88 Highbury Corner

Getting Back On Track

2010-09-12T15:17:00.008+01:00

Well, nothing like diving right in. I've been a little neglectful of the blog these past couple of weeks as I have been processing the news of no news which I was given at my last specialist appointment, adjusting back to life as a full-time working woman and playing hostess to one half of my in-laws. Its all been a bit overwhelming.

Last week was a huge adjustment. Aside from the change in my schedule, getting up oh about three hours earlier everyday and asking my brain to focus on a thousand different things from what it has been accustomed to these past months, I was back to speaking Italian everyday with my father in-law and staying up too late every night so a lot of the time I felt a little like I was having an out of body experience with so much sensory overload. Last week we celebrated my husband's birthday with friends at a local gastropub one night and ate half a head of one of these, I had a work event another, dinners out with my father in-law and then once he left with a childhood friend who came into town. Its been so much fun but absolutely exhausting. I wasn't at all prepared. Too much coffee and alcohol was consumed which added to that never ending feeling of running on empty. My only respite was getting away from the office for lunch and focusing my attention to one thing - reading my book (I'm on the last book of the Millennium trilogy and I am so sad its got to end).

This weekend though I feel like I've gotten myself back on track. I've caught up on my sleep and yesterday I went to acupuncture and had a half hour massage which made me feel like I had taken a tiny vacation. They also sold me on a supplement which is supposed to help with stamina and strengthen the body its a mushroom called Cordyceps. Which means at the moment the daily supplements I am taking in no specific order are: folic acid, black cohosh, cordyceps, fish oil, selenium and zinc, a prenatal multivitamin, royal jelly, ginseng, Coenzyme Q10 along with spirulina and wheatgrass and when I can (ie make myself a smoothie so that I can withstand the taste) brewers yeast. I shouldn't be drinking alcohol or coffee and I intend to cut down/ out as much as I can.

I also need to go back to eating nourishing whole foods and thankfully most of the foods I need to eat according to my TCM symptoms are warming Fall root foods which I love in any case, as well as legumes, fish, yams, cabbage, beets, carrots, kale, turnips, cauliflower, soy, etc. So back to the balancing act of doing my job and doing it well and not depleting myself so badly that I am hardly recognisable. Health comes first. Healthy body, healthy mind and eventually healthy baby.

Oh, and in other good news our chromosome tests finally came back and we both have normal sets which is a huge and happy relief.

Back To The Drawing Board

2010-08-25T18:40:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I met with the recurrent miscarriage specialist. I met with a different doctor than I saw at my last appointment and at my private appointment. He was nice, spent a little more time with me going through all questions and my slides. He got a little off topic at times talking about how humans were the most infertile mammals of all species, um I guess that's useful knowledge?

Going through my x-ray he was, much to my shock, absolutely adamant that I don't have a septum or even a partial septum. I questioned the use of HSG to diagnose the difference between an arcuate uterus and a partial septum he said perhaps if the HSG isn't taken correctly if would be difficult to tell but he assured me that the technician who gives the x-ray is the best. And from the slides he could see with no doubt in his mind that my uterus is normal so no need for a hysteroscopy. I also tested negative to Lupus so all the blood tests except for the chromosome test have come back and are normal. We won't get the chromosome test back probably for another few weeks. I gave blood for Factor V Leiden tests and was told to start trying again after my next cycle.

To say that I was more than a little shocked is an understatement. I suppose I should be grateful that everything is seemingly normal but obviously worried that we are no closer to finding any concrete answers and therefore concrete solutions. As happy as I am to go forward I feel a little like a tightrope walker performing without a net.

If the Factor V Leiden test comes back as positive apparently its treated with heparin and baby aspirin which they would then put me on as soon as I find out if I am pregnant. They'll also check I think at least one of the thrombosis tests again as levels change during pregnancy. Also I qualify for a test group to be given early progesterone which means I might get progesterone or I might just get a placebo. At the moment this RPL clinic doesn't believe in the benefits of progesterone treatment for early miscarriage as its "closing the barn door after the horse has run out" but I guess that there is significant evidence from other clinics that they are looking at it again so it can't hurt, might help or might be more of nothing. I also asked about NK cells and apparently they don't believe in those either and therefore don't test for them.

