Autoimmune Testing

Back in April I was referred to a reproductive endocrinologist with experience treating infertility caused by autoimmune issues. I had a lot of blood drawn over the following 6 weeks. I know it wasn't record setting by any stretch of the imagination, but it came to 35 vials.

Prior to the first draw, I had been eating a decently strict grain-free diet. This meant no corn, wheat, barley, rice, etc. I didn't eat potatoes, either. My results came back with elevated cytokines and speckled ANAs but everything else was pretty normal, including the bloodwork that led to my diagnosis with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome several years ago.

At that point, I was pretty tired of having so many of my foods restricted, so I spent 2 weeks eating whatever I wanted. The test was run again and my level of ANAs doubled which to me was a pretty clear indicator that my immune system responds negatively when I eat grains. After a couple days of some hard introspection and a few discussions with friends who've treated immune issues with dietary changes and a friend I have in the medical field with Crohn's Disease, I decided to go beyond the grains and adopt the Autoimmune Protocol, an eating lifestyle that is highly restrictive in the foods consumed with the intent of healing the immune system.

A little over two weeks after making those dietary changes, I had additional autoimmune testing run by a rheumatologist.  The results came back and I got quite a shock: everything came back completely normal. Those speckled ANAs? Gone.

So as much as I absolutely don't like these restrictions, my immune system is now behaving just as it should and that makes it worth it.

For now.

When I say restricting, let me give you a list of the things I can't eat.

No: wheat, barely, oats, corn, etc
No seeds, including quinoa
No dairy (you know I love cheese!!)
No soy
No nightshades (things like tomatoes, bell peppers, other peppers, cumin, eggplant)
No spices made from nightshades
No nuts
No eggs
No foods made with preservatives like nitrates/nitrites
No sugar
Limited fruits (because of sugar content)

So what does that mean I can eat? Well, I can eat lots of meats and green veggies that aren't peppers. I can have uncured bacon, chicken, beef, pork, and fish but seasoning these is sometimes a challenge. I can have coconut, including coconut milk.
I can have zucchini, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, leaks, celery, and carrots.
I can have sweet potatoes. Did you know they come in white and purple as well? White sweet potatoes are very similar to regular potatoes in taste and texture so they make great hash browns.
I can have cassava flour, coconut flour, and arrowroot flour, all good choices for baking or thickening sauces.
I can have coconut aminos, which taste like a slightly sweetened soy sauce.
I can have berries. Strawberry season around here lasted almost 8 weeks. It has been heavenly!!
I can have broccoli and cauliflower, both cruciferous veggies that I enjoy cooked in a variety of ways.
I can have cilantro, oregano, black pepper, salt, ginger, onion, garlic and any other herbs that suit my fancy.
I can have avocados (um, yummmmm!)
I can have a "caesar salad dressing" made from avocados, oil, fish sauce, and a couple of spices. It's actually really good and is a recipe I will keep using even after I'm off this crazy train.

Breakfast has been my hardest challenge. I really do love eggs and veggies for breakfast so what I've found myself doing more often than not is eating leftovers from dinner for breakfast. On Tuesday I browned some pork sausage from a local farm along with some sliced purple sweet potato. That purple added more color to my breakfast than I've seen for a long time. So much of what I eat is green and that gets pretty boring pretty fast.

These dietary changes are not permanent. As much as I would love to be able to eat this way for life, I won't be able to sustain it for an indefinite amount of time. The psychological impact of "I can't eat that" is going to do long-term damage to me if I have to keep it up. Cooking meals that appease my family and myself is also incredibly complicated. Tom Brady eats AIP, I think, but he has a personal chef! I do not have good ol' Mr. Brady's budget.

That last paragraph might not be so true if I felt somehow healthier with these eating changes but the truth is, I don't feel any better. I am still getting those sucky headaches when I'm not visiting the chiropractor regularly, my bowels are still sluggish, and I've put some weight on because I'm overeating the foods that I can eat. My dreams have gotten really vivid and bizarre the last two months as well, too. I wake up in a near panic because of dreams of losing my girls, car accidents, planes crashing into my house, tornadoes, floods, and the complete collapse of our government.

