Life Update!!!!!!

    Hey there everyone!!! Once again, it has certainly been a long time since my last post. Boy, has a lot happened in my life since then! Ben and I got married in May of 2019!!! That part of life has been absolutely fantastic!! Within the first year of marriage, I got a promotion with work. I went from being an Assistant Front End Manager for Albertsons to being a full fledged Front End Manager! I'm not going to lie, the adjustment was not easy breezy, but I grew and learned and am doing pretty good at this job! 

    The store I currently work at is busier than my old store, so that was one thing to try and get used to. The other thing I had to get used to was the travel. It was an adjustment for both Ben and I. I had to get used to driving more, while Ben had to get used to me being away from home a little bit more. I think we have hit our stride now though. We have gotten ourselves into a nice little routine.

   Unfortunately, I have a somewhat bad update on my weight loss journey that I was on the last time I wrote. I have gotten on and off the horse with that a few times since the last post. The last real success I had was leading up to our wedding. I had lost almost thirty pounds at one point. Sadly, the stress of work along with the wedding planning got to me and I completely lost focus on those goals. However, I have in the last month gotten re-focused again. I have a weigh-in today which we will see how that goes.

    Since my last entry, I have officially entered my thirties! Boy was that interesting. Leading up to my thirtieth, I really started to self reflect. I looked back at my twenties and found myself thinking " What have I truly accomplished in my life?". That was not the best time for me. I began to focus too much on the negative things that had happened in my life. I was thinking about my first marriage, not finishing college, not being in the position I saw myself in at work, no kids....you see where this is going?  Then I finally started looking forward. What did I want to happen in my thirties? Ben and I decided on some pretty big goals. First, we want to purchase a home together to start our family in. Then, we want to begin an adoption. One professional goal I made for myself was that I want to be an Assistant Store Director.

    Well guys, that pretty much catches you up! I'm sorry it's been so long, and I hope to get back to making this a more consistent thing again. Thanks for reading, I hope your lives are going well! May we butterflies always soar!!!

Weeks 1 and 2

              Hello all! I certainly hope everyone enjoyed the last post. As you all know, I have re-set myself yet again on my weight loss journey. Well, in this post i'm going to let you all know how everything is going so far.
              When I started on day one of this journey, I honestly didn't know how long I could keep this up. I made the following rules for myself:
                                         1) don't eat a lot of read
                                         2) STAY AWAY FROM FRIED FOOD
                                         3) stay away from candy and chocolate
         The very first week, I was extremely determined. I ate very well. The only sweet thing I ate was fruit. I was also good about staying away from fried food. I ate pretty well every day. For breakfast I  mostly ate a banana and some oatmeal. For lunch, it was either a turkey wrap or a sandwich and maybe some apple slices. For dinner we kind of mixed things up with pork chops, steak, or chicken with a healthy side dish. At the end of week one, I ended up being down two pounds already!!
           Week two started out great!! I had just come off of the two pound weight loss from week one, and had been to the gym a couple times for an amazing couple of workouts. My eating habits started out pretty good. I was eating the same banana and oatmeal for breakfast, packing my lunches. Then something kind of rough happened.
             During one of my workouts on a Friday, I hurt my back. I ended up hurting myself for a bad reason. I had a sort of bug up my butt and decided I wanted to be in the cardio room at the gym for 45 min. As part of this goal, I spent 10 min on the elliptical. What some of you might not know is that a 4'11" frame does not belong on a traditional elliptical. Doing this action caused me to severely strain a joint in my back. I have gone through a lot to recover from this injury. I have had to see a chiropractor 4 times in a week. I also have to be extremely good about stretching and putting ice and heat on my back periodically.
              Having this injury messed with the really good eating I was doing. For the most part I have still been eating relatively well, however there have been a few meals that were not ideal. The first part of the week I wasn't eating enough because the pain was messing with my appetite. I spent the better part of three days sleeping, trying to recover after going to the chiropractor. When I started feeling better, I began to let myself have a little bit of the bad food I had been craving. There were a few nights we had fries as part of our dinner. The first two times I let myself get away with because we baked them in the oven.....(still not really ok to eat). The third time was really bad.....we ended up eating at a local fast food place because I came home from work starving. 
              Somehow, at the end of week two I still managed to loose another two pounds! I don't know if mostly eating good actually paid off or how it happened, but my body doesn't feel as good as it did the end of week one when I ate completely good food.
                  I'm very much hoping that I can keep us this weight loss momentum even with my slip ups. Keep an eye out for an update on week three! We can do this weight loss thing butterflies, just keep focused! May us butterflies ALWAYS soar!

Still trying...

