Thoughts for the day....

My remicade appointment is tomorrow and I just realized I feel great! For the past couple treatments I would start feeling horrid the week or two before hand, but not this time! I think the difference may be that I have switched to a low fiber diet. Before I wasn't really paying attention to what I ate. But now that I am trying to lose weight so that I can do IVF, I decided to also pay attention to my fiber intake. Apparently it is doing the trick!

Another piece of good news, in week one of my diet I lost 9.8 pounds! That is more than I have lost in the first week of any health kick I have gone on! I have done it mostly with the help of Sparkpeople.com and I started exercising, which I am not a fan of. Plus, I have adopted a new mantra. Every time I pass by a food I want to eat but is bad for I chant "I want a baby more than I want a cheese puff" or whatever food it is. So far it is working. I may even hang a pic of my baby nephew on my fridge so I can visualize what I am aiming for; to be a mom to a cute little baby.

Also, I have been brainstorming on themed posts I can do for the blog. Tomorrow I am going to do a day in the life of a Crohn's patient. It will basically be a picture story of going to get my Remicade treatment. I will probably also do one at some point for my IF stuff. Next week I will probably do "A Few of My Favorite Things" post in honor of my 28th birthday. I will post pictures and descriptions of all of my favorite things, mostly kitchen stuff probably.

So that is what is on my brain as I am sitting at work today bored out my gourd. I shall see you all tomorrow for a day in the life of a Crohn!

Healthy Cupcake Success!!

Here is the recipe for the healthy cupcakes I made yesterday. They turned out very good, but next time I think I may add more blood orange juice to kick up the flavor some more, and add zest to the batter as well. They turned out moist and fluffy, which I was surprised with considering the lack of fat in it. Things I may try in the future to get the fat and calorie count down even further: fat free sour cream, and reduce the sugar blend by a half cup. I have added the nutritional info at the bottom of the post. The nutritional info will vary depending on how much of the frosting you put on each cupcake. I normally like to put a piped swirl on top, but that uses a lot of frosting, so this time I just spread it on the top and topped with some orange zest.

Light Blood Orange Cupcakes

2 cups Cake Flour
1 cup Flour
2 cups Splenda Baking Blend
1 tbsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp Salt
½ cups Light Butter
½ cup sour cream, low fat
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
½ cup Skim Milk
½ cup Blood Orange Juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter mix until just coated with flour.

Add in yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract in three parts, scrapping down the bowl between each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat.

Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they form a stiff peak. Fold in ¼ of the stiff egg whites to the batter. Once incorporated fold in the rest of the egg whites/

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17-20 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.


Cream Cheese Frosting

8oz. 1/3 less fat Cream Cheese
2 cups Powdered Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract

Directions:
Beat cream cheese in a bowl until smooth. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, beat until fully incorporated. Add vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.

Tip: Your cream cheese frosting with come out perfectly smooth is you use the cream cheese nice and cold, right out of the fridge.

Nutritional Information
Calories 202
Total Fat 5 g
Cholesterol 15.4 mg
Sodium 85.2 mg
Potassium 38.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate 33.7 g
Dietary Fiber 0.3 g
Sugars 23.7g
Protein 3.1 g

Trying to Make Cupcakes Healthy

So I have been on bedrest all day after getting my second epidural steroid injection. I am, booooored out of my mind. I have been doing very good on trying to lose weight so far. I have been to the gym twice this week. I am only allowed to do the stationary bike, but i do twenty minutes a day. I plan on trying to do this 4-5 times a week. I have also been eating a lot more healthy. I have been following a pretty strict meal plan of about 1300-1700 calories. And if I am in a hurry I have been getting salads at McD's or Wendy's instead of the hamburgers I used to get. But most importantly I have been putting everything I eat into my nutrion tracker on Sparkpeople.com.

My only problem so far is the lack of sweets on the meal plan. I know when trying to lose weight you have to cut out a lot of the sweets, and I accept that. But I think living without cupcakes is a sad, sad exsistance. So while I have been on bedrest I have been brainstorming how to cut the calories and fat in my favorite cupcake recipes. I have been working on the vanilla cupcake recipe all day. So far I have cut the calories by 20 grams and the fat by a little over 3.5 grams. I would like to get it down even further, but not really sure how to do it.

