Midlife Fertility Surge? Hope from the Daily Mail

I love this article from the Daily Mail about a woman who had four children naturally in her 40s after 20 unsuccessful years of TTC. 

While I am well aware of all the depressing statistics regarding age and fertility, I remind myself that I've achieved two pregnancies in the past year and a positive state of mind is more likely to enable me to achieve a third than a depressed one.

When I find myself feeling down I can return to the article and others like it to give me hope and counter all the negative suggestion in the media about my age and chances of conceiving.

Book Review: 30 Something and the Clock is Ticking, Kasey Edwards

30 Something and the Clock is Ticking

30 Something and the Clock is Ticking
What Happens When You Can No Longer Avoid the Baby Issue
Kasey Edwards
Mainstream Publishing Company, 2011

A self proclaimed feminist and career woman, Kasey is startled to find herself blurting that she wants a baby to her boyfriend of a year after returning from a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat.

They agree to revisit the subject in a year, at the ages of 32 and 34 respectively, there is lots of time.  

However at a routine checkup a few weeks later Kasey discovers she has a number of fertility issues and doctor recommends IVF within the year if she wants to have a child.

With candour and humour, Kasey elects to take on the baby issue in her own terms.  

Does she in fact want to be a mother?  

What life would she be choosing for herself if she did?  

Is she still of value to her partner if she is infertile?  

Is she of value in her career if she's not?  

If she does want to be a mother, would she be a good one?  

Kasey worries that taking on the invisible and poorly valued identity of mother in our society could bring back the black dog of depression from her past.

Researching the academic literature and the lives of her friends, Kasey weighs the pros and cons, like the Management Consultant she is, in order to make a rational recommendation to herself and finds herself re-examining her own ideas about motherhood and marriage.  In the end the choice is emotional, not rational and in the final chapters she shares the challenges of trying to conceive under a deadline.

I picked this book up at the library while looking for some prescribed reading for an essay I have to write, and read it in one sitting.  I found it to be both entertaining and educational.

The life Kasey paints of motherhood is not pretty - it involves a lot of effort and sacrifice for little appreciation and very small, but ultimately worth it, reward. 

 

Kasey also goes into the injustice of the gender pay gap and the 'mommy path' career women are sidelined into once they admit parenthood is on their agenda. 

Ultimately, trying to have it all means navigating a minefield of compromises and what it looks like is unique to each woman.

I could relate to Kasey's desire to decide and take action before time ran out and maybe its the educated, career oriented circles the author moves in, but I was surprised by the stories of her fellow female dinner party guests and the situations they found themselves in with regard to becoming parents.

On a side note, this is the second book in a row I've just picked up off the biography shelf for casual reading that has detailed the benefits of vipassana meditation.  

Some years ago I sat next to a man on a flight from New York to London who was just returning from a vipassana retreat.  He spoke in detail about it and I thought it would either benefit or kill me.

Maybe the universe is trying to remind me something.


L.
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Beetroot and Mint Coleslaw

Vibrant colours for vibrant health!

One of the challenges involved in getting a weekly veg box is figuring out tasty ways of enjoying vegetables you wouldnt usually choose to eat.  

I'm no great fan of cabbage cooked, but I dont mind coleslaw.  

I was out of carrots so thought I'd experiment with beetroot which has a similar texture and sweetness to carrot. 

 The mint in our garden has gone nuts so I thought adding a bit of that would give a nice counter to the sweetness. 

Mr Duncan said this was the best coleslaw I've made yet.

Fertility focus

Beetroot is full of iron and folate

Cabbage is antioxident and also contains a phytonutrient called Di-Indole Methane that helps with metabolising estrogen effectively.

Ingredients

• Cabbage
• Beetroot
• Mint
• Apple cider vinegar
• Olive oil

Method

1.  Grate the beetroot

2.  Finely chop the cabbage and mint.  

3.  Toss together in an apple cider vinegar and olive oil dressing.

Honestly, its not easy.