             Hey there everyone! Boy has it been a long time since I have posted a new blog. Unfortunately life got a little in my way for too long. One of my New Years evolutions ( resolutions are way too easy to give up on) is to do a couple small things for myself every once in a while. The reason for this is because last year I feel like I let myself lose track too much on stuff that means a lot to me. Writing this blog is definitely one of the most important things to me.
              Writing this blog is only one of the things that I want to get back to for myself. Writing and giving advice that might help people is my way of giving back to the world. The way I see it, if just one person is positively affected by something I write they might spread the word and that would also in turn spread positivity.
                The second HUGE thing I am trying to get back on track with is my weight loss journey. I've been at this journey for the better part of two and half years and haven't gotten very far. I'm not sure what it was this time that got me to feel the need to get back on the wagon again, but yet again I find myself hitting the reset button of commitment to weight loss. It could be wanting to loose weight for my wedding, it could be the time of year, it could be the fact that I had been down 30 pounds and have gained back almost 20 of it in the past 9 months, it could honestly be a combination of all of the above.....I have absolutely no clue to be honest. I just know that I have the drive AGAIN and am tired AGAIN of hearing myself recommit. I truly do want this to be the last time I have to recommit. In the past 2 and half years I think I have recommitted to this at least 6 times. I know i'm not the only person out in the world that has had a similar issue losing weight, I just really hope that for all of the above reasons I can one hundred percent stay committed this time.
              One of my biggest hurdles on this weight loss journey is food. My two favorite things when it comes to food is sweets, and fried foods. I legitimately feel like an addict sometimes when it comes to food. I can go MAYBE a week eating salads and more veggies and stuff......and then the cravings hit me. When these cravings hit me, there is usually no stopping them. They get soo bad that my mind will not let me think about anything else besides the food i'm craving. I know I need to change my relationship with food. I have completely given up soda for exactly 13 months now, which was extremely difficult at first. I feel like if I could just channel whatever it was to allow my brain and body to give up soda, maybe I can give up the fried food and sweets. The trick though is trying to remember how I got my mind past the cravings. I remember kind of thinking to myself that I was allergic to soda. I would tell myself I was allergic to it so I wouldn't drink it.
              So, here we are. It is January 11, 2018. I am 4'11'', 223lbs. As of today, I am recommitting for what I sincerely hope is the last time. For at least awhile, this blog will document a butterflies struggle to lose weight. I will check with a new article once a week. I will let my readers know how my eating right went the past week, how my weight did that week, and just a little about how my emotions were that week( because yes, those do play a role in a weight loss journey too). I hope somehow documenting my journey will help at least one other butterfly out there. Until next week, and may us butterflies always SOAR!

Getting consistent

                Everyone who reads this blog knows that I along with many of my fellow butterflies are in a weight loss battle to keep ourselves healthy. Due to our unique genetic make-up, this task can be very difficult. In order for us butterflies to lose weight, we have to control many factors. The key factor I would like to talk about today is being consistent with absolutely everything having to do with your body.
                As a butterfly, you have to be consistent with a lot of things that have to deal with your body if you truly want to stay fit and healthy. The first, and most important thing being what you eat. Due to most of us having thyroid issues, we can't get away with eating healthy only some of the time. You have to eat really healthy just about  one-hundred percent of the time. For me, this part of my weight loss journey is the most difficult. It is the most difficult for me because I allowed myself to eat extremely unhealthy for soo long. When you do what I did and let yourself eat way too much fried foods and sweets, your body starts to react as if it absolutely needs those things and makes you crave them. The cravings are the worst! However, if you can be strong enough to push through the craving phase and avoid all the terrible food, your body will both thank and reward you. I will admit, I am not completely away from the fried foods and sweets yet, but I have severely cut back. There is one important bad food for me I have completely cut out though, and that is soda. As of the moment I am typing this, I have gone almost 5 months without a single sip of soda or energy drink! I am very proud of myself for this accomplishment, but am also very aware that if I truly want the weight loss results I'm looking for I need to cut out the rest of the bad food completely.
                Yet another important thing us butterflies have to be consistent with is remembering our meds. You may not know it, but if you don't take those thyroid meds, those HRT meds, along with all your vitamins consistently, you will throw off your bodies vital hormones and not lose any weight. One thing some butterflies are not aware of is that if you are trying to lose weight and your hormones are off balance, absolutely no weight will be lost. Your bodies hormones are extremely vital to the weight loss process.
                  The third key to absolute weight loss success is extremely tricky to do, even for me. You have to be consistent with doing some kind of workout every single day. Some of you may be reading this and say to yourself " that's the easy part Holly, what are you talking about"? You may think it's easy when you first start out. Usually in the beginning people are all stoked and gung-ho about their goals, its as you go along and possibly start to lose interest that makes it difficult. The other thing that makes it difficult is making a workout schedule to co-exist with your work schedule. For example, I myself have recently had a difficult time with this because some days I work a full eight hour shift on my feet and get home and all I want is dinner and rest. This fact hit me hard because I've been trying to lose weight for quite some time now and have mostly been getting no-where. I realized I needed consistancy.
            It took me getting well into my weight loss journey to realize that doing these things is what I needed to get where I want to be. Being consistent with these three things should help all of you and myself get exactly where we want to be health wise. I will keep you all informed as I move forward with these new realizations and putting them into action. I hope that this realization helps you all too. I would love to hear any of your weight loss stories as well! May we all forever soar!