The dreams are decidedly not awesome.

But . . .if it allows my husband and I to conceive and carry another baby into our family, it will be worth it.

In the long run, I can see myself possibly keeping with a modified version of this diet for longer term. What I'll need to do is add back one of the food groups and see what my ANAs do. For example, add back eggs and see if my immune system reacts. If not, then add back the night shades or dairy, working one at a time to see what causes the immune flare then avoiding those foods regularly but allowing myself a little wiggle room for special occasions.

Until then, I'll be sticking to AIP for at least another three months or longer if we're unsuccessful in conceiving before that two months is over.

Mother's Day

I have a less-than-life-shattering confession to make: I don't like Mother’s Day.
Why?

Mother’s Day is a full day of reminders of not only the best days of my life, but also the worst days of my life.

I don't have the strength to handle all those emotions in a single day. . .

"Least of These, My Brethren"

I think there are times in each of our lives where we look at the world around us and wonder how in the world we got here. Lately, that feeling has been on the verge of overwhelming but I am taking each day as it comes.

My husband was gone for work for the better part of 6 months, with a few short weekends home here and there. During that time, I took a prep course for the Math Content PRAXIS exam, the final requirement I needed to complete my Virginia teaching license with the math endorsement.

The short version is that I passed, with a little room to spare! The long version involves the hours upon hours that I spent reviewing Calculus, taking practice exams, and commuting to and from the prep course.

My score showed up immediately when I hit the submit button.I started to shake, the kind of excited, emotion-filled tremors that only something you’ve worked so hard for, after putting off for over a decade, can cause.

Three days later, all the excitement was gone as I watched the election coverage. This particular election season was very hard on me. I didn’t have my husband to bounce issues off, to muddle through after the debates, or to distract me in the evenings from the other mundane aspects of life.

My husband’s absence magnified the inconceivable.

I am now fighting in ways I never thought I’d fight before. If you’re asking “why”, then please listen with an open mind because I know that many of my friends and family voted for Trump, as is your right. I am speaking to anyone who takes the time to read this, no matter when or how we may or may not know each other.

There are two truly core principles in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The first is that he is our Savior and Redeemer. He suffered in Gethsemane for all of our sins, no matter how big or small. The second is a principle that extends from before the earth was created and that “thing” is the reason Christ atoned for our sins in the first place: we each have been given our own agency. This means we get to choose how to think, how to act, how to react, in every aspect of our lives.

We fought a war in heaven so that we could all come here and choose for ourselves whether or not to live worthy of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. In Moses 4:1-4, we are taught that “Satan rebelled against me (God, the Father), and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down.”

Satan was cast out because he wanted to take that gift of agency away and have all the glory of God for himself.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” 12th Article of Faith

What does it mean to honor and sustain the law? In light of some of the immediate aftermath of the election, let me share with a few thoughts with you.

I don’t know when life truly begins—when the spirit of a Child of God enters the body and stays there. I can only share that I have felt that life before 10 weeks’ gestation and I have felt it leave, for good, as well. We have knowledge that the spirit can leave the body while the heart is still beating, based on the experiences of others both within the LDS community and those of many other faiths as well; a beating heart does not mean the spirit is in the body. Even within church policies (which are subject to change), a child is not given a name of record unless he or she is born and takes a breath. My experiences with Jackson aren't unique, as women though all of history have lost babies before birth or during childbirth.

The discussion from here in light of recent events naturally turns to abortion. Is it murder or something less grievous, such as simply not accepting the consequences of using your agency poorly? If it is murder, then does that make God the biggest murdered of all, given the sheer number of pregnancies that end each and every day since the dawn of time?

I don’t know and I’d prefer err on the side of life. In contrast to that, abortion is legal, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, so what does it mean to “err on the side of life?”

