Snow!

For the last 3 days it was been snowing nonstop, it must be about 10" deep now, and i dont think ive ever seen it this bad, not that im complaining much, its just the temperature i dont like, at present i have my pj bottoms on under my normal clothes a t-shirt and sweatshirt, 3 yes three pairs of socks and slippers, and im still freezing cold. Luckily managed to order a heater online and it should be here in the next day or two. Nothing more to say today really.....to cold!!

Today I'm mostly cold!

Well looks like winter has put it's foot down, it's here to stay, boo :( Our flat is just like a greenhouse during the summer it's so hot and uncomfortable you literally stick to the couch, yet as soon as we hit November any heat that was here has gone and it's cold, drafty and has that damp feel, it really is nasty. We do have heaters (storage ones that you have to put on like a day in advance) but we can't use the one in the lounge as it's behind the tv, under the window so any heat produced is lost, we also have one in the hall and bedroom, but to notice a difference you'd gave to have them on 24/7 which would cost me almost £15 extra a week! I'm looking into getting a electric heater, just a small 1kw one, which I could move to whatever room we were in, and at around 26p an hour it's not too bad, I'd only need it on for a few hours a night can't see it costing more than £7 a week which is half what I'd pay for the storage heaters! Last night it was that cold I lit every candle we had it was actually quite cosy within an hour, and looked nice too, with the added warmth of my snuggie I was sorted :) Husband announced yesterday that were getting another PS3, which is brilliant because it means the one we presently have gets demoted to the bedroom and I can sit in bed (on a freezing cold night) playing some of the games I love, or watch some blu-ray movies, instead of having to watch my husband playing his call of duty black ops or GT5 which I don't mind occasionally but every-night that's a bit unfair. So delivery for that should be before December 6th, hopefully it will be here before my birthday on the 5th so I can play any game I might receive as a gift ;). We're also going out for a meal on my birthday to frankie and bennys which I'm looking forward to, just need to make sure I don't ruin the work I put in dieting before that! Nothing much to say on the TTC or PCOS today, CD3 have some crampy pain, feel bloated. The metformin seems to be reducing the rate of hair regrowth which is good, and also my skins looking better, and apart from the PMT my moods are a lot better, the heartburn I was getting seems to have eased since I got back into healthy eating, so all in all I'm happy with results so far, I've almost run out though so must phone up the dr's for a repeat prescription today. I've read that metformin can also help bring on ovulation! That would really get me excited :) don't think I can remember the last time I ovulated, if I even ever did?!! Love to all, TTFN x

Costochondritis? I might have that!

So yesterday I went to see a Dr that specialises in biliary (gallbladder, liver, bile duct) and it wasn't to scary, all he did was talk and prod me in the ribs (which kinda hurt) he wants me to have a CT scan and maybe also a chest X-ray, as I might possibly have gallstones and they just wasn't picked up on ultra sound (on account of my excess baggage) If it's not gallstones it could be something called Costochondritis (which I've never heard of and had to google) apparently it's an inflammation of the rib cartilage, the pain comes and goes and can often be reproduced by pushing between the ribs (which he demonstrated, and I yelped like a dog having it's tail stepped on) the thing with this is it's hard to prove for diagnoses, but for now I'll just wait for the CT scan and see how things pan out. On the TTC front, finally have AF thanks to a week of Provera after an 88 day cycle, not too happy as getting lots of cramps and pain, DH seems to have picked up on AFs arrival maybe on account of me yelling at him for having a glass of milk!! My moods get so bad, I feel for him having to put up with me and my dragon like nature lol, but he can be just as bad especially after his heart attack last June, smoking used to be his pressure release valve I suppose and now he dont have that so ends up exploding quite a bit mainly over silly things like playing Call of Duty, I loathe that game with a passion, I'm a keen gamer myself and love nothing more than chilling out on the sofa loosing myself in a game but Call of Duty just does nothing for me whatsoever, each to their own though. Until next time my friends.

<3 Mondays ???