           

Positivity Control

                 What a lot of people in this world is need to realize, is that there are actually very few things in this world that we can control. Sometimes we wish we could control all aspects of our life, but the truth is...there is maybe a handful of things in this world we can control.

                  One of the few things we do have control over, is how much positivity is actually in our lives. You may be asking " How on earth can I control the amount of positivity in my life??". The short answer is to not allow yourself much time with people who are negative. For example, If you have a co-worker who is constantly complaining about everything....minimize your exposure to the negativity by trying to either stay focused on the customer or task in front of you or you can also just try to work in a different area not so close to the person.

                   A second way you can try to keep the positivity up is to make yourself a list, a list of all the good things in your life. I do this sometimes simply because all the bad stuff that comes up in life can sort of foreshadow the good, so if you make yourself more aware of the good the bad won't foreshadow as long.

                  One other thing that you can do, which is a little tricky....is to force yourself into a good attitude.You can do this several ways. Sometimes I put myself into a good attitude by waking up and simply saying out loud " Today is gonna be a good day".Sometimes just watching or listening to something funny can boost your mood too. Sometimes just being around kids helps me have a good day too.At work, I have a lot of kids that come in regularly and love to say hi to me. It is so awesome to get to catch up with the kids and the parents, that is what helps make my days better.

                  I know we have all heard about this next method of staying in a good mood. It is very simple too.....exercise. I know it's pretty typical, but it really does work. I have noticed in myself that it just perks me up after I'm done with my workout. I used to be on anti-depressants, but since I've started working out on a consistent basis I have been able to stop taking the pills.

                 There are very few things on this earth we can control, but how happy and positive we are is one those few things. You have to also believe you can control in order to completely gain more positivity. You can't just do these things and think they will work like magic, you have to truly believe that doing these things will help you. If you want your life more positive, you can change it.

When to tell....

One of the most frequent questions I see Turner’s girls ask of each other is when to tell someone you are dating about it Turner’s and all that it encompasses. For me, I have always told a guy almost right off the bat. It tends to weed out two things……the first being if they are truly interested in getting to know you for you, the second is if they are really ok with everything that having Turner’s entails.

I have had two very different experiences with giving this information. When I told my ex-husband he seemed really ok with everything I was telling him. He had me soo convinced that of course we got married. Well, when it came to the time in the marriage that we really started talking about expanding our family he started showing his true colors. He started throwing the infertility in my face when we would get in fights. He had no idea how to be there for me every time a doctors test would come back with bad results. I was totally on my own.

With my boyfriend, he was absolutely amazing and understanding. I told him about a week or two into the relationship. Not only was hej sincerely interested in the information I was telling him, he looked stuff up about it all on his own! This really touched my heart. Now that we have been together over a year, we have been talking about what will happen in our future. We have discussed the children situation many times and every time I walk out of that conversation feeling completely supported.

I hope every single one of you butterflies has an experience like my second one. If you start hearing things that point you into thinking that the guy you are with is not really ok with going through adoption or IVF or any of the other options we have…then I’m sorry but you might wanna end that relationship, because as soon as one of those processes start they are going to get very overwhelmed and start saying things that are hurtful. I kind of check-in with my boyfriend every once in a while and ask him if he is still sure he feels he can handle one of these excruciating processes…every time it’s the same answer…” of course babe. We will be going through this together.” Part of our responsibility is doing our research and thoroughly explaining to the guys what these processes are like.

I hope this advice is helpful, I also hope it doesn’t scare you….that was not the intent. We must also have faith in our men ladies. Faith that they are being honest, and that from the beginning they understand what this entails and that they can truly handle it. May we always soar!!

Self-Esteem Booster

One issue that I have noticed, not only in us butterflies but in ALL women is self-esteem. This world is full of women who don’t know their full potential, feel bad about themselves, don’t think they are pretty, or don’t think they are worth a man spending time on them.

