTENT and GRATEFUL. It's a pity that it doesn't come more naturally. 

In more mundane news, after the first two miscarriages I found it incredibly difficult to maintain a healthy diet because I was angry. Why try so hard when it obviously made no difference? Unfortunately, I'm finding it's still a good idea to eat a healthy diet and get my greens. Might have to dust off the juicer and try again--not for a future baby, but just for me. 

BPA: Everywhere Chemicals

I have written before (Parts 1, 2, & 3!) about BPA in plastics and how harmful they can be. I have tried to eliminate lots of plastics from our kitchen (but not totally, because $) to cut down on BPA exposure. Why do I care? Sure, because I don't want my kids to have health problems but also because of a potential elevated risk for miscarriage due to BPA exposure. :( Luckily the FDA has mostly taken BPA out of anything for children, but...

...a while back (gosh, like a year ago), a friend messaged me and added to the growing body of evidence that BPA is no good: "...a new study just came out about BPA and miscarriages. The results found that women who had the highest levels of BPA in their bloodstream were 80% more likely to miscarry. And keep in mind, BPA isn't just in bottles and plastic containers, but in food can linings and all cash receipts. The biochemist involved says it's too early to say if it's a causal link, but that it does add to the biological plausibility that BPA may impair fertility. Also, the endocrinologist involved suggested that, if possible, avoid canned foods, cooking and heating plastic, and avoiding unnecessary cash receipts." Info about the study can be found here. Scientists call "phthalates" (BPA is one) "everywhere chemicals" because they're so prevalent.

I've been thinking about this ever since because I can't find a way to avoid BPA. It. Is. Everywhere. We use canned foods sometimes (like beans for chili) and everywhere I shop they use bags and receipts that apparently have BPA in them.

I guess what it takes is more vigilance on my part, like remembering to bring reusable shopping bags to the store and putting my kid's school sandwiches in foil or wax paper instead of a baggie. Sigh. Sometimes caring about carcinogens, be it plastic, pesticides, etc. is exhausting. In the end, let's just say I'll try my best and accept that I can't totally avoid BPA. So say we all!

freedigitalphotos.net by khunaspix

Book Review: The Immune System Recovery Plan: A Doctor's 4-Step Program to Treat Autoimmune Disease

There's a book I came across, by Dr. Susan Blum, that I love. It doesn't have any new info, per se, but she includes solid diet recommendations and recipes.

A fave quote: "It seems to me that we have been conducting a huge experiment on humans for the past sixty years...Since World War II, we have created and been exposed to thousands of chemicals and toxins with unknown health impacts and side effects. Some chemicals were removed from the market after it was discovered that they caused cancer...the cumulative effects of all these toxins has created a big toxic load on your body without your knowing it."

1. Using Food As Medicine

The gist? Food can be used to combat inflammation and curb autoimmune disease processes.

On gluten: "...keep in mind that every food has the potential to cause an immune reaction, not just gluten, although gluten is the most important for autoimmune disease...People often ask me why there is a bigger problem with gluten today than ever before...The answer is twofold. First, you are exposed to more gluten today than ever before, and second,...your digestive system is a mess..."

On sugar: "One really dangerous type of carbohydrate is sugar. A diet containing processed sugar is associated with increased inflammation and impaired function of the immune cells called T cells and B cells...there is plenty of research on sugar and immune function...this kind of diet is unhealthful and has been linked to heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. In fact, it's linked to all chronic disease."

Lump Sugar by Suat Eman

I love sugar. Tough one for me. General recommendations from Dr. Blum:

• Good Fats--avocado, coconut oil, fish, nuts, or seeds. 
• Colorful Fruits and Veggies
• Vitamin D
• Selenium and Zinc
• Green Tea

2. Stress and Inflammation

Yup, they're linked. Stress can lead to adrenal fatigue which, as I can understand it, is just when you push your body to the brink-wake up early (drink coffee), stay up late, eat stuff that's bad for you, repeat--you get the idea.

