Surreal Experience....

The other day at work, we had a doctor order a "high alkaline" diet for a patient. Now, there is all kinds of "quacky" stuff on the Internet about this diet. Basically, your high alkaline foods are fruits and veggies, especially your dark, leafy greens. Your "no" or "acidic" foods are your concentrated sweets, sugars, fats, whites, processed foods. OK, well the theory makes sense... it is just another way of presenting a healthy eating plan to some degree; although, it is often promoted as curing your health problems in as little as 3-days... that is another issue and story for a different day.

Anyways, as I was sitting in my office... rolling my eyes at this request... I had this nagging thought. I have looked up this information before. Why am I familiar with this diet? I really do have first hand knowledge of this information... it really took me a couple of hours before I remembered why I was familiar with this way of eating.

It was a year ago (middle of April) that we had finished round 1 of IVF. During round 1 and 2, it was recommended to me that I might pursue acupuncture to try to help with my egg quality. After researching it, there is substantial evidence that acupuncture and eastern medicine techniques can help female infertility issues. At this time, I decided it was worth a shot (no pun intended); besides, at this point, really what did I have to lose? I decided that I needed to have the assurance that I truly had done everything that I could possibly do to increase our chances and odds for this to work. It was when I was routinely visiting my acupuncturist, that the "high alkaline" diet was introduced to me. At this time after reviewing it myself from a dietian's perspective, I came to the conclusion that it is just a list of foods that you need to eat more of... the foods listed are the healthy foods that we all know should be eaten more often and in greater quantity. I really didn't perceive that it was the "magic" diet. It is also heavily plant-based, almost vegetarian like.

Anyways... what amazed me the most, is that it took me so long to come up with this memory. It was hard for me to believe that I have blocked out my acupuncture visits and different things that were recommended to me during this time out of my mind. It seems like such a long time ago. As I started thinking about where we were a year ago... I remembered being stressed... but I don't remember the *feelings* of stress... last year just feels like an empty void; a year ago now just seems like a distant dream away... a very surreal experience when I think about how much we have done and how much our life has changed over past couple of years.

I do remember how good it felt to be at home, being productive, and taking care of me during my medical leaves of absences... I loved taking care of our life. I am longing for a time like that again (but without the stress of infertility). I am frustrated with having to be so stingy with my current vacation time - I am trying to save it for possible maternity leave because I may not be able to use my paid sick time for the adoption. Luckily, we do have our wonderful and beautiful trip to Minnesota planned here... it is exactly a month from today that we leave and I am counting down the days.

Slowly but surely, seeing that the glass is half-full is becoming easier again... I also know that I have my hopes too high; a birthmom is viewing our profile. I am hoping to hear from the social worker later today to see if the birthmom is interested in meeting and visiting with us as she moves through this decision making process.

Well, I need to go get ready for work. I had a good morning at Bootcamp. I am struggling with keeping up with my food logs. Work is busy. Have sent several e-cards and e-mails and staying in touch with others; I am trying to keep up with my goal I set forth a few blogs back. I have a lot of little things that need to be tied up before the holiday weekend. It will be good to see Mom, Dad, and my cousins this weekend; however, I will miss T as he can't go with me. Each day is just one more checked off, for now...