Great, its Monday, it's raining, I'm miserable and today I have a hospital appointment that isn't PCOS or TTC related, I've been getting pain in the side around my ribs and my GP thought it could be gallstones so sent me for ultrasound, turned out they don't think I have gallstones but couldn't get a good look (turns out my body isn't ultrasound friendly, why they couldn't just say hey lady we can't see through all this extra fat!) so anyway now I have to see a Dr in the general surgery dept. to discuss this mysterious pain and maybe suggest them sending a camera down my throat into my stomach (nice!) not something I look forward to especially now the pain seems to have subsided, I haven't had an attack since about 5 weeks ago, although while I was having them I was convinced my body was trying to kill me and I had visions of my stomach and liver just bursting into flames. But fingers crossed they just say 'Mrs Galt, we can see your no longer in discomfort so there is nothing drastically wrong with you you can go home now' It's weird but I think the pain may be linked to stress and anxiety as even now I feel a little twinge while I'm worrying about them invading me with cameras and such. Monday is a weigh in day for me and the scales had nothing good to say about this weeks performance, in fact they actually tried to say I had gained 2lb! I suppose if you consider all the junk I've ate over the week it's not surprising, I mean steak, cake, cookies, chocolate, pizza not exactly healthy eating is it? This week I will and must try harder, especially now that I have to try loose 28lb by Feb 9th, which is going to be real tough as it is, what with my birthday in 2 weeks then Christmas too! Well if I want to start the clomid come February then I must be strict and work my butt off! Off now to get ready and conquer the day!

I want a baby!!

Darren and I moved into our 1st house in May 2002, and not long after that we decided to start trying for a baby. Oh boy! if only I realised back then how hard this was going to be.
My cycles were very irregular and to be honest back then I was VERY naive about TTC, I never really paid attention in school about sex ed, and really had no idea about ovulation. I was led to believe that you just wait a week after your period, have unprotected sex a few times for a week or two and bam your fall pregnant, after all that's how it happened for my mum, she had no problems getting pregnant, although she did have 2 miscarriages, but she gave birth to five of us, me first, then my brother Sean who sadly passed away a few months after he was born, she then went on to have my brother Kevin (now 26) my sister Holly (now 18) and my youngest brother Robert (15).
But unfortunately it didn't happen that way for me, months went by at a time and each time i thought I might of actually conceived I would sit excitedly pee on a stick so hoping for that 2nd line to show up. It never did.
It started eating me up inside, why cant I get pregnant? I'm not normal, there's something wrong with me.
By now i was 25 and had managed to put quite a bit on weight back on, I also noticed I was getting quite bad spots, more hair where i didn't want it, and real bad mood swings, sometimes bouts of depression. I was fed up and decided to take a trip back to the Dr's she said she would refer me to the infertility clinic!
I panicked 'does this mean I'm infertile?' will I not be able to have kids?? she reassured me that they would be able to help me but the waiting list was long, she advised me to loose weight in the meantime.
So home I went feeling a little positive, and I decided to diet, I hadn't given it a go before because Darren always told me my weight would never bother him and he would always love me.
So within a few weeks id managed to loose around 15lbs and was over the moon, then I had a period! great I thought.......... only this wasn't a normal period, this was a period from hell!! I bled non stop for five weeks very heavy with lots of cramps, I returned to the Dr who sent me for an emergency appt at the gynaecology dept. they did scans tests and all sorts, then sent me home with some tranexamic acid to reduce the bleeding and norethisterone to control my cycles. I managed like this for the time I was waiting to be seen by the specialists.
When my appointment came I went along and was explained how I wasn't ovulating and that I was to take provera for 7 days then start a cycle of Clomid and this would help me ovulate, still at this time I was very naive about TTC, Id never looked at a website to do with PCOS or TTC, I didn't know about OPK's or BBT's or even when I would ovulate. I feel pretty stupid admitting it, but i honestly expected it to be easy, after all people get pregnant all the time! and most my friends were or had children.
Obviously the round of clomid didn't work, and I got so depressed, I thought this is it, I'm never going to have kids, I started worrying Darren would leave me because I couldn't give him a child, he kept reassuring me that this wasn't an issue, and if we didn't become parents then that's just how it would be, it would never change the way he felt about me. So for a while I decided maybe this is how its meant to be, just me and Darren, happy together, childless...
Somehow I managed to put it all to the back of my head, and get on with things. As I did, the weight would creep back on and I would try again to loose it, each time I did I would have another five week bleed and ended up on norethisterone most the time.
By Dec 2007 on my 28th birthday i asked Darren to take some photos for me to scrapbook, I looked back through them on the PC in horror, did I really look like that?? Had i actually let myself get that big! I decided to weigh myself and almost chocked when the scales hit 22st 13. (320lbs) This was stupid, I needed to do something, So Jan 2008 I signed up to weight watchers, and since then a lot has happened so to cut a long story short I will summarise.