3. Healing Your Gut

"...70 percent of your immune system lives in your gut." Such a shame that decades of antibiotics kill bad bacteria and good bacteria.

"Beneficial bacteria also seem to help the immune system learn the difference between your own tissue and a foreign substance..."

Good bacteria basically help balance out the immune system and regulate it--your immune system might get inflamed and 'stuck' making T cells (the cells that attack an 'intruder') but good bacteria will help prevent that from happening. Recommendations to help your gut:

• No Sugar *sob*
• Whole Grains
• Coconut Oil
• Probiotics
• Fiber

4. Supporting Your Liver

See the opening quote above--toxins put strain on your liver. Stuff to help:

• Glutathione-antioxidant, made from the amino acids cysteine, glutamic acid, and glycine, found in poultry, yogurt, egg yolks, red peppers, garlic, onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and oats. 
• ALA (a fatty acid)-antioxidant, found in dark leafy greens and beef. 
• Chlorella, Cilantro, and Fiber-compounds that help remove heavy metals from your body.

This book can be summed up neatly--eat well, get better. :) If only it were that easy to DO what you know will be good for you...

Super Fertility! The Most Useless of Super Powers.

In researching miscarriage (yeah, just in general, because what else am I gonna do?), I came across some research that hypothesizes women who suffer from recurrent miscarriage have uteri (uteruses?) that are too accepting!

The hypothesis: "For years, researchers have searched for the reason why some women experience recurrent miscarriages. Now, a new study suggests some women's uteruses are just more conducive for implanting embryos, both healthy and unhealthy ones. The results may explain why these so-called "super-receptive" women often have multiple miscarriages."

The study, with women who had 'normal' fertility and also women with recurrent miscarriage: "In the lab, the researchers placed high- and low-quality embryos on channels in between strips of uterus cells of the two groups of women. Cells from the women with normal fertility rejected the low-quality embryos and began to grow toward the high-quality ones. Cells from the women with recurrent miscarriages reached out and grew toward both the high- and low-quality embryos."

Embryonic development by dream designs; freedigitalphotos.net

Only 1 in 100 women suffer from recurrent miscarriage. As another article explains it: "...the wombs of some women are too good at letting embryos implant, even those of poor quality which should be rejected."

Unfortunately, like everything else health-related, this is just a hypothesis with a fairly small study behind it. It's just an idea, with no solution or treatment plan presented alongside it. But, every little bit of new info helps, right? Onward with my acupuncture plan...

To Live Happily, Live Hidden

This blog post has nothing to do with the current state of my health, directly, but I'd like to make the argument that reading does much to benefit one's health generally. So, I submit to you, a review of a book that just...surprised me: Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of the Great American Fortune.

I thought I would skim this book and send it on back to the library, but instead I found I physically couldn't put it down. I started reading from part of the intro out loud because I couldn't help myself. My husband interrupted: "Is this real?"

Yes, yes it is. Dear Hollywood, please option this story.

This is the story of Huguette Clark. More than that, it's the story of her father, how he came to be filthy rich, what happened to his money after he died, and what became of Huguette. She was his youngest child out of 9 (though two died young). She was from his second marriage and, it appears, wasn't very connected to her half-sisters and half-brothers from her father's first marriage. When Huguette's father died, he split his wealth evenly among his children, but this doesn't stop Huguette's cousins (generations removed) from falling all over themselves to claim their 'inheritance' when Huguette dies. Huguette eventually became a recluse--only speaking to others through phone calls (but never giving our her own phone number) and indirectly through others. She owned hilariously extravagant properties and collector's items (you know, just a Monet, Renoir or Stradivarius...). She was a closet philanthropist, handing out large sums of money easily to those close to her.

Her story is a twisted fairy tale, or, as the authors put it: "...the story of the Clarks is like a classic folk tale--except old in reverse, with the bags full of gold arriving at the beginning, the handsome prince fleeing, and the king's daughter locking herself away in the tower."