To me, this means changing how American men and women of every political ideology views life. The new administration may seek to outlaw abortion, but that doesn’t mean that abortions won’t happen. Women have attempted to abort their pregnancies throughout history and for a variety of reasons (if you aren’t familiar with this, please do a little research). Those same reasons exist today.

So how do we, as a society, prevent abortions from happening if we believe abortion is wrong?

I see two distinctly different areas to fight.  The first is free, reliable birth control for anyone who wants it and proper, detailed reproductive education for all genders at an early age. The latter was never an issue prior to the modernization of the world and single family homes that kept children apart from their parents at night. 

To those who are argue regarding the law of chastity, remember that your values are not those of others. We each have our own agency. The biggest key to preventing abortions is to prevent pregnancy in the first place! Reliable birth control is not the pill, by the way. I’m talking about options that are intended for longer term use and also for technologies that aren’t quite there yet, such as temporary male sterilization.  If a woman doesn’t get pregnant, then she’s not going to be seeking an abortion. 

The second line of defense against abortion is support for mom’s who choose to carry their babies to term. This support can come in many ways, but one very serious area is the cost of childcare. In the US, the average cost of childcare for a year is higher than college tuition. Families who plan ahead can save for almost 20 years for college for their children, but what about daycare? Should a 12 year old start saving her babysitting money so that she can afford daycare for the child she might have in 18 years? 

Absurd? YES!

I run an in-home daycare, so I am keenly aware of what it costs to put an infant or toddler in a small, safe, loving daycare. Daycare providers struggle to balance the cost of tuition with the number of children they can watch both physically and in terms of their mental health as well.

I don’t particularly like pointing out problems without also making a few suggestions that I’ve spent time mulling over, so bear with me for just a moment while I go completely radical on you: Grant new families paid time off.

*Gasp*

What are the drawbacks? Higher taxes, obviously. That money doesn’t come from nowhere. Those taxes can come from a variety of places, but how does using the interest on federally paid student loans sound for a start? 

Or taxing luxury items up the wazoo so that only the wealthiest spenders are hurt? 

For those crying out “It’s MY money” trust me, if you’re reading this, it is unlikely that I’m talking about raising your taxes. I don’t know anyone in the top 5%! Also, it’s not an income tax, but a tax on truly optional purchases, so if any single person doesn’t want to pay it, they don’t have to.

Providing for paid family leave for men and women allows those families to spend time with their new child, establishing breastfeeding, reducing exposure to illnesses that could be harmful, and provides a chance for moms who suffer from postpartum disorders a chance to get help, something a new working mom may not be able to do.

Years ago, politicians fought hard to provide funding to educate each child in America. The idea that an educated public was advantageous won and continues to be important today. That same "Greater Good" mentality is one I believe in as far as providing for new families.

The inability to afford a child is one solid reason for abortion, no matter the age or marital status of the mother. Providing help, in terms of daycare costs, day-to-day living expenses, a real living wage . . . these are all options that anti-abortion Americans need to look at because like it or not, abortions will happen.

These issues all revolve around our agency—our right to choose how we live our lives and just because someone sins differently than I do doesn’t mean that I don’t love them or want to do everything I can to support them.

With those thoughts in mind, I participated with my oldest daughter, my mother-in-law, and two of my sisters-in-law in the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday. It was truly a remarkable day and gave me the opportunity to show my growing daughter that we do not need to be silent. The issues that surround abortion can be fought so that abortion stays safe and the rates can continue to decline.

I also marched for religious freedom. That particular issue was a little further down on the list for the organizers, but it was there and it is very personal to me. My ancestors were kicked out of their homes, multiple times, because of their religion. They fled to Utah, which was a territory at the time. Where to religious refugees have to flee now? The opportunities here are still great and I want that religious freedom to remain . . . for all religions.

For the few of you who think, “Meh, I have what I want” I have one question: The things you have, how did you get them? Did someone march on your behalf in decades past?

