Feeling Better

Guess who's now below her pre-pregnancy weight?

Hello, hip bones and cheekbones! It's been a while since I last saw you.

Turns out eating only low-carb vegetables, eggs, raw almonds, some meat, plain yogurt, the very occasional green apple and 1-2 small servings of gluten-free whole grains each day makes you lose weight. Like a lot of it. I am as astounded as you are.

****We interrupt this blog post with a very important message from Dietitian Laura: DO NOT GO ON THIS DIET FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES! IT IS NOT SUSTAINABLE! YOU WILL FEEL SAD AND DEPRIVED! CRASH DIETS = BAD NEWS, YO!***

In the midst of the frustrations of keeping up with all the thrush treatment steps and hard anti-candida diet, some good things have come out of this experience. Things like:

• I'm recognizing that while I am generally functioning just fine, I have also been functioning at max capacity for a while. Like a loooong while. The tipping point from feeling good to feeling completely overwhelmed is always so close. And so I think some counseling sessions will help reduce stress overall. I'm beginning to suspect that I have some honest-to-God PTSD from my pregnancy. I think everyday about those puking months and how completely excruciating they were. I had some weird stomach thing in the middle of the night last week (I blame the raw almonds I was forcing myself to eat) and those hours of vomiting and feeling nauseous were so terrible that I am astonished that I felt like that for months. So while I think I will have some feelings of "Do I really need to see a therapist? Because I'm fine! Mostly." I know it will do me some good. And do the whole family some good. I'm predicting it will be short term, but very helpful.

• Each night after Bella is asleep, Husband and I have been tackling the sterilization of the house (vinegaring toys, jumperoo, high chair, floors) + dishes + laundry pile up. We spend 20-30 minutes working hard and get it done. Somewhere around Day 5 of doing this (now on day 10, will likely go another 14 days), Husband turned to me and said, "You know, we should keep up with cleaning every night even after we are done with thrush treatment." And I agree. Much easier to tackle the house like this on a daily basis. And it's been kind of nice to have a truly CLEAN house. Like floors mopped daily kind of clean. (F**K no will we keep up steam mopping nightly, in case you were wondering.)

• The diet changes have been hard and miserable, but interesting in their own way. I haven't had caffeine in over a week and only drink water and peppermint tea. And I've survived. It's still really hard to get up in the morning and know that I don't get anything to help me along, but I am surviving. I think a one coffee a day habit from now on will be my limit. And the no-sugar-even-fruit thing? Super weird, but I do notice that my hunger levels (i.e. blood sugar) don't jump around during the day and my teeth feel oddly fresh-from-the-dentist clean all the time. Since I'll be on this strict diet for another couple weeks and then s-l-o-w-l-y reintroduce more whole grains and fruit, I suspect my relationship with a big old decadent dessert each night might be a thing of the past. I always did want to come to a better balance with that; to be able to have a small portion of something delicious a few times a week and enjoy it without feeling deprived. Oh, but I do really miss having a little wine or fruit or dessert (and a thousand other things...like condiments.)

Other good things right now are that my milk supply has not suffered in the face of the reduced calories, Oliver got 3 new teeth last week and is an easier baby once more (only waking 1-3 times a night...not too bad!), and the postpartum doula that I hired has been very helpful. In fact, the postpartum doula is here right now with Bella while I'm typing this. I've had a few hours with either her or a babysitter each day and it's been great to get some rest and time to run around and do house stuff without my dear Bella's "help."

So things are looking up for the most part. I am trying to keep realistic with the thrush situation and know that even with doing every single thing imaginable, it might come back. And then I would wean and make the switch to formula. I suspect many of you are baffled by me not weaning and I understand. Even a lactation consultant asked me about weaning yesterday, as in she asked me to consider it as an option. But if I were to wean right now, I would still have to keep up with the preventative measures. And more than that - I'm just not ready to give up. I'm stubborn and I've put this much work into it so far and I want to see it through. Maybe it's a deluded Mama Bear hormone thing, too. And perhaps I might relook at this situation in 5 months or 5 years and wonder what the hell I was thinking and doing with all this thrush treatment insanity. I don't know. But for now, it's onward ho in the battle of the thrush.

And right now I feel like I'm winning.