I'm going to go back to acupuncture and talk to my acupuncturist about alternative treatments. I've also started reading the Infertility Cure by Randine Lewis which is very similar to The Baby Bible in its philosophies and Eastern/ Western approach. Its about taking things into your own hands as well which I guess at this point I need to if my doctors can't seem to find anything to help me and tell me I need to get my confidence back and saddle up! (No, I'm not exaggerating this was my doctor's parting advice). Although both books are mostly geared towards women who can't get pregnant my thought is that recurrent early miscarriage must have its roots in some of the same problems, implantation and poor egg quality both of which lead to early embryonic demise and must be one or both of my problems. Unless its a mind/ body problem, or how about stress? Maybe I just need to learn to relax? Says the woman who has taken off six months from work and is ready to give a black eye to anyone who kindly suggests she is anything other than completely and utterly zen. I have earned my patience through this muddled minefield and I know that it will come in handy once we finally do become parents. Sigh.

Post In Which I Admit I Had No Idea How To Take A Picture of My Hair

2010-08-20T15:56:00.010+01:00

S. has grown a beard. He told me that he's not going to shave again until we have saved a certain amount of money. I said, great, then maybe I shouldn't cut my hair. (I haven't had a hair cut since the beginning of the year). He said, well, maybe we should scrap that idea.

That Which You Know Now, You Always Knew You Didn't Know

2010-08-19T15:30:00.011+01:00

There I was minding my own business, brushing my teeth at an ungodly hour, because you know I am still on vacation and my husband doesn't work until the early afternoon most days, so we seem to watch movies until the wee hours of the night like a couple of college kids. So there I was, brushing my teeth thinking about how the Matrix trilogy seemed to get worse with each movie (we've watched all three this week). Thinking about how much I used to love Keanu Reeves and how many times did I watch Point Break? Probably so many times that if saw it right now I could recite a large part of it, ah time well spent, coveted brain space well occupied... Trying to figure out if there was a point to the Matrix or if the writers themselves gave up by the third movie. S. and I kept turning to each other after every long winded speech and in our best yoga instructor voice we'd recite, Do you know the question, if the answer is one you haven't already asked? Or will it be if it was? If you were here did you remember that you weren't there? That which you know now, you always knew you didn't know And other such nonsense which we seemed to crack ourselves up over. Anyway, there I was thinking deep thoughts like should I floss? When S. called me over to the computer and read me a post my brother had just left on Facebook.

Basically he was cycling, blah, blah, blah, passed out, threw up, cycled home!!! Um, who does that after they have passed out and thrown up??? blah, blah, blah, hospital, HEART INFECTION. These are not words you want to read about your brother at 1:30 AM when you live on the other side of the Atlantic from him. Or even if you don't and even if it wasn't 1:30 AM. So I sort of panicked, I'm a lickle bit of a worrier. I called him and his wife was laughing because she told him he should send me an email and he was all, she won't be up at this hour! Aha! I was and I was fucking worried. Our father had a stroke a couple of years ago and I'm a renowned passer outer and had a heart murmur which thankfully seems to have corrected itself so heart attack is not out of the realm of possibility in our family. But he's fine, I guess. They ran a bunch of tests on him and his heart is strong, he's got a resting beat of an athlete and as he's been cycling competitively for over a year his blood pressure, etc are all very good. They prescribed him Ibuprofen. FOR A HEART INFECTION. I don't know if it just sounds more serious than it actually is or if my brother is underplaying it but he's back at home and taking it easy. This is pretty much the biggest thing I hate about living abroad. That and being mistaken for a Canadian. I kid, I kid, some of my fondest childhood memories were spent canoeing in Canada, well because of my brother.

