39 Weeks

Today I received an email reminding me that I am 39 weeks pregnant. Where has the time gone? I can't believe that in one weeks time I would have been due with our miracle baby. That we would have been bringing him or her home and our lives would have changed forever.

It crazy to think that a year ago I was becoming so set on adoption being our way to parenthood, that it was possibly our only option. I never would have thought that three months later I would be pregnant. And never in a million years did I ever think we would have to deal with the heartbreak of a miscarriage. I feel as if I'm finally coming to terms with this loss. And I'm trying so hard to move on. 

The idea of adopting has not left my mind but has taken a back seat for a while. And why wouldn't it? We got pregnant without medical help. We can make that happen again right? I had really hoped wished and prayed that I would be pregnant again before my "due date" came around I guess that was just not meant to be. We are still holding out hope that we will be blessed with a child soon through me getting pregnant. But my hopes are dwindling that pregnancy will be achieved without the help of a specialist.

So here I am a year later doing exactly what I was last year, looking for the best specialist to go to, one that I can have faith in, who will actually listen to our problems and really try to figure them out. Hopefully I'll find that doctor soon and we can move on with our journey. Until then we'll just have to stay strong and hope that the Lord is planning to bless us with our own little miracle soon.

Fathers Day

Fathers Day does not bother me nearly as much as Mothers Day I've learned. I'm not sure how it effects Shawn. If it does bother him, he's very good at keeping it to himself. I felt yesterday like I needed to wish him a Happy Fathers Day just as much as I needed to wish the other men in our lives a happy day. I did so as we drove back from my parents last night. He looked at me for a second then said something to the effect of Thanks we've got two cute kids at home. Then went on his normal rant about the little things that get under his skin about them. If you didn't already know we have two dogs who we tend to treat like our children, and who also act like they are human. I just thought this was a cute little reply, I wholly expected him to look at me like I'm crazy and ask me what I had been smoking since we don't actually have kids yet. It was just one nice little moment with him that reminded me that he's a pretty awesome guy that I am very lucky to be spending my life with.

Chicken and Squash

I have to tell you Pinterest has been a lifesaver being on this diet, the rules are so simple but really it means cutting out ALOT of stuff from our diet. So when I come across recipes like this I just have to try them! So tonight's dinner was partially from Pinterest and partially something I remembered seeing once upon a time somewhere in internet land.

Spinach and mozzarella stuffed chicken breast with spaghetti squash au gratin. The au gratin was perfect, very filling which made it VERY hard to finish dinner tonight. Oh well I guess it'll make a great lunch for tomorrow.
The chicken was made the best I could from memory. Here's how I did it.

2 chicken breasts
2 small pieces of mozzarella
6 leafs of spinach
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp rosemary

Pound out the chicken breasts so they are nice and thin so you can roll them up. Place 3 leafs of spinach and one piece of mozzarella in each. Fold up the chicken so that the cheese will not leak out while baking. Melt the butter and mix it with the rosemary pour evenly over chicken. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Pretty simple and simply delicious! I think next time though I will pair it with steamed veggies instead of the spaghetti squash. The squash would be nice either by itself since it is so filling or with a simple piece of meat possibly fish? Either way both will stay on the menu in our house.

Pinspired

Today I was pinspired by this! There was no way I could pass this up since I love cheesecake and caramel apples! There was only one  little problem I'm trying to stick with my Low Amylose Diet and well the caramel and graham crackers called for isn't LA friendly. So I came up  with this version :)

Here is my recipe:

1 8 oz Package Cream Cheese (I used weight watchers)

1/3 jar Smucker's sugar free caramel ice cream topping

Mix together

Then I took one apple sliced it up 2 heaping tablespoons of dip and a handful of chopped almonds. Dip in both and enjoy! This was the best mid afternoon snack I have had in a long time. What has pinspired you lately?


*Update I originally said that you need 1/2 jar of the caramel, but it really needs only 1/3 of the jar

The Worst Food for Your Belly

Today I received an email from The Biggest Loser Club. Yes I'm in love with that show and yes I get their news letters. Shoot we all know I need to lose a few pounds so why not get as much back up as possible? Anyway I got this email today about the worst food for your belly. Well actually the worst food for you overall. And I'll tell you its not what you might think. Here is the email below:

When we asked cardiologist William Davis, M.D., what the worst food for your heart is, he didn't spend long thinking. His answer: Wheat.

Then he told us that it's also the worst food for your belly. In fact, because of this, he's actually coined a new term. "I call it wheat belly, though I could have just as easily called this condition pretzel brain or bagel bowel or biscuit face since there's not an organ system unaffected by wheat," says Dr. Davis, author of the new book, Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight. "But wheat's impact on the waistline is its most visible characteristic."

If you're carrying around excess belly flab, Dr. Davis's advice is clear: Give up the wheat. While that may sound drastic, he says that it doesn't mean never eating pizza, cookies, and cheesecake again. And that when you kick the wheat out of your diet, you actually quit craving wheat-filled foods.

Just how powerful is this wheat-free approach? "When my patients gave up wheat, they lost an average of 26.7 pounds each," says Dr. Davis. This isn't an isolated finding: According to a Mayo Clinic and University of Iowa study, test subjects lost an average of 27.5 pounds each on a wheat-free diet.

Of course, you're probably wondering: Why is wheat so bad for my waistline? The answer is simple: Because it's not really wheat anymore, says Dr. Davis. He explains that in the 1960s, a small group of scientists in Mexico set out to make wheat easier to grow and more pest resistant. That was good for the farmers, but bad for your health and your weight. The reason, according to Dr. Davis: Genetic engineering transformed wheat into a super carbohydrate that wreaks havoc on your body and makes you fat. And yes, says Dr. Davis, this even applies to the so-called "healthy" whole wheat that nutritionists say you should eat.

 This  just confirmed to me that my decision to cut out gluten and well wheat all together has been an awesome one. It just makes me feel more confident that I am making myself healthier, and giving us a MUCH better chance at actually becoming parents!