I particularly respected Huguette for, as it appears, choosing to live outside the spotlight. When her Renoir (valued at 10 million) was stolen and miraculously reappeared in someone else's home, she declined to sue to get it back just to protect her privacy. Her favorite French fable (which she could recite in THREE languages):

The Cricket

A poor little cricket

Hidden in the flowery grass,

Observes a butterfly 

Fluttering in the meadow.

The winged insect shines with the liveliest colors:

Azure, purple, and gold glitter on his wings; 

Young, handsome, foppish, he hastens from flower to flower,

Taking from the best ones.

Ah! says the cricket, how his lot and mine

Are dissimilar! Lady Nature

For him did everything, and for me nothing.

I have no talent, even less beauty;

No one takes notice of me, they know me not here below;

Might as well not exist. 

As he was speaking, in the meadow

Arrives a troop of children.

Immediately they are running

After this butterfly, for which they all have a longing.

Hats, handkerchiefs, caps serve to catch him.

The insect in vain tries to escape. 

He becomes soon their conquest. 

One seizes him by the wing, another by the body; 

A third arrives, and takes him by the head.

It should not be so much effort

To tear to pieces the poor creature. 

Oh! Oh! says the cricket, I am no more sorry; 

It costs too dear to shine in this world.

How much I am going to love my deep retreat!

To live happily, live hidden. 

Pour vivre heureux, vivons cache. 

When this book was published, Huguette's (greedy!) relatives were still contesting her will. She hadn't left a penny to them, but to those who kept her company and maintained her health on a day-to-day basis (who, frankly, also seem like greedy bastards). I'll be curious to see how this story ends. Are there really any winners after drawn-out, expensive legal battles? It pains me, though, to see Huguette get turned into a butterfly in the end, instead of remaining the cricket she clearly preferred.

Food for Thought

Grilled Chicken by markuso; freedigitalphotos.net

Along with most of America, my husband fell in love with Cross Fit. He found a gym he liked and soon enough he was trying a Paleo Challenge.

I didn't get it. Mind you, I do understand eating weird things and abstaining from eating weird things.

Dear Husband: "So I'm going on the Paleo Challenge. It's kind of a contest."

Me: "What's Paleo again?"

DH: "It's supposed to be based on what your ancestors were able to hunt and gather and eat...so you only eat what they did, mostly meat, veggies, some fruit."

Me: "Some fruit?"

DH: "Yeah, and no legumes--no peanuts, no beans at all..."

Me: "Wait a minute. Beans are good for you!"

DH: "Yeah..."

Me: "And also...wouldn't what your ancestors ate depend on their environment? I mean, if beans grew in a certain geographic area, then it would have been part of what was gathered and eaten, so....?"

DH: "Some of it I don't really see the sense in, but I'm going to try it for the month and just see."

So, turns out that Paleo was awesome for my husband, but mostly because a) he's a diabetic and b) Paleo eating forced him to cut out processed bread and sugar. I hope I don't have to spell out why that's good for a diabetic...

The basis behind it just doesn't make much sense to me and reminds me of the scarily stupid Atkins Diet (which, as my husband will tell you, forces your body into ketoacidosis, something a diabetic strives to avoid). 

Huff Post had a great article about this topic a million years ago:

"Although in theory this may seem like a sensible diet, particularly when removing sugar and salt, it has eliminated several food groups like dairy and grains, which provide essential nutrients, such as calcium, vitamin D, magnesium and phosphorus in dairy and B vitamins, fiber and antioxidants in grains," says Joy Dubost, a registered dietitian and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "Legumes also provide a great protein source with little fat and lower in calories while providing essential nutrients and fiber."

And on NPR they've found that ancient hunters and gatherers actually had horrible dental health. And: "There's not one kind of paleo diet," Humphrey says. "I think wherever people lived, they had to make best of the wild food resources available to them."

Chris Kesser has a whole article devoted to how beans can fit into a paleo diet.