We went to canoe camp in Ontario for several years for six weeks in the summer from the age of eleven to sixteen. A couple of weeks ago my brother posted this video on Facebook (because yes we only communicate to each other through Facebook, obviously). Its absolutely shockingly beautiful and as he reminded me reminiscent of lots of skies we'd see those summers canoeing out in the middle of a lake in the outback of Ontario. Funnily enough, this exchange was another one which made me realise how much I hope I have children to add onto the memory chain of S.'s and my family's history. Because all my brother had to do was write a couple of words in reference to the video and I knew exactly what he meant. And isn't that what family is about? And scaring them in the middle of the night through the internet.

Summer's End?

2010-08-17T16:18:00.004+01:00

Oh August how you have forsaken me! Two more weeks until I go back to school, I mean work and the cloud cover has settled very nicely thank you very much over London Town and isn't interested in moving. There was a break yesterday and I sat in the Park for an hour in the late afternoon sun, soaking up every last ray, topping up my freckle ratio until the next sun burst. Please say that there will be one more!

This weekend S. and I had great fun with friends celebrating S.'s best friend's birthday. So much fun that we spent all of Saturday recovering. We stayed in all day except for a trip to the supermarket and watched bad movies and cooked a Spaghetti Bolognese, ah just what the hangover ordered. On Sunday we managed to get out and go to see a couple of exhibits at the Tate Modern. One was a photography exhibit called Exposed which chronicles the evolution of privacy or private space within photographs over the past 100 or so years. There were photos from Weegee, Nan Goldin, Walker Evans, Larry Clark and Helmut Newton to name a few. It was pretty interesting to see how much societal attitudes have changed over the years as we are constantly under surveillance and as everyone has access to digital cameras so everything has the potential of being filmed or photographed.

I got a call from my GP this morning. Apparently our blood samples were sent to the wrong lab for the Kyrotyping. I can't say that I am surprised, this has been the biggest organisational nightmare of all the tests I've had to take. When we had the blood samples taken at the only hospital it seemed would do it I even asked the nurse who took our blood if they would be sent together and to the Hospital my GP had written on the form. Yes, yes... well obviously they weren't. Another week until we meet with the specialist again. In the meantime this weekend we are going to try to go away for a bit of R&R at the sea, I'm looking into lovely B&B's and countryside pubs, let's hope the weather cooperates a bit.

Are We There Yet?

2010-08-12T16:56:00.007+01:00

I've really been so lucky to have this time to myself between jobs to be able to straighten myself up a bit. Some days I feel like I have arrived, I get it, here I am, this is me, I am finished, a work in progress almost completed! Then other days I feel like a bumbling idiot and full of odd insecurities which I should somehow be over by now at this point in my life. This point in my life. What point is it that I am up to?

Somehow it helps me to think of my progress as a human being making her way through her life (albeit in my own privileged compared to the rest of most of the world way) in a zig zag rather than in any sort of linear ascension. I mean I like to think that I am ascending, I am certainly getting older, I'm getting the white hairs to prove it, hopefully as I do I am rising towards something but I think that there is plenty of zig along with the zag before I get there, where ever that may be.

Today I made a chart. A progress chart in a way. It was to help me visualise certain goals my husband and I have for our family for the next few years. And then I laughed to myself and thought of course I know what the likelihood of all these goals being met in the x number of years I'd written in the chart will be. Then I gave myself a break and I thought well if we achieve at least half of those goals I will be happy. And then I ate a bowl of cereal for lunch because we don't have anything else in the house to eat and I didn't go grocery shopping yesterday. And then I got back to vacuuming because I finally figured out what was wrong with our vacuum, oh that the bag needed to be changed. And then I sighed thinking about the shock my brain will have once I go back to working in an office in September.

Tu Fa L'Americano

2010-08-09T17:37:00.011+01:00

One of the great things about being a bilingual couple is that we can talk about people in front of them without them knowing. I kid, I kid of course we don't do that...much. Unless its about the elderly gentleman who sat at the bar behind me at our local last night who's white leather shoes were gently stained with what looked like fresh blood and my husband was asking me who I think he just murdered... That of course it is that exact moment, while pointing out said possible murderer to me, that my husband chooses not to speak to me in Italian.