Lastly, I marched for those who couldn't march for themselves. We took the Metro into the city and the workers there were hollering and cheering us on. It seemed like they all had a bounce in their step as they watched over a million riders walk on through, marching for equality, marching for women's rights, marching against a man who doesn't believe America is already great and the policy changes he had already implemented to remove the rights of others.

To conclude this not-so-short post about a lot of random related topics I say this: I marched for the future of the world and I did so because I can. . . and I can because others did so for me. 

I owe my present rights and responsibilities to those of the past and am paying it forward now. I marched for "the least of these, my brethren" and I'll do it again. And again. . . because I have been given the privilege to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. 

One (Minor) Way Education is Screwing Itself

My time is limited for this rant, so let's get right to the meat of it!

The educational system is failing itself. There is a very strong push for qualified teachers and in the United States, 32 states (according to my prep course instructor) require the Math Content PRAXIS exam.

This exam is a 210 minute exam that is 60 questions long and covers everything from the definition of an integer to Calculus II level courses.

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

Doing some simple mathematics, 210 questions divided by 60 questions is 3.5 minutes per question. Not bad, right?

WRONG! Because there isn't actually 210 minutes of testing time.  That window includes the time to get logged in and go through the practice questions on screen. Other teachers in my prep course have all said that the whole "introduction" portion takes 30 minutes, really leaving the test taker with 180 minutes to take the test . . . 3 minutes per question.

Students around the country are given unlimited time on their standardized tests because it's well known that pressure leads to poor results.

So why are adults expected to test differently? Hhmm? Thoughts? 'Cause I got nothin'.

Secondly, if someone decides to be a teacher, in most of the other subject areas, they are licensed for a specific course.  For example, you wouldn't go and get a science license. Instead, you get a license to teach Physics (it has its own PRAXIS) or Chemistry (own PRAXIS) or Biology (own PRAXIS) but for math, NO! A teacher is expected to know everything in all of the math courses.

In the social sciences, World History is a different endorsement than Economics or Government or Psychology.

This leads to a problem because there are a great many teachers who are incredible Algebra or Geometry teachers but who have never taken Calculus. If this seems odd to you, research career switcher programs.  There are also amazing Calculus teachers who suuuuck at teaching Algebra I because they are think at a different level than their students do.  And yet, each of these are required to take the same test.

To add to that, the vast majority of the teachers in my prep course are either middle school teachers who are now expected to get the high school endorsement because the lovely state of Virginia now pushes Algebra I and Geometry in middle school or they are high school ESL or Special Ed teachers who will never teach Calculus but who need the endorsement because of state mandates for teachers to have endorsements in their content area.

If the great Commonwealth of Virginia wants to have better teachers, they need to work on specializing the math courses.  This can easily be done by splitting up the licensing so that teachers can have varied endorsements like those in the social sciences and physical sciences.

By allowing Algebra I to be a separate endorsement than Geometry or Trigonometry, or Advanced Functions, or Calculus, teachers can focus on the content in their classes.  This would also increase the number of teachers endorsed in those classes, thereby improving the statistics that each school reports to the state.

But what do I know? I'm just an unlicensed former-teacher who runs a daycare, tutors a couple hours a week, and is now taking this test so I can get back into "the system" . . . because I'm crazy.

Or, I know I'm a good teacher and really miss watching a classroom of students have that light-bulb moment day after day and move from hating math to either loving it or at least appreciating its quirks and consistencies.

Day 1 and The Rough Draft

I did it!

What did I do?  Well, I completed the first day of my PRAXIS prep course and I walked out of there a lot less afraid than I thought I'd be. I was the only student there who was not either currently teaching or a student enrolled at GMU.

The odd woman out, if you will . . . but interestingly enough, I felt like I knew the material we covered today better than the other students did. That comfort comes a little from my teaching experience, but mostly from my experience the last 9 years as a tutor. Those hundreds of hours, working one-on-one with students, has kept the material fresh in my mind.

That content comfort will likely not last more than another week or two, but for today, it boosted my confidence and I needed that.