Sigh. Anyway. As with anything, there's some good and some bad. Further, I've talked to different Paleo folks and they all 'do' Paleo a little differently. For the DH and I, we think that only good can come from cutting out most processed, refined foods (easier said than done), but I'm not sure if that's Paleo or just common sense.

Cartoon Caveman and Wife by Grant Cochrane; freedigitalphotos.net

Pokey Needles & Me

Silver Needle Acupuncture In Medicine Cup by Praisaeng

I've been getting acupuncture again because...why not? I've had it done only once before--with Cool Acupuncture Guy. One appointment equaled half of my monthly grocery budget, so...only the one time. (That and he got a little miffed with me when I moved and then ruined all his handiwork.)

After our last miscarriage, I thought, "Yes, acupuncture, why the hell not?!" My husband has a co-worker (so, you know, a medical-kind of person) who is a strong believer in acupuncture.

Turns out that if I go to an acupuncturist that my insurance approves of each appointment is only about $6!

The acupuncturist I found is lovely--she's my age, has a kid my kid's age, and is a delight. What struck me, the first time around, is that acupuncture is really incredibly long and boring. This time, I have absolutely no problem laying on my back with only a heat lamp and Enya music for company. Something about having four miscarriages really makes it easy to allow myself to rest.

The only surprise is ear acupuncture--that's a new one for me. I remember reading in a Chinese medicine book that our bodily systems are reflected/repeated all over--the bottoms of our feet, our palms, and apparently our ears. Still, having tiny needles jammed into my ear cartilage was a surprise the first time.

It's been lovely. I look forward to seeing Cute Acupuncture Lady every week and found out she was trained by Cool Acupuncture Guy. I win!

Concussion. Concussion?! Shmonshmussion!

So, as my Facebook friends are aware, I was rear-ended last week.

It wasn't so bad.

I was coming home at about 9:20 at night, after working in a library, and I slowed down suddenly for two deer that were directly in my lane. I thought to myself, "Oh, everyone behind me will see the deer and immediately understand my reason for slowing down and they will all slow down accordingly." Alas.

My accident report went something like this, "I saw deer. I slowed down. I was immediately rear-ended by the car behind me." It was so short I felt like I was going to fail some imagined test. "We're sorry, ma'am, your report doesn't satisfy the minimum word count."

Turns out the guy who rear-ended me was very nice, but immediately following the accident he got out of his car and asked, "Why'd you slow down?!" My reply wasn't as courteous as it could have been. Then, the woman behind him got out and demanded that we move, so that everyone could get on home. Gee, thanks for the concern, fellow human-being. Unfortunately for her, the car that had rear-ended me looked something like this*:

http://www.dailybulldog.com/db/features/two-people-transported-to-hospital-following-crash/

Yes, both wheels were on the ground. Yes, the windshield was intact. But most of the engine wasn't. It was leaking phenomenal amounts of radiator fluid and antifreeze.

Anyway. My husband thinks I have (had?) a concussion.

It would explain why, when the 911 operator asked where I was, I couldn't tell her. When I was asked my home phone number, I couldn't remember it. I remembered my cell and two old phone numbers before the relevant digits even entered my brain. When I worked in another library the very next day, I couldn't find the printer. The good news is that after some good sleeps and rest, I feel much more like myself again, you know, remembering where I am and everything.

I'm a little wary of driving right now, but I like to look at my Grandma-inspired-driving tendencies (going under the speed limit and avoiding driving after dark) as survival strategies rather than PTSD. :)

*It totally did cross my mind to take a pic of the car, the real-life car. Then I realized how callous and weird that was and totally didn't. 

This Is Real Life

Sometimes I feel like the universe speaks to us. Though, I personally would say that God is speaking to us.

Last week, I discovered a co-worker had had three miscarriages. This time I didn't even ask, it just came up in conversation. This time the information was offered up freely: "I had a miscarriage before my daughter and then two after my second daughter. And then eleven years later I had two more babies!"

And the very next day, I met a woman who had had FIVE miscarriages and then went on to have four children. What follows is a paraphrased (of course!) conversation.