But most of the time we speak Italian or English depending on where we are and sometimes who we are around if say, we want to give ourselves a little privacy. Like when I shared a small office with three coworkers and I spoke to S. on the phone, they really didn't need to know the nuances of our domestic life. It was also handy when I was alternately pregnant or had experienced a miscarriage and I didn't want anyone to know. Sometimes when we are visiting our families we might have a little argument and we usually revert to the opposite language of our families so that we spare them the tedium of our spat, although S's older sister and her family live in Canada and obviously speak English so it doesn't always work.

Most of the time we speak the language of whatever country we are in. So in England we mostly speak in English, same if we are in the US. If we are visiting S.'s family in Italy we'll primarily speak in Italian together. A lot of the time we speak a mishmash of both, starting a sentence in one language and ending it in another. Which I've understood from some of our Italian friends based here is quite annoying. Although with some others of our Italian or Italian speaking friends we do the same, choosing the best language to express our thought. Sometimes I get tired of speaking Italian and speak in English when they are all speaking Italian because I'm lazy and haven't practiced speaking in full sentences in a while. Mostly, when we are in Italy with S.'s family I pick it up again like a bicycle and the words come to me automatically and without hesitation. But sometimes when I am tired the words fall into a black hole and I can't find them in either language which is a strange feeling, losing words which you use everyday.

One time we were eating lunch at a cafe on the beach in S.'s town and we were speaking in our mish-mashed English-Italian dialect. Starting off in one language ending in another, peppering in the best word from the language which best described whatever we were discussing, when an older woman, who was sitting at the table next to us got up and felt the need to approach us.

Excuse me, excuse me, she said. I don't mean to interrupt your conversation but I couldn't help but overhearing you. She was almost annoyed. Are you Italian? My husband said yes he was Italian but that I was American. Ah, she said as though she had solved some great mystery. Because I couldn't understand what language you were speaking. She might as well have said, could you speak up, I couldn't quite make out what you were talking about. We should have told her it was because we were talking about her.

Septum or Not To Septum? That is Still the Question...

2010-08-05T17:10:00.010+01:00

I had my HSG today. I was pretty anxious last night and had a hard time getting to sleep, I was so excited and a little nervous. This morning I painted my toe nails. I even shaved my legs. I got to the appointment a half an hour early. I had hardly sat down in the waiting room when I was called to change into a hospital gown and taken outside of the x-ray theatre where I was asked to take a seat as I would be next.

While sitting there pretending to read my book, trying not to tap my foot, not to anxiously pull at my ponytail, to stop chewing on my lip or audibly sigh, I could unfortunately, hear some of what was going on inside, despite the low easy listening music playing in the x-ray room. Fortunately, the patient before me was pretty quick and wasn't screaming in pain so I felt a little relieved and assured that I was not about to willingly give myself over to a torture chamber (note to self never really believe anything you read on the internet).

The technician and nurse who did the test were so lovely, they immediately put me at ease. They chatted away with me about New York and whether or not I liked living in London, all the while making me forget that they were getting up close and personal with my lady parts. But to be honest after three miscarriages in a year, and coming from the US where I used to have yearly pap smears from age 18 I have gotten over any hangups I may have ever had about spreading my legs to anyone with a speculum or internal sonogram wand in their hand.

The technician told me right away that she wouldn't be able to give me any answers regarding the x-ray but that I would have to wait until I saw the specialist to go through everything which I understood as curious as I was. It only took about fifteen minutes from start to finish including the five minute questionnaire she asked me about my periods and if I was allergic to anything, if I had any children, if I had ever had a sonogram (more than I can count). Then it was like a gynecologist appointment really, a little uncomfortable but nothing unbearable. I had a little bit of cramping at one point when we were waiting for my tubes to fill up with the ink but it was really mild.