The other thing that I did today is something I should have been keeping up with for years but it's a task I truly despise so I have procrastinated for almost a decade.

I completed the first draft of my resume! Wooooooo hoooooo!

It will need some work but I'm really excited that I have an actual draft done.

Early this week my husband made the comment, "You're really doing this, aren't you?" meaning that I'm really planning on going back to teaching.

Yes, Yes, Yes. I don't know when I'll be back in the classroom, but it will be as soon as I can manage.

Two months? Two years? I really have no idea but I am preparing now for that to happen.

Fearless

One of the unintended consequences I have experienced because of losing Jackson and the quick arrival of Dash caught me completely off guard.

When my husband and I were dating and for the first year of our marriage, he made it clear that he wanted to live overseas as a civil servant, to show any children we had the world outside of our country, and to enjoy the benefits of living as an American outside of America, and so many more hard-to-put-to-words experiences like those he had growing up. After our first year of marriage, he interned with the State Department and had an absolute blast, getting the overseas-bug even worse.

I was nervous. Scared. Petrified.  I don’t speak anything other than English and can follow the tiniest bit of conversational Spanish so how would I go grocery shopping? Make friends? How would my children learn the gospel if we attended a ward that was in a foreign language? What if my children could learn new languages easily but I couldn’t? Would I be taken advantage of?
What if I had to drive on the left?!?!??

Fear of the unknown ruled my decisions in those early years and because I was too scared, my husband gave up his dream and went to law school, a very expensive endeavor that caused our marriage a lot of strife because our stress levels were so high and our communication skills sucked and that decision continues to feel more like a financial burden than it ever should have.
Fast forward a few years and one economic collapse later and he’s working in the job he wanted all along.

And he’s happy. And I am happy.

The man that I fell in love with 16 years ago came back when he switched careers but he’s different. And while I am not comfortable talking about his personal changes in a public forum, I am comfortable saying that my fears almost ruined us because of the decisions that followed when he gave up on his dream 12 years ago.

Losing Jackson changed all that.

Everything.

I am no longer afraid of living outside my comfort zone

. . . of living in a foreign country

 . . . of learning a new language

. . . of cooking with new foods

. . . of attending church where I don’t understand what is being said

. . . of raising my children away from their peers

. . .of living in an area filled with poverty and civil unrest

. . .of being alone.

I am fearless.

Not only am I no longer afraid, but I am eager to leave the country I have known all my life in exchange for experiences that can continue to help me learn and grow and be a better me.

I want my children to grow up seeing the world through eyes that have seen and experienced differences in culture and to walk with feet that have trod near hallowed ground, and to use their hands to serve others.

I want them to walk and talk with children of God who look different than they do and to recognize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same world-wide, even though the words we use to express our feelings are different.

It used to horrify me just a little that my husband didn’t know most of the primary songs because he so rarely attended primary in English but he knows the tunes and can attest that the Spirit can and will testify of the truth whether you understand the words or not. I want my children to feel that and I want to experience that myself.

I want my preconceived notions about freedom, equality, and economic stability challenged because I believe that living in a world outside my own will make me a better person.

I am ready for it. I crave it.

When you’ve lost your only son, and God reassures you repeatedly that everything will be okay, and you begin to see those changes all around, then it’s time to embrace the path you should have walked over a decade before but were unprepared for.

Losing my son prepared me for change and growth and I hope and pray that when I look back a decade from now at the current lull in my life, I’ll be able to smile and say, “Wow. Living overseas was everything I thought it would be and more.”

From a practical standpoint, it will be almost two years at the bare minimum before we move but we’ll have the assignment in a couple of months as long as everything continues to move in the direction it’s currently headed. During that time, we’ll probably give ourselves one last chance at growing our family. That’s one thing that we have discussed often in recent months but haven’t prayed about. We both really want another chance at having a son but also know that conception is very difficult for me and that my pregnancy would be high risk because of my clotting/auto immune disease and now my age.