The next step is to actually bake the new cupcake recipe and see how it tastes. Cause really what is the point of a light cupcake if it tastes horrid, right? So I am planning on making the vanilla cupcakes tomorrow morning, only I am going to make a slight adjustment, I am going to make Blood Orange Vanilla Cupcakes with Light Cream Cheese Frosting. and I will probably make them in mini form so that I can taste test them without all the calories and I will just adjust the rest of my calories for the day to compensate.

So wish me luck on this my latest cupcake experiment!

My Confidence Got B*itch Slapped Today

So when we started trying to get pregnant I was sure it would happen the first cycle. Not so much. Then when we started clomid, I thought it would be the answer to my prayers. Wrong again. IUI#1 thought for sure that would be it. NOT!!!! After the news of my right tube being blocked I figured we just had to get my Left ovary pumping out some kick ass eggs and we would be all good. Well that got smacked down too.

At my follicle check today there was nothing growing on the left ovary for the third month in a row. 6 beautiful follicles on the right, but that doesn't help me much. And the icing on the sucky sucky cake was that my left ovary is also about half the size of my right. The thought is that we aren't going to be able to do much with lefty.

I was devastated. I really thought we would be able to get pregnant without having to do anything too invasive. Turns out that is not going to be true for me. I spent most of the day trying to distract myself by making lowfat turkey meatloaf, and the rest of the day crying.

So where do we go from here? Well, next month we are going to try to open my right tube with a procedure called a Tubal Recannulization. Here is a link about what exactly is involved in the procedure Because if I tried to explain it I would probably butcher it. It will be done between the 7th and 10th day of my next cycle. I will also continue on Clomid next cycle in the hope that the recannulization works and my right tube opens. Hopefully then we will be able to go ahead with IUI#2 Take 3.

Now, if I don't get pregnant on the next cycle then we will be moving onto IVF. I am lucky enough to have 100% coverage for 3 IVF cycles. Thankfully my company's headquarters is based in Maryland, and they have some pretty rocking state mandated infertility coverage. There is a possibility that the IVF meds will not be covered. If that is the case we may have to take a couple months off to save up for the drugs, which can run $3000-$5000. Ouch.

In addition, before I move onto IVF my RE would like me to lose some weight. He said he doesn't have a strict limit on weight for IVF, but he would like to see me lose about 40-50 pounds. The reason why they want the weight lose is because right now it can be hard to find and see my ovaries. Usually the internal ultrasound is pretty painful for me because the tech has to push so hard to see anything. So the hope is that the more weight I lose, the easier it will be to see my ovaries. Hence the making of the low-fat turkey meatloaf this afternoon.

Trying to lose weight quickly will be a challenge with my Crohn's and buldging disk, but I am determined to get PG. The one thing I have always know was that I wanted to be a Mom. And if I have to give up eating some of my favorite foods to do that, I will. Don't worry though, I will never give up baking. Just might have to change my recipes to lower fat options. Could be fun right? Maybe?

Finally some GOOD news!!!

So I had me re-check for my cyst a couple days ago, just now getting around to writing about it. I went in on cd2 for the internal ultrasound (dildo cam!) and everything looked fine!!! Well actually it didn't look like anything, my ovaries were being shy. After looking for a good 5-10 minutes the RN finally decided that they must be hiding behind my bowels. But determined that if the cyst were still in there it would be weighing down my right ovary. Hence, she determined that the cyst must be either too small to be a factor or completely gone! So we are a go for IUI #2 Take 2.

The plan for this cycle is to bump my Clomid up to 150mg. I asked the RN if we could just go straight to 200mg, but apparently my RE's office doesn't ever prescribe 200mg of Clomid because it doesn't produce any more results than 150mg usually does. So hopefully the added dosage will kick lefty's butt into gear. If it still doesn't do anything with the added dosage then next cycle we will go to injectables.

Now here is why I am convinced this cycle HAS to work: I would be testing on my birthday, and if I should get PG on this cycle the estimated due date would be right around our 2nd wedding anniversary. But I'm not getting my hopes up or anything (yea right.) Here's hoping I don't need to move on to injectables next cycle!!!