Afterwards, I took a look at the x-ray which was on the screen and she said that my tubes were clear which is great and looking at the x-ray it was hard to see a septum hanging down in the middle of my uterus it was just a little indented where it should be straight at top more like an arcuate uterus. Its hard to understand from my extensive internet research (insert sarcasm) if there is any real difference between arcuate uterus and having a partial uterine septum. Perhaps this is the problem with the HSG that it doesn't necessarily give a clear picture unless you have quite a defined septum? She did point out the indentation and say that it wasn't exactly normal but it would be up to the specialist to let me know if he thought it was what was causing the miscarriages.

My follow up appointment with the specialist is on the 24th so another few weeks of waiting. In the meantime my doctor's office called yesterday and she thinks she finally understands the procedure for our chromosome blood test. Apparently S. and I have to go to the walk in clinic at the hospital to have our blood taken and then they send it to a lab at another hospital for the chromosome analysis. The only bad thing is that she said that she didn't trust the blood being sent from one hospital to another? So she said I should look into whether there is a walk in clinic for having blood drawn at the hospital where the blood will be analysed which I think is doubtful as its primarily a children's hospital. That will be my next headache. For now I am glad that at least one major test is behind me even though at the moment the answer is still none to clear. I am smiling, I am grateful and full of patience and realise how lucky I am.

Puffed Pastry Pizza Part Deux

2010-08-04T12:27:00.011+01:00

Puffed Pastry Pizzettas with Grilled Vegetables, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Goats Cheese

The other night I was skyping with a friend of mine who I hadn't spoken to in a while. She lives in Rome and as its sunny most of the time in Italy for most of the summer she is already incredibly tan. I live in London and while we did have a great run of sunny weather earlier in the summer I think we've all jinxed it by saying over and over I can't believe how nice the weather is! Because for the past couple of weeks its been overcast and at the moment its raining. So you know, the grass is always greener, because my friend was complaining about wrinkles because of the sun and I was telling her well at least you don't lack Vitamin D which we all suffer from in this neck of the woods. I then ultimately started complaining about ageing in general and how I find I have an extra layer of fat on my body now that I can't seem to shake no matter how many times a week I go to the gym. My friend then mentioned all the food she noticed we cook from my blog (and that's not even half of it) and I was like yeah well, my fat arms, ass, legs, head, oh well off to bake my puffed pastry (um, a note of disclosure, this was actually our starter for dinner last night as my husband decided he needed a steak after a week of eating mostly pescatarian).

This time I decided to make a the base from leftover sun dried tomatoes we had instead of using pesto. I just threw the sun dried tomatoes into the blender or in my case the Cuisinart as we don't have a blender and added a bit of the oil from the jar they were in until they reached a constancy I was happy with. I cut half a pepper, a few slices of onion and quarter of a zucchini in thin strips and grilled them first on the grill pan then I crumbled a small container of rindless goat cheese on top and voila, heavenly and really inexpensive to make. The puffed pastry was a pound, the goats cheese a pound and a half, all the vegetables together were a pound fifty (bloody peppers are 87 pence!) and we had the sun dried tomatoes already in our pantry because my husband is Italian and well, you never know when you might need a sun dried tomato. So if I've done my math right, that's not even five pounds for two people. Throw in a salad and you've got yourself a meal (of course that is if your husband doesn't decide he'd rather eat a steak which blows your whole budget out of the water).

Puffed Pastry Vegetable Tartlets/ Pizza

Makes 4 squares

Ingredients:

500 Grams/ 17 Ounces Ready Made Puffed Pastry
Flour for dusting
Olive Oil
1/2 jar of sun dried tomatoes (4 or 5)

1 Pepper
1 Onion
1/2 Zucchini (Courgette)
100 grams of rindless goat cheese

1. Take out Puffed pastry from refrigerator to soften, preheat oven to 200 C. or 390 F dust a flat surface with flour for rolling out dough.

2. Put sun dried tomatoes in the blender or Cuisanart and blend together with a small amount of the oil from the jar until it reaches a smooth spreadable consistency, add more oil to thin spread.