Darlene*: "I'm a mom of four kids and I know how to parent!"

Me: "Four kids?! That's great."

"Yeah, after I had five miscarriages!"

"Really? I've had four, so it's really nice to talk to you. It's hopeful."

"Well, I can tell you, I had to have a D&C for all five and my OB wasn't helpful. I remember after my last miscarriage, he sat on my hospital bed and said, 'Darlene, you might think of giving up on making babies because you're not very good at it.' I was so angry it made me cry! I found another OB and when I had my daughter I called up my old OB's office and told him!"

"Did you do anything differently?!"

"Nope, something must have just clicked." 

Ladder Leading Up To The Sky by Sira Anamwong

Darlene said that she once went to a dinner with an LDS friend. There, she met a pregnant woman who had had TEN miscarriages. ! I can't even imagine.

I've said it before, but it's so nice not to be alone. I don't know if these women realize the gift they gave me, sharing their past and their (once upon a time) pain. I'm not sure if all the friends who have texted me or Facebook-messaged me to share their own miscarriages realize how much I appreciate it. 

Not a one of us is really in control of these things. But all of us can still afford to comfort each other. All of us can find room to be thankful and maybe even...hopeful.

*Names have been changed!

FrankenWheat

My husband has been reading Wheat Belly by William Davis. Basically, this book is about how horrible wheat is for us.

I know it just seems super trendy, but whatwith me not eating wheat (to recap--I have an auto anitbody to smooth muscle. Either this indicates autoimmune hepatitis, Celiac disease, or nothing at all) my husband was curious.

The highlights so far that Mr. Davis points out are that wheat has been altered genetically SO MUCH in the last century that it's no longer what it used to be. Eating bread can actually spike blood sugar more than sugar. Since Mr. Q is a Type 1 Diabetic, this is pertinent information. More than pertinent--life-changing.

Mr. Q has also noticed that when he eats no bread (but not necessarily no carbs) his blood sugar spikes less and is much more manageable. To me, this real-life evidence is worth more than the hype of being wheat-free.

An interesting read and definitely food for thought!

Frida Kahlo & Me

A long time ago when I was an art major (before I became an education major and eventually an English major!), one of my art professors introduced me to Frida Kahlo. At first, her art unnerved me but it was also fascinating. Now, as someone who has had a fair amount of miscarriages, I have a whole new perspective on her art. Some of you might know that Frida, as a result of an accident, wasn't ever able to have children. Of course, Frida also had many, many surgeries on her back as a result of that same accident. I suppose I can count myself grateful that I don't have that to deal with as well.

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932

In a series of letters she wrote to her physician, she writes: "Doctorcito querido: I have wanted to write to you for a long time than you can imagine. I had so looked forward to having a little Dieguito that I cried a lot, but it's over, there is nothing else that can be done except to bear it."

That's about the sum of it.

The Wounded Deer, 1946

The Broken Column, 1944

“I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.” 

Oily Bohunk*

I keep reading about this oil pulling business. Here at Diana Stone's blog and here at a blog I've never read before.

Everything I read from bloggers (and at least one person on Facebook) says it will whiten your teeth, help with bad breath, and generally help the health of your teeth. Some people seem to think it can cure disease processes.

Because I'm a Human Guinea Pig, I decided to try it. It's not so bad, but when coconut oil first hits your mouth, it's still solid. That's a strange texture to get used to-half-liquid and half-solid.

Coconut Oil

Snopes basically says it's dumb.

People who are into Ayurvedic medicine (an ancient Indian 'culture of healing') explain that "oil gargling" can purify the entire system. They believe that each "section of the tongue is connected to different organ such as to the kidneys, lungs, liver, heart, small intestines, stomach, colon, and spine..." which is why oil-pulling would be curative.