We'll see what happens at my Follicle check on Wednesday. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for at least one decent egg on the left!!!

Cupcake Experiments!!!!!

So I might cheat a little with my cupcake experiments. Basically I take my vanilla cupcake recipe from below and I tweak it for whatever flavor combo I want. I figure it took me a year of playing with the vanilla recipe to get it right, and I love it soooooo much, why wouldn't I use it as a base for every non-chocolate based recipe I try?

This weeks experiment is two fold. First, I love Thai food, a lot. I wanted to try and make something that reminded me of Thai cuisine, while still being super yummy and not too weird. So I came up with the idea of doing a cupcake with three of my fav Thai flavors; Coconut, Lime, and Basil. Just weird enough. I made a coconut cupcake with basil and topped it with lime buttercream and toasted coconut. I dubbed them the Bangkok Cupcake. They turned out pretty good. I wish the Basil had come through a little more, but not bad for a first attempt. I think next time I will double the Basil and boil it in the Coconut Milk first to draw more of the flavor out.

The second recipe came from the inspiration of the IF ladies who were discussing their favorite alcoholic drinks. My favorite adult beverage is a Margarita, so I made a tequila cupcake with lime buttercream and a dusting of salt. They are awesome! I wish I had little drink umbrellas to stick in them cause they remind me so much of being in The Keys when I was in college.

Here are the recipes, if you have tried the vanilla cupcakes from the previous post these recipes will look very familiar.

Bangkok Cupcakes
2 cups cake flour
1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, separated
1 cup coconut milk (I used light but either is good)
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract (I normally hate artificial extracts, but if it is all you got it will work)
1 cup shredded coconut
3-4 Leaves of fresh basil, finely chopped


Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together egg yolks, coconut milk, and extract. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Mix in Coconut and Basil. Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they form a stiff peak. Fold in 1/4 of the stiff egg whites to the batter, once incorporated fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Margaritaville Cupcakes
1 cup cake flour
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup tequila, plus 3 tablespoons



Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together egg yolks, cream, and 1/2 cup tequila. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they form a stiff peak. Fold in 1/4 of the stiff egg whites to the batter, once incorporated fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20minutes. while cupcakes are still warm brush reserved 3 tablespoons tequila over the top of each cupcake.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Lime Buttercream
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter
2 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons Lime juice

Directions:

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter & salt for about 30 seconds and then add half of the powdered sugar and the lime juice to the butter and beat again until combined. Scrape down the bowl. Add the rest of the powdered sugar, and the lime juice and beat until combined. Scrape down the bowl again. Beat on high speed for 5-6 minutes or until the frosting is fluffy.

Ugh, MORE bad news... and a little whining

So I had an ovary check yesterday at my RE, it didn't go so well. The way my RE's office works is that they do a pelvic exam to check the size and tenderness of the ovaries and if they seem large or tender then they make sure you get in for a CD3 ultrasound to see if there are cysts and how big they are. So I get in the stirrups and the Nurse does her thing. As soon as she starts feeling around on the right side I start wincing and she says "Oh yea the right one feels pretty heavy, I think you have a cyst in there." She explains that she will bring me back for a cd3 u/s and if there is a cyst still there we will have to sit out another cycle and take care of it. Are you freaking kidding me!?!?! Why does my body hate me? I just broke down in tears right there in he stirrups. The nurse was so nice, telling me it will be ok and she knows how hard this process is, but I am just so discouraged. I am hoping that between now and when I get my period the cyst in my right ovary shrinks so that we can move forward.

The good news is we will be increasing my Clomid dosage next cycle in hopes that my left ovary will get its head in the game. I am terrified that it still won't do anything, but my RE is very conservative and I am glad he is there to hold me back. If it was up to me I would probably say give me all the drugs you can and then we will deal with the consequences later.