I am getting old and even though I don’t really feel it physically, there’s no denying that my fertility is on the downslide. I was diagnosed with borderline Diminished Ovarian Reserve over 3 years ago. DOR is a fancy way of saying your eggs are old and there aren’t very many of them left.

But again, I’m not afraid.

Is that weird? Because it seems like after all I have been through, I should be a lot more apprehensive about giving pregnancy another shot. Instead, I feel a steady calm. I know my Father in Heaven has heard my prayers and that the next few years of my life have been very carefully placed before me. Whether that will include a child or not is yet to be seen but I’m excited for the adventure either way!

Six Weeks Later

Where do I even begin?

I miss feeling obligated to update my little journal/blog every week with pregnancy or developmental updates for Dash. That time in the afternoon to sit and evaluate my little life is meaningful to me but I have been so busy trying to take care of everyone else that I haven't taken much time to take care of myself.
That little problem won't be going away anytime soon, either. When I look at my schedule, I have work or family commitments M, T, and Th from 6:30am, when my first daycare client arrives, until 9pm when I finish tutoring. Tutoring just got underway last night but I can already tell that it will take a decent chunk out of my "me" time in the evenings.
I love tutoring though, and the money is very helpful for paying off outstanding debts.
How else can I earn $50/hr and maintain my dignity? There aren't many options, that's for sure.
Tutoring is good for my mind, too. I intend to go back to teaching soon. "Soon" is, of course, a relative term. I filled out my request for updated information regarding licensure in Virginia. I had completed almost everything when I left teaching but one thing definitely remained incomplete: The Math PRAXIS.
If you have any friends in education, specifically for math, you can ask them about it. I was reminded again by the local math chair for our county that the math praxis is by and large the hardest content area test required of public school teachers. The content goes so far above what a math teacher will ever teach as to be ludicrous.
To give you an idea of just how nuts this test is, take a look at the passing rates here. For teachers who are just finishing their degrees, and so have the most recent experience with the material, the passing rate is roughly 60% but for those who have 3 or more years of experience, the pass rate is 17%.
SEVENTEEN. As in, fewer than 1 in 5 who take the test will pass it.
Those scores are about 10 years old though, so let's take a look at some that are newer and from a specific university.
From UC Denver, The PRAXIS pass rates in 2013 were:

English: 82.6%
Social Studies: 94.5%
School Psychology: 95.1%
General Science: 89.2%
Mathematics: 57.1%

Yes, you read that correctly. A full 25.5% lower passing rate than the next hardest test. Why UC Denver? Because they published this data and it showed up in my google search. That's not a very scientific way to go about this, but it adds to my point that the test I have to take is going to be HARD. Well, hard for me, that is, because it's been such a long time since I grappled with higher content mathematics. My last college math course that wasn't an education course was taken 15 years ago and although I've kept up with content through the trigonometry courses via tutoring, I haven't touched calculus or anything beyond since my time at BYU.
I'm nervous!
I suppose this is going to turn into a bit of a rant. You see, finding good math teachers is pretty hard if my experience with tutoring gives me any credibility in that sphere. I have this personal belief based on nothing more than observation that the majority of the teachers and professors who understand the ins and outs of higher level mathematics make really crappy teachers! Why??
Because they can't understand students when they don't grasp the material.
When a student comes to you and says, "But I don't get it," a good teacher can back up and figure out why and where.
What step in the mathematical chain is broken?
How far into the process does the student understand?
Can the teacher relate to the students' frustration and use a little bit of empathy as s/he works towards helping the students learn?
And yes, I think empathy is an important trait in a teacher but I don't feel like going into the why of that right now.
The vast majority of the teachers I know who really know their math beyond calculus lack the ability to do those things.
And that opinion is based on my experiences as a student in high school, with professors in college, and with a small group of colleges that I worked with as well.
It's time for me to be back in education in a formal classroom setting but making that shift is going to take a little time and quite a bit of preparation.
I have to pass that PRAXIS . . .