Dr. Weil takes a more moderate stance: "...I have been able to find only one scientific study on oil pulling. The study was designed to evaluate the effect of oil pulling on bacteria (Streptococcus mutans) in plaque and saliva of children, and to compare its antiseptic power with that of using a conventional mouthwash containing chlorhexidine. The researchers found a reduction in the bacteria count in the plaque and saliva samples in both the study and the control groups and concluded that oil pulling can help maintain oral health. The study was published in an Indian dental journal.

Bottom line: Oil pulling won't hurt you, but I wouldn't depend on it to help you improve your overall health or treat significant medical problems."

So, until I hear that it's bad for us, I'll give it a try! Results pending. 

*A 16 Candles reference. You should probably have already seen this fantastic 80s movie. 

How You Doin'?: Standing Dates with Medical Professionals

Today, I was reminded that I have an autoimmune disease (if not more than one, sneaky little buggers) because Harold Ramis from 'Ghostbusters' died from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis. :( This grieves me.

Onto an update.

Last Appointment with the Curly Haired Doc:

I went in after our last miscarriage to a) get a hysterosalpingogram and b) talk about my options going forward. The Flamingagram (as my good friend calls it) didn't show a damn thing. My uterus is, the doctors exclaimed during the appointment, "beautiful" and "perfect"! Even though that fluffs my ego a little bit, it doesn't do a whole lot for me. "Yes! I have the most beautiful, perfect uterus! Everyone with an ugly uterus can suck it. Now if only it would hold a baby..."

As far as other options, there's not much to offer. Curly Haired Doc was so sweet:

"Well. The thing with recurrent miscarriage is that there's often not a quantifiable reason, no reason we can find. You can still do the genetic testing and we can look at your Day 3 blood tests, but...? Otherwise the best we can do, I think, is maybe try low-dose aspirin and progesterone. What it comes down to is you and how many more times you want to try."

"Okay."

She looked at me helplessly, empathetically. "I mean...," she shrugged, "we could try Clomid or..."

"But aren't those for people who have trouble getting pregnant?"

"I know. You really don't need those drugs." 

She looked so sad that she couldn't help me. It was endearing. I don't think she would have given me unnecessary pharmaceuticals, she just wanted something, anything, to offer me.

After this appointment, I had this brilliant idea to find a doctor closer to home. Everything I'd been reading implied that neither aspirin nor progesterone were miracle 'cures' for miscarriage, so maybe no interventions was a viable option. I thought, "Oh! It'll be so easy to find a semi-crunchy lady doc who has a good sense of humor and is comfortable NOT giving me drugs!"

I have learned nothing. Though still blessed with an idealistic and optimistic soul, I was bound to suffer disappointment.

New Appointment with a Newbie (To Me) Doc:

I *thought* I'd found a doctor that might be a good fit for me. How did I make this decision, you ask?  A combination of Internet research and racial profiling. We used to have an excellent doctor who was from India--very holistic and kind. I chose a practice with another Indian doctor assuming (yep, I know what they say) that she might share the same ideologies and practices.

The whole thing started off on the wrong foot. I ended up in the waiting room, with a three-year-old, for 45 minutes. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: "Hey, I might have to reschedule. I need to be somewhere and it's already been 45 minutes. So..." 

Secretary: "Okay, let me just check here. She has this day open and this day. She should be done soon though if you want to wait? Do you have to be somewhere?*"

"Um...yeah, well, it just might work better another time?"

"Are you sure?" 

"Yeah, let's reschedule."

At this point, the doctor has emerged from her office with her previous patient. She's listening in. She doesn't want to lose me! So she interjects: "I'm just about done here and then I can see you..." She paused. "You know you were supposed to set aside an hour to an hour-and-a-half for this appointment."

Now I'm on the defensive. "Yes, but an hour-and-a-half that starts at 10 is different than the one that starts at 11. So." I feel like I made a good point, yes?

Shouting Medical Professional by imagerymajestic; freedigitalphotos.net

They convinced me to go to my appointment, but it was already a loss. The office didn't have my records (though my previous office swore they'd already been sent), my daughter was at her wit's end**, and this doc and I were not on the same page. She was nice enough, but when I mentioned that my thyroid had been mistreated, she looked disbelieving. When I told her I was willing to deliver a breech baby, she said that doctors just didn't do that anymore (and implied that they shouldn't).