Now, if you will allow me, I would like to take a minute to have a little pity party and do a little whining. Here is a list of things that have gone wrong this week...
- Slight Crohn's flare causing multiple trips to the bathroom and a liquid diet for two days
- Buldging disk in my back as a result haven't gotten a single thing done this week
- thanks to my bum back when I leaned over in my chair the other day to pick something up off the floor I fell over with the chair ontop of me and my head wedged against a wall, infront of three co-workers
- right tube blocked
- left ovary is lazy
- right ovary has a cyst
- Got a random bloody nose the other day
- And to top it all off I am fairly sure everyone at my job is mad at me because my doctor has put me on some restrictions and they have had to cover for me. I hate having people mad at me.

Ok I am even tired of hearing myself whine. So I am done now. Hopefully in a couple days there will be a new post about my upcoming cupcake experiment. So stay tuned!

Welcome to my life as a not so old Crohn...

So we have covered my infertility, started to talk about baking, now I am going to tell you about my Crohn's disease. And let me tell you, it is not pleasant, so if you are eating right now or have a weak stomach, you might want to just skip this entry.

OK first the technical scientific info. Crohn's Disease is one type of a group of diseases called IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It is an inflammatory autoimmune disease. Basically Crohn's causes your immune system to attack your GI tract causing it to become inflamed.

I could go into great detail about how i got diagnosed, but this post would take an hour to read. Let's just say it took 3 months, four hospitalizations, lots and lots of vomiting, every test you can imagine that involves drinking radioactive material or shoving cameras where they really shouldn't go. And then finally i was diagnosed with Crohn's Ileitis, which basically means that the section of my bowel where the small intestine meets the large intestine gets inflamed and hence back up and vomiting.

Now normally this disease doesn't bother me much. I get IV infusions of a drug called Remicade every 8 weeks and it pretty much has kept me in remission for the past two years. Unfortunately lately I have been having some issues. I have been having some stomach pain and nausea, my GI thinks it may just be another stomach issue, perhaps related to having my gallbladder removed. But it has been getting in the way of my life this week. The past two days I have been on an almost entirely liquid diet to help avoid pain and inflammation. It is hard to do much work when you have to run to the bathroom every five minutes for obvious reasons. Hopefully the new drugs the GI doc gave me will help though.

And to add insult to injury, I have a bulging disk in my lower back. Awesome. So it hurts to do anything but lay down on a heating pad, including running to the bathroom or sitting on a toilet.

Yup, my life rocks; bad back, Crohn's disease, blocked right tube and lazy left ovary. Oy.

Let's Talk About Cupcakes...

Baking is one of the many ways I cope with everything in my life. When you are trying to bake something delicious for someone you love, like, or even someone you have never met, you can't think about anything else. Plus you have something sweet and awesome to eat after. And while I am lying on a table with my feet in stirrups, I like to think of different flavor combinations to distract myself. My favorite thing to bake are cupcakes. They are cute, sweet, and you can have fun decorating them without the commitment of making a whole cake. Plus it is hard not to be happy while eating a cupcake. So now I am going to share with you my favorite cupcake recipe. It is easy, yummy and versatile. I got the original recipe from Martha Stewart's Website and after playing with it for a while came up with my final version. So here ya go...



Chrissy's Double Vanilla Cupcakes
2 cups cake flour
1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups vanilla sugar (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs, separated
1 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract


Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together egg yolks, milk, and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they form a stiff peak. Fold in 1/4 of the stiff egg whites to the batter, once incorporated fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter
2 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter & salt for about 30 seconds and then add half of the powdered sugar and the cream to the butter and beat again until combined. Scrape down the bowl. Add the rest of the powdered sugar, the vanilla, and the lemon juice and beat until combined. Scrape down the bowl again. Beat on high speed for 5-6 minutes or until the frosting is fluffy.

Vanilla Sugar

Ingredients:
1 pound granulated sugar
2 vanilla beans

Directions:
Transfer sugar to an air tight container. Split the vanilla beans in half length wise. Put beans into the sugar and shake the container. Everyday for a week shake the container for a couple minutes(great when getting bad news/BFNs. At the end of the week use in coffee, tea, baking recipes or on cereal for a special treat.

Our Infertility Story So Far.....

So here is the deal. I got married on 10-10-08 in a gorgeous mountain top ceremony to the man of my dreams. I went off of the Depo shot the month before the wedding. DH gave me an economy sized box of condoms on our wedding night and said when they were gone we could start trying to get PG. The day we got back from our honeymoon our 90 pound dog shredded them. Good Doggie. So we started TTC in October of 2008. I became obsessed. I would run to the bathroom five or six times a day to check for my period, which I hadn't gotten since I went on Depo, or doing pregnancy test upon pregnancy test.