Jan 2008 weight watchers ready for a new me!
May 2008 Sold our house, moved in with Darren's mum,
June 2008 Plan and book to have our wedding in 2009
Dec 2008 Rethink having a family?? I'm getting old (29)
Mar 2009 We finally got married
May 2009 we move into a new place
Dec 2009 I'm 30! I DO want a BABY!! Finally find out all about TTC
June 2010 Darren has a heart attack due to smoking - He quits smoking
Sept 2010 I've lost 70lbs (5st)
Sept 2010 See fertility specialist, they are pleased Ive lost weight, I ask to start metformin
Oct 2010 I start metformin and told to try loose another 28lbs (2st) by my next appt Feb 2011 and they will then start me on clomid again. WOOHOO!!

How did I end up here?

Since the age of about 11 my weight started to become a problem, I was steadily putting on weight every year at a rate of about 14lbs a year which is a lot for a kid! at 13 I weighed about 182lbs (13st) and by the time I was 18 I weighed 266lbs, once id became this size my cycles had almost stopped and were around 3/6 months apart, a older friend advised me to go to the Dr as this wasn't 'normal' so I did and it was then I was diagnosed with PCOS. My first reaction? ...honestly? me: ahh, whats that? Dr: an unbalance in your hormones, it means your put weight on easily and it will be harder to loose and you wont have regular cycles. Me: oh, not so bad then. Dr: No, I suppose so, but you may need help when you want to start a family. Me: OK not a problem at the moment I'm not even in a relationship.
That was it, I left there with no full explanation or any medications just a suggestion of weight loss, but as far as I was made to believe it wasn't really a big thing, it was common and help would be available if and when I needed it.

The weight thing got to me more than anything else but I did manage to loose some and at 20 I was around 210lbs (15st), Id had a couple of relationships but they ended badly.
I was 21 when I met Darren, It was online via an Internet chat room, he lived 400 miles from me but I wasn't looking for anything serious, after all Id just had my heart broken. I was looking for some friendly people to chat too, some fun and a bit of flirting. Darren and I would chat online to each other for ages and soon became friends, we swapped numbers but never called, the weeks went by and we lost touch.
After about 4 months I decided to go back into that same chat room to catch up with other friends id made, and there was Darren! Hello stranger! why didn't you call? I said, he'd 'lost his phone' yeah right, i thought, but we carried on talking and finally he phoned me, after that he would phone me everyday and talk right through the night, I sent him letters and photos of me, and asked him to do the same, he wrote me but wouldn't send a photo, so I started to wonder can this guy look so bad he's afraid to send a one?? I didn't care I was falling for him, without even seeing him!!!
Soon I booked a flight and decided I would have to go find out for myself what this guy looked like, and luckily I had nothing to worry about, I was happy and so was he, I stayed for a week and we got on really well. When it came to me going back home he didn't want me to go and it was quite painful to leave, but I couldn't just leave my home, job friends and family...?
Dec 5th 2001 my 22nd birthday came and I received presents and a card from Darren and also a CD he'd put together with all my favourite songs, hidden in the sleeve he'd written me a note asking me to make the day even more special by marrying him!! I was gobsmacked but it made me realise how much we were in love.
By December 27th 2001 I was on a train with all my belongings waving goodbye to my family, and on my way to Edinburgh to start a new life with Darren.