The last straw was when she kept pushing for a physical exam of some sort. I felt pestered and finally conceded. After all, what's one more person looking up in my hoo-ha?! Anyway. this was no ordinary pelvic exam. It ended with this.

White Medical Glove by John Kasawa; freedigitalphotos.net

!!!

No, just no! I've been told it's normal, sometimes, to include this step in a physical examination, but I'm not a fan. Had I been forewarned, I would have left earlier.

Guess I'll be sticking with my Curly Haired Doc, hour-long drive and all. :) 

*Where I had to be was friggin' story time. I kept promising my daughter we would make it and this would be the second day in a row that we didn't. I have a feeling that telling the secretary I wanted to make it to story time would fail to elicit any understanding.

**To be fair, the nurse obligingly babysat my daughter. That was awesome.

All the Rabbits Died!

Recently I picked up the book Coming to Term: Uncovering the Truth About Miscarriage by Jon Cohen. Sometimes I haunt the Baby Center discussion boards for other moms to connect with and this book was recommended more than once. It's a good book--it's realistic, comprehensive, and very well-written. Plus, I like this Cohen Guy.* ;)

 Cohen is no stranger to miscarriage: "With each successive miscarriage, Shannon and I became increasingly frustrated with the mumbo jumbo we kept hearing from the specialists about what had happened, what we should do, and how we should view our prospects for having more children. Not only did different doctors give us wildly different explanations, but when I pressed for scientific studies that we could consult no one had anything to offer, and some had the audacity to shift into all-wise-M.D. mode, counseling us to accept the losses and try again. We wanted facts, and one day it dawned on me that I make my living ferreting out scientific facts." And so he wrote a book.

A tangential tidbit I learned from Cohen's research: early pregnancy tests involved injecting a woman's urine into lady rabbits; if the rabbit developed a mass in its ovaries, then the woman was pregnant. All the rabbits died.

!

Anyway.

Cohen sifts through the many possibilities for causes of miscarriage, plus the various treatments tried for each. These various 'causes' include old eggs, chromosomal abnormalities (in which early miscarriage is actually a good, normal thing), auto-immune diseases, hormonal imbalances, a few nasty environmental toxins (mercury, BPA, and nitrates), uterine abnormalities, and stress. Peppered throughout the book are personal stories of sadness and triumph.

A few hopeful sound bytes:

"Already, many clinicians recognize that, in healthy mothers, miscarriage is as common as birth...miscarriage...often represents a sign of hope."

"...in study after study, women who have had up to four miscarriages and become pregnant again typically carry to term."

"Deciding to do nothing, in an informed way, often constitutes the most prudent way to do something. Women and men who want babies, especially those who have tried and failed, would benefit if they recognized how their intense desires can lead them to take unnecessary risks....Most women who miscarry, even three or four times, will carry to term if they become pregnant again."

Particularly thought-provoking (for me) is the overall conclusion that most environmental toxins probably aren't to blame for recurrent miscarriage: "Can you use miscarriage as an index of environmental exposure?...It's very, very tough to figure out whether environmental effects are real" and "Miscarriages...rarely occur because of what a woman eats or drinks, where she lives and works, or what air she breathes. More than half of all miscarriages have abnormal chromosomes, mainly because the mother's eggs do not properly execute meiosis."

Cohen gives a good reminder to us all not to put too much stock in current reproductive trends or miracle infertility treatments: "Science is provisional. What appears real today may, based on new evidence, seem naive tomorrow."


*One of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo, was mentioned in Coming To Term. Cohen kept one of Kahlo's most famous paintings, documenting one of her miscarriages, in his desk while he worked on this book. You can see why:

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932

Parasites, the Next Big Thing!