Around comes April '09, still no period, so I go to my OB. He tells me it can take up two years to get a regular cycle back after being on Depo! What?!?! This would have been nice to know before you suggested it for me. I chew him out. He suggests we jump start my cycle with some provera. I get my first period in about 2 years in May of 2009. Then nothing. At this point I am doing Ovulation predictor kits every day in hopes that we will catch my first ovulation. June I go back to the OB. He puts me on provera to get another period, and suggests I go see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). I call the RE he suggests, get all the paperwork in the mail, send it back in. Two days after mailing it in I get a call from one of the nurses at the RE's office while I am on my way into work. The RE will not even begin testing me until I lose 100 pounds.

I am devastated. I have always been a big girl. That is what happens when you have my genetics and you love baking and you loving sitting on the couch watching movies and you hate working out. I never particularly liked being big, but I had come to accept it as who I was, and my husband loves the way I look, so I was ok with it. I was shocked a doctor would refuse to even run tests on me because of my weight. I ended up having to pull over because I was sobbing so hard, and was barely able to keep it together for work.

I make an appt with my OB and tell him what the RE said. He is surprised and embarrassed that he sent me there, and says he will start me on Clomid and order a Semen Analysis (SA) for my husband. The SA comes back perfect (which hubby is very proud of) and I start the Clomid. Hubby and I do the deed every other day for the whole month. But nothing, I get my period. Same with the second month on Clomid.

I continued the search for an RE, and finally find one (after two more devastating conversations.) He is an hour away, but never once mentions my weight, and when I brought up what the other REs said his only response is "I know those guys, I am way nicer." I think I just fell in love with my RE. He explains that my OB was doing my Clomid cycles wrong, and suggests that we start doing IUI's with clomid. proper monitoring, and a trigger shot. I am so relieved and excited I can't even explain it. I was sure I would get PG on the first IUI. Wrong Again.

Last week I did an HSG, basically an x-ray of your uterus and tubes. It hurt like crazy b/c as it turns out, my right tube is blocked. I try and stay positive, it is ok I still have my left tube and ovary. Wrong again. At my monitoring appointment the next day the right ovary has a good looking egg, and the left has nothing, this is the 2nd month lefty hasn't produced an egg. Stupid lefty. They cancel my 2nd IUI.

I was pretty upset at this point. I always just figured we would get married and - BAM - have a baby. Here we were, one year and 3 months later, and we just keep getting bad news. But it has been a week, and even though I hate knowing there is next to no chance to get pregnant this month, I am getting past it. Thinking about the next cycle helps. As do other projects... but since this is a veeeery long post I will save my coping methods for another time.

Hello There

My name is Chrissy, some of you may know me as thebeadinglady (hey IF ladies!). This is my first attempt at an actual blog. I had one other one, but that was more for myself. I hope this blog will actually be read by people, heck maybe even help some people.

So you may be asking yourself "Who is this Chrissy girl and why the heck should I want to read about her?"

Well I don't know why you would want to read about me (boredom?) but I can tell you who I am. I am 27, married to a wonderful man, Aunt to 9 awesome nephews and nieces, sister to two sisters and a brother, mom to two awesome dogs and a very old guinea pig, amateur baker, obsessed with cupcakes, occasional jewelry maker, DIY home renovator, TV and movie nut, and book worm. I am a dork. I am very overweight, tall, hair changes color monthly, blue eyes. I love the work I do, but am falling out of love with my actual job. I am not religious at all. I have Crohn's Disease. I am reproductively challenged.

My goal for this blog will be to just share my journey. I will write mostly about my Fertility Treatments, Crohn's Disease, and baking. But other stuff will probably creep in too. I am at the beginning of my fertility treatments, and have been dealing with Crohn's for only two and a half years, so I don't know everything yet. But that is kinda the point. I want to record the things I learn along the way. I don't know if anyone will actually read this, but to anyone that does: Welcome, get comfy, it is most likely going to be a bumping ride!