Tranquility in the Okavango Delta

While its been relatively easy (and sort of fun) to photograph and document the meals I make to keep myself and Mr Duncan in optimum health in the hope of conceiving again in the future...   

I have more than a dozen unpublished posts in which I have written about my pregnancies/loss/reactions to the world at large. 

Especially the pregnant and mother-of-newborn world which seems to be so prevalent in the media at the moment.   

Grrr.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help me work through the feelings - what is it to grow (eg gardening) or create (cooking, sewing) something and have it not work out in the same way that my babies were created and real, but didnt work out.

Maybe draw some parallels.

Maybe have an outlet for expressing the rollercoaster of awe and fear and love and bitterness and hope and despair and jealousy and pragmatism and acceptance and anger I feel.

But my unpublished posts seem so inadequate to express what I am experiencing I've been storing them up to re-work until they do.

Maybe I'm just not ready yet.

I mean, writing it all down has its own value.  But sharing?  Even to no readership -  it still seems a step too far.  

Like its actually real. 

Which is seriously is. 

But still....

I had a total meltdown last Thursday which (once I regained some semblance of perspective) just reinforced the fact that I need to deal with it.

But really... it is not easy.

Hokkaido Squash Soup and Roast 'Pumpkin' Seeds

Beta-carotene-rich creamy goodness

This week we got a Hokkaido Squash in the Veg box.  

I've never even heard of a Hokkaido Squash before, so I had to google it.  It is one of several types of winter squash and good for you in more ways than you can imagine.  

Given it has actually started being summer in London, I was flirting with the idea of making a squash, basil and feta salad based on something I had for lunch from Del Aziz once years ago.  Delicious, but I had no feta, Mr. Duncan is supposed to be off dairy, and my basil plant is a bit leggy - so I needed to come up with another plan.

Risotto? Its too stodgy for this weather.

I've always loved a warming pumpkin soup.  I think my mother must have made it for me as a child as I don't remember ever looking up a recipe or learning how to make it.  I don't often find the type of grey skinned pumpkin common in New Zealand so have experimented with other types of winter squash and been largely successful.*

Fertility Focus

Cayenne Pepper is full of antioxidants and also dilates blood vessels, promoting flow to the reproductive organs

Home made Chicken Stock is suggested by Traditional Chinese Medicine for nurturing fertility

Turmeric is good for stabilising blood sugar levels which helps with managing weight and hormone balance.

Winter Squash is rich in Vitamin A and also contains zinc and selenium which is important for both ovarian and sperm health.

Ingredients

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Onion
• Dried tumeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper
• Hokkaido Squash
• Home made chicken stock

Method

1.  Peel, remove seeds and chop the squash into bite sized pieces, then simmer in the chicken stock until soft.

2.  Meanwhile finely chop the garlic, ginger and onion and sweat in a soup pot in a teaspoon of coconut oil.  

3.  Once the onion mixture is soft, mix in the spices (approx tsp of each) until fragrant.  

4.  Drain the chicken stock, reserving liquid, and mash.  

5.  Mix mashed squash in onion and spice mix - adding sufficient chicken stock/boiling mixture to the right consistency.  

6.  Heat to serving temperature and garnish with herbs or cheese.

I also like to stir in a spoon of natural yoghurt if I have it available.

Given pumpkin seeds are full of the zinc and magnesium so good for a man's sperm, I thought I'd make a special snack for Mr. Duncan and have a go at making my own.  

Normally I'd just toss them in a bit of olive oil and salt, but because of Mr Duncan's blood pressure I used some cumin and smoked paprika in place of the salt.  

I spread them over a baking tray and baked them at 140 C for about 20 minutes - until they started 'popping'.

It turns out that while Mr. likes the taste of the flavouring - he's not into the "texture" of whole pumpkin seeds.  Sigh.

I like them as a snack though.

-------------------

* Using a spaghetti squash was an abject failure.  It wouldn't mash or blend and turned into a stringy mess.  I gave up and we had cheese on toast.