A New Hope!!

So--

I have been in hiding with my fertility issues because I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I didn't want my life to be surrounded by my infertility. I wanted to enjoy my son and also focus on building my accounting business. But---I did finally make an appointment with my doctor and was seen on April 13. She ordered some blood tests to get done and told me to go that Saturday. I knew I hadn't ovulated yet and one of the tests was for progesterone so I opted to wait until Monday (though even by then I hadn't ovulated or was ovulating that day).

They took 20 freakin vials of blood!! The lady when she was printing off the labels was like, I hope you had a good breakfast this morning. I didn't. I had a bowl of cinnamon chex if I can recall. So I sit down in the chair, and I know not to look because it freaks me out...but she just kept pulling different vials. It probably took her five minutes just to sort out the labels with the blood vials.

finally--she goes to take my blood, and she doesn't put the rubber band around my arm like they normally do...and then probably like a minute later from trying to get my blood to start flowing, another person comes to check out why my blood isn't flowing, at this point I do look over...no blood, just a needle in my vein.

Finally, she puts the rubber band around my arm and the blood starts flowing. I think we get to vial 6 before I start feeling woozy...they had me lay down, asked me if I wanted to stop..put a wet towel on my head...called in someone over the loud speaker to take my blood pressure and pulse. Through all this, which probably only took 2 minutes at most, I said, NO, KEEP TAKING THE BLOOD! The feeling of ALMOST passing out is CRAZY! My hearing started going...like I felt like I was in a tunnel or something and they were far away. I had tingling in my hands and I couldn't talk normal. They did finish filling up the 20 vials. They took my blood pressure twice...obviously the first one was low... A nice lady even offered to drive me somewhere. But after a few minutes, I was fine. Poor Josh had to watch all the hullabaloo happening. I asked him later if he was scared, and he said, no. I knew you were ok. I love that little man!

Anyway---

All my test results came back normal, except for one. And this is a GREAT one! Though not great that I don't have normal results, I suppose, it is something to FIX!!

I tested positive for one copy of the C677T mutation on the MTHFR gene. This mutation can cause miscarriages and implantation problems. Hello 2 miscarriages and 1 ectopic pregnancy over here!!! The good news is, with higher doses of folic acid(which my doctor already prescribed and I am already taking since my April 13 appointment), along with baby aspirin, b-6 and b-12 there is hope that I can carry another child to term! Of course, I must get pregnant first (though I have had my suspicions in this past year that we did have other losses...especially when I was late a couple of times and I am never late), and that is where the clomid comes in. My doctor also prescribed clomid, which I will be taking soon...unless by some miracle I am pregnant now. I highly doubt it and am not holding my breath...so don't hold yours!

I just HAD to write this out, because it gives me hope! All my clotting tests regarding this mutation came back within normal ranges, I believe, so at least nothing else is wrong except that I have this pesky little mutation for the rest of my life...and will have to have it monitored.

I WILL get pregnant soon!

Baking Queen!

I had to look at the last time I posted and it was March 25. It has been like three weeks since we have decided to seriously look into doing this gluten free bakery, and while it is exciting and fun, I have many fears.

My biggest fear is that I am going to contaminate someone that has gluten intolerance with my baking. I NEVER want to make someone sick with something they buy from me. While I am focusing on making my items gluten free, and testing that I can do to make sure that it is gluten free I stumble upon forums and blogs with people talking about how they are getting sick. Gluten is in EVERYTHING it seems, even things that we think are gluten free. There is an entire forum surrounding people testing foods and seeing if there is gluten or at least the ppm (whatever that means). In America, anything 20 ppm and lower is considered gluten free, in all other countries I believe 0 ppm is gluten free, so America is a bit behind on this disease. There are test strips out there to test the food for 10ppm or higher. I don't grow my own rice or milk my own cow so how do I TRULY know if things are gluten free?? I certainly don't want to give an item that I think is gluten free to someone with celiac disease, only to cause them to get sick. I could very well have gluten intolerance, as it is a highly genetic disease and I know that it runs in my family, but I don't deal with the sickness that someone of my family members have, so I don't have the reactions that they do.

I am a rollercoaster of emotions regarding this endeavor. I want to make good food that anybody would eat...but the fear of making someone sick SUCKS! Maybe I need to turn my backyard into one big farm to ensure that the items I offer are 100% gluten free.

With that being said--I am quite happy with our spread thus far. We did register our name with the county, so we are officially Andersson's Kitchen. We need to get all of our paperwork into the department of Agriculture and then get inspected. If we pass inspection, then we can go to the county and get zoning approval. Though in VA, you don't really have to do all this, I want to do it because I have bigger dreams (or at least bigger goals. This wasn't really a dream of mine). I had to stop trying new recipes because we have to turn all of our recipes into the dept of agriculture and it was getting ridiculous how long it took to type it all up and do all the procedures etc.

We have a good list though ---

Cookies -
White chip macadamia nut
Melt aways
Chocolate Chip
Chocolate with white chip
peanut butter
Sugar cookies
White chip and toffee
Chocolate dipped chocolate chip
Chocolate dipped Shortbread cookies
Blueberry Muffins
Chocolate Chip Muffins
Vanilla Cupcakes
Triple Chocolate Cupcakes
Strawberry Cupcakes (a personal fav)
Lemon Cupcakes
Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
Red Velvet Cupcakes (my mom's fav)
Peanut butter cup chocolate cupcakes
Vanilla Mousse Cheesecake
Sour Cream Lemon Poundcake
Brownies
Angel Food Cake
Chocolate Cream Pie
Pavlova
Apple Pie
And then various icings for the cupcakes

We will add more, but we wanted to get these to the state to get the process going.

My mom did order some cupcakes today...so we had our first official sale. I felt kind of weird taking money from my mom for this endeavor, but she insisted since it was a business we were running. Of course, she has had MANY freebies given to her through these past few weeks, and I threw in another 5 or 6 cupcakes from another batch I made for her to try as well as my step-niece...who the cupcakes were for because she had a birthday party and is gluten free.

There are some ULTRA sensitive gluten intolerant people out there...I think I need to just stay away from their forums or I will walk away from this endeavor. They go completely grain free, meaning no rice even...and rice isn't supposed to have gluten in it. Patric just said, those are the types that won't be our customers. I guess he is right, because if you are ultra sensitive to gluten you probably need to grow and make everything yourself because probably everything comes in contact with a little bit of gluten here and there.

I feel a bit discouraged...though many around me are good at keeping my spirits up, especially my mom. She is super excited about this...I think moreso then when I decided to open my bookkeeping and tax business.

Anyway--we are off to dinner. I get to bring some yummy treats!

Sasha