Saturday, March 19, 2011

My regular reminder arrived earlier this week

I write this post in my head every month when I wake up in the middle of the night to take more muscle relaxers so the cramping will subside enough for me to fall back asleep. Even more than the obvious sign of bleeding, that cramping is my regular reminder that, once again, my body has failed to do what it is biologically designed to do.

I still hold out hope. The "why me?" thoughts don't plague my mind every minute of the day. In fact, I don't think about it much at all during the other 26 days of the cycle (which is why I tend to forget what my mid-night mental post was about when I wake up). But they do get me down when the cramping starts back up again those first two days. The hormone shift probably doesn't help, either.

I'm an optimist. Once the cramping stops, I start to look forward to those magical days of fertility when the possibility of new life opens up in my mind. Then after fertility, I greet each day of that 2ww with new optimism that maybe, just maybe this is the month for success!

And then it never is.

The diet. Yes, I am sure it is helping the symptoms, at least. It may help me avoid a recurrence of endometriosis. But the reason I am motivated to continue when I crave nothing more than a piece of toast and a glass of milk is the outside chance that the diet might be the breakthrough that leads to fertility. Without that hope, I would be hard-pressed to stay on the diet. Even though I feel great, and even though I have lost weight and have more energy. I really like food. And sweets. And bread. And milk. And cheese.

We leave for a three-day vacation tomorrow. Vacation eating is going to be...challenging. I have a feeling that I'll use a whole month's worth of diet cheats on these three days.

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