One thing I want ALL women who read my blog to know is that you are always worth while. You are always beautiful. You should never feel bad about yourself. You are always worth people spending time on you.

There are many possible reasons for low self-esteem in women. Whether it’s not getting approval from either one or both of our parents, a significant other that constantly tells you awful things about yourself, a sibling telling you hurtful things, whatever it is that puts your self-esteem low try to reverse it once you catch it. You catch it by realizing when think stuff to yourself like “ what guy would want to date me?”, “ nothing looks good on me!”. There are tons of negative thoughts that you could catch going through your head.

Now, how do you reverse it? First off, if you are in a relationship with someone who is constantly telling you negative things about yourself leave! Second, and this is gonna sound really weird but I swear to you that I have actually done this before, look at yourself in a mirror…..now repeat to yourself(whether outloud or in your head) I am worth while. I am beautiful. I am special. Just repeating those things can help. One other thing I do is to pick one thing that I enjoy to do and do it for at least 20 minutes everyday. It doesn’t have to be the same thing every day. It can be several different things, the important thing is that you do one specific thing for yourself for at least 20 minutes.

One thing I want to talk about is that we women need to always lift each other up, not tear each other down. Shoot, we should do this as humans not just women. It absolutely astounds me that we as human beings can talk crap behind each other’s back and destroy each other so easily. There is enough bad stuff in this world. Let’s not add to it by tearing each other apart. It’s just one small thing each of us can do to possibly make this world a little bit better.

I hope the tips I gave to help your self-esteem really do help. The way I see it is that if these tips helped even one person feel better about themselves then I’ve helped make a difference. As Ellen Degenerous says…Be kind to one another.

Persevere

Persevere. It’s a word we hear a lot of today, but don’t always know the true meaning of. People sometimes think that persevere is a synonym for success. Persevering can lead to success, but it’s not a direct synonym. Persevere to me means pushing past all the hard, disappointing, depressing, stuff in life to have a happy one no matter what.

Us Turner’s girls do have to persevere a lot. We push through things like having to go through heart surgery, putting ourselves through IVF or even going through the adoption process. We put ourselves through second guessing guys intentions sometimes. We deal with adapting our lives to our height. Bottom line is that us butterflies end up having to go through a lot of difficult stuff.

We are put through it for a reason though. That reason is because we CAN handle it. As much as we fight it and say that we simply can’t take anymore, we always get through it. We get through because we know the great good that will come at the end. You persevere through IVF or adoption, you get the absolute joy of being a parent. You get through the heart surgery, you come out feeling ten times better.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, no matter what hardship you are going through right now, know that you will get through it BECAUSE you are a butterfly. Do yourself a favor and think back to all the stuff you’ve already gotten through……amazing isn’t it? If you can get through all that stuff, what’s stopping you from getting through this? You can achieve and persevere through whatever you put your mind too. Have a good one butterflies, and may we always soar!

Letter To The Parents

Letter to the parents:

This posting is for all of you out there who are parents of girls with Turner’s or are soon to be parents of a little girl with Turner’s. This road you are on is going to be very long and have a lot of bumps in it.

If you are a parent that has found out that your unborn daughter has Turner’s, my thoughts are with you. From what I’ve gathered from the other butterflies and butterfly parents I have been in contact with this is the most difficult road. The doctor’s will say a lot of really scary things to you. They will tell you that the chances of this baby even coming to term will be slim. They may even suggest you contemplate termination of the pregnancy.  They will most likely tell you that if the odds are defied and the baby survives that she will have a very hard time fitting in and possibly have a difficult time with school. While these things may be true for some of us butterflies, it is not true for all of us. You must have faith that your little butterfly can defy all odds, because that’s what we typically do.

Now, I am a butterfly..not a parent to one so I can only tell you what I have observed and what I believe my own parents went through with me. Some of you parents may be very extraverted or outward about your concerns for your daughter, and some of you might be introverted or inward about your concerns for your daughter. Both ways are perfectly good, because either way your daughter will know you care. I recently realized that I had one of each type growing up. My mom was very extraverted about her concerns. She was very vocal about her worry and concern. My dad on the other hand was very introverted about his concerns and worry. What I recently realized was that he did that for a very good reason. When I was a kid, it may have felt like he wasn’t very involved. Now that I’m an adult and have a different perspective I realize that the way he was involved was very behind the scenes. In his own way he did certain things behind the scenes so that while the Turner’s may have affected my life, he was going to provide everything else so that nothing else besides the Turner’s would affect my life so much. Either way you are with your daughter is a good way.