I read the above book (An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases* by Moises Velasquez-Manoff) in an attempt to newly understand autoimmune diseases. Let me sum up this book. The idea is that we have become way too clean (the Hygiene Hypothesis): "In the wake of immunologically new humankind, I add one recommendation...take care of the butterflies! Their disappearance indicates loss of life...shrinkage of biodiversity also takes place in the micro-world close to us, but without notice. Preserving biodiverse life might have a preventative effect on allergy and other diseases of modern civilzation." --Finnish allergist Tar Haahtela in Allergy, 2009.


Our immune systems develop better and develop the way they should when they are confronted with certain microbes, viruses, bacterium, etc. from infancy, maybe even from gestation: "The relative smallness of the late-twentieth-century family, and the unprecedented cleanliness of modernity in general, had decreased the infectious burden during childhood...the absence of robust immune challenge early in life was...making people allergic." The book is awesome in that the author presents lots of anecdotal evidence as well as scientific evidence to draw his conclusions. Some snippets:

"A single variable...most correlated with an individual's odds of having hay fever or eczema at age twenty-three: how many older children were in the house at age eleven. The greater the number of older children around in childhood, the lower an individual's risk of allergic disease in young adulthood."


"Attending daycare in the first six months of life lessened one's chances of wheezing later by three-fifths...crowded, presumably contagion-enhancing environments early in life definitively warded off asthma."

"Immune-mediated disorders arise in direct proportion to affluence and Westernization. The more that one's surroundings resemble the environment in which we evolved--rife with infections and lots of what one scientist calls "animal, faeces, and mud"--the lower the prevalence of these diseases."

In 1819, hay fever was first documented. No one knew what it was. Allergies weren't common: "The U.K. and the U.S., the two nations that first noted the curious affliction, were also among the first nations to urbanize and industrialize. They were the first to experience the disaster of the modern city, and among the first to institute major sanitary reforms. They had the first populations...with both the desire and means to clean up. Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Russia, and to a lesser degree France...remained largely agrarian countries with a mostly rural populace until later. Something without biological precedent had occurred in these populations: the removal, perhaps for the first time in human evolution, of certain microbes and parasites from the human organism."


Another idea this author presents? That an intentional parasitic infection could kind of...distract? an autoimmune-prone immune system from attacking itself. So Moises, in the very first Chapter, infects himself with a worm from Tijuana. There is so much more to tell, but I don't want to risk losing you! There's a whole chapter on how a pregnant woman's environment can actually predispose her child to allergies and autoimmune disease or protect from them. Read it and see.

Shortly after An Epidemic of Absence, I read Parasite by Mira Grant.

I loved this book--couldn't stop reading it and, in fact, picked up her other books. The premise is that once mankind realized we needed more bugs in our lives, a corporation manipulated intestinal parasites to live in us for extended periods of time and heal us from all ills. Unfortunately, these parasites learn how to migrate to our brains and--you guess it--take control of their human hosts. Some parasites are fully successful in taking over a human body. Others are only partially successful and partially sentient. Those who are stuck mid-transition are very zombie-like. :) (They probably also thirst for blood. We'll see in Book 2.) The main character is actually a parasite who has taken over the body of a brain-dead woman--all in the name of survival!

This book is what Stephenie Meyer's The Host should have been. Except the parasites in Parasite aren't aliens. But I digress...

The finally book in this thrilling trio of parasite books? The Troop by Nick Cutter.

Let's recap. Book 1: Parasites are good for you! Book 2: Parasites are kind of good and kind of bad. Book 3 (The Troop): Parasites are disgusting creatures that will consume you so someone can make a horror movie based on your short life.

The Troop is, as Stephen King puts it, 'old-school horror'. A giant parasite, easily spread, takes up residence in your gut and fills you with an unquenchable hunger. Basically, you will eat anything (a chair, for example) and eat and eat and eat and all the while your body is dying and the parasite is feeding off of you. It's gross. The End.

2014--the year of the parasite, people. It's gonna be big.

*The New York Times reviewed An Epidemic of Absence as well!