There are other parts of being a parent to a butterfly I want you folks to know. You are going to be somewhat bombarded by doctors. Your daughter is going to need a regular pediatrician, a cardiologist, and an endocrinologist. She may also need more doctors than that at some point. These doctor’s may not always agree on certain treatments either. As the parent, it is your job to listen to all of them and decide what route is best for your daughter and fight for that decision. Most of the bumps in the road as a parent to a butterfly will have to deal with medical decisions. Never fun, but necessary.

I hope this has been helpful and has helped you prepare. May all your butterflies always soar and defy the odds.

It Never Goes Away

So by now we all know that infertility is one of the most having Turner's Syndrome. It's not easy for any woman to handle. There are several components that will literally tear a woman down emotionally. I'm not even going to pretend that this post is strictly about Turner's Woman dealing with infertility. This post is about how ALL woman typically deal with the infertility. Now, I have written a previous post about how infertility doesn't always mean you won't be a parent, and I hope you all read it and that it was helpful. This post believe it or not is going to delve a little deeper.

I'm a member of a few Turner's support groups on facebook and there is a repeat question that is constantly asked..."Does the pain of infertility ever go away?". Sadly everyone I have to report that at least for the woman I know who have fertility issues it doesn't ever one hundred percent ever go away. There are reminders everywhere you look too. 

Here is what I personally have gone through. When I first got test results back on my FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) levels I was immediately in denial. I thought that just because a hormone level was off it didn't matter. My mind told me that I could change those levels with diet or taking a pill or something. It didn't really hit me that hard.  A little over a year later I had a pelvic ultrasound done to find out exactly what was going on with my "equipment" so to speak. It didn't REALLY hit me until after I got the results of that ultrasound. That day I will never forget. That day made my heart break into a thousand pieces. My doctor had personally called me with the results instead of having the nurse tell me. She told me I have what is called a bilatteral uterus. This basically means that my uterus is divided in two. The ultrasound also revealed that my ovaries were either non-existent or at the most what they call "streaks". Between knowing what my FSH levels were, the bilatteral uterus, and basically being told I have no ovaries I broke down majorly. I spent a good half an hour straight balling my eyes out. I had to compose myself though, because I had to be to work two hours after the phone call was recieved from my doctor.

Of course you would think that you might have at maximum a couple weeks of devestation and then be back to normal, and that's true to a certain extent. The truth of the matter is that deep down I truly have accepted the fact that I won't be a birth mother. Here are ways that it will catch up with you though. At least for me, it's really tough to hear every time a family member or freind is pregnant. I am always genuinely happy for them, but at the same time it's always a reminder that I won't have the joy of posting an ultrasound pic on facebook of a baby that is growing inside of ME. It's a reminder that I will never get to look at my someday Husband and tell him that the baby is moving and reach for his hand to let him feel it. Something at least that also makes it hard for me is working in a grocery store. You may be thinking to yourself " How on earth does that have anything to do with infertility?". The truth is that it's very difficult to see all these young couples come in, I'm talking that they are my regular customers from soon after they meet, and slowly see them get married and get the whole happy ending when I know that there will be one key piece for me always missing.

There will always be those people too who tell you" It's not the end of the world. You can always adopt.". I know they mean well, but the people who say that don't understand the half of how difficult an adoption really is.First off, the cost alone is substantial. Then you have at least a hundred different hoops to jump through. IVF is just as frustrating. Sometimes the embryos aren't viable, after transfer there is the high risk of miscarriage, and many more things that could still go wrong.

For me, on the day to day I don't struggle with it too bad. I handle it pretty well. It's when I see the pregnant customers at work though, or see on facebook about family getting pregnant. These things and a few others are my triggers for getting reminded about and not really feeling too great about it. For many women who suffer from infetility it makes us feel useless too. Makes us feel like we can't fulfill one of the major things that nature made us for. We worry if we have a man in our life that not being able to bear him children will make him run in the opposite direction.

For you guys reading that have a woman in your life with infertility I have only one piece of advise for you gents to help you out because I know this situation isn't a good one for you guys just as much as it is difficult for us women to go through. You guys sometimes feel useless in trying to make us feel better about the situation. The only thing you can really do is just be there for the woman in your life and assure her that you will always be there no matter what happens. Most of the time that's all we need to hear. We might need to hear it more than a few times though.

There you have it folks. A litte insight as to what you women can expect to go through as you wait for the test results to come back, when you do get the results back, and more. What helps me get through those days when I have a lot of reminders is journaling and reminding myself that my situation doesn't make me any less of a woman or person. I hope this post is very helpful to everyone who reads it and as always.......may us butterflies always soar!