3. Slice red pepper, onion, zuchini in thin strips and grill until brown on a grill pan

4. Cut the block of puffed pastry in half, store unused half back in refrigerator for next time. Roll out pastry with a rolling pin (a glass bottle works too if you don't have a rolling pin) onto a flat surface dusted with flour, into a 26 cm square (10 inch Square) and then cut into quarters with a pizza cutter or knife. Roll/ pinch in the sides of each square with your fingers so that you make a crust, you can also hide any imperfections in your squares by evening the sides out. Put the quarters onto a cookie sheet leaving space between them.

5. Spoon sun dried tomatoes onto pastry squares, add roasted vegetables. Divide goat cheese into quarters and crumble over squares evenly amongst them.

6. Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Brewers Yeast Berry Smoothie

2010-08-02T13:28:00.012+01:00

Blueberry Brewers Yeast Smoothie

When my brother and I were growing up my mother was a bit of a health nut. She was ahead of her time in many respects. She cut out sugar from our day to day life but not in any sort of over the top way, we still had sweets on special occasions like birthdays and Christmas or Halloween and its not like she'd call ahead to a friend's house and tell their mom not to give us cookies if that's what was being offered. I'm pretty convinced that if we hadn't been on a primarily sugar free diet and if we went to elementary school now a days we would be labeled with attention disorders and our parents told to give us Ritalin. We were active/ hyper and in my case anxious kids but aren't most children? Add a diet of sugar and caffeine and well its no wonder most kids can't concentrate in school. Thank God we were born to our parents who understood us as well as they did (most likely because they were us). But Mom made us gargle golden seal root (disgusting but effective) on the onset of a sore throat, we had to have a tablespoon of cod liver oil everyday (yuck) and had our cereals sprinkled with wheat germ and our yogurts powdered with brewers yeast. We also ate whole wheat bread during an era when WONDER BREAD was the standard in the American home. And don't get me started on the wheat grass, although now I love it and supposedly its helpful for women who are trying to conceive.

Blueberries and Poppy Cloth

Needless to say my mom's fascination with alternative healing and healthy eating has rubbed off on me. I was a pescatarian for thirteen years (I only ate fish as a meat) and am mildly obsessed with the healing powers of food and herbs. I generally take goldenseal/ echinacea drops on the onset of cold, take fish oil supplements daily (although we do eat quite a lot of salmon and mackerel which are oily fish and great sources of of Vitamin D and A and omega 3) and even sprinkle wheatgerm on my cereal on the morning. While I've always been a bit of a fanatic about health and healing I was particularly interested during my pregnancies and tried to make sure I was eating all the necessary foods to absorb the right vitamins. Folic acid is a great supplement for women at any time in their life not only for those planning to get pregnant or who are, as are the vitamin Bs which is why I've started incorporating brewers yeast powder back in my diet as its full of them. Its pretty awful smelling/ tasting by itself but you can easily disguise the taste in smoothies. The complex B vitamins are great to improve digestion, energy levels, the nervous system, skin, nails and hair - who couldn't use help with all of those?

Blueberry Brewers Yeast Smoothie Being Blended

Brewers Yeast Smoothie
3/4 Cup of Greek Yogurt (low fat as normal Greek yogurt can have as high as 10% fat!)
1-2 Tablespoons of Brewers Yeast powder (I normally do a heaping Tablespoon, depends on how much you can bear the taste)
1 Cup of Berries (Blueberries, Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries)
1 Banana
1 Tablespoon of honey

Combine all ingredients in your blender or food processor and blend until smooth and all ingredients are combined. And voila, you get a delicious and nutritious smoothie packed with protein, vitamins and antioxidants (from the berries) which keep you looking young.

Sunset Over London

2010-07-31T11:47:00.007+01:00

Going...

Gone...

I'd Never Join A Club That Would Have Me As A Member

2010-07-30T16:19:00.011+01:00

Last night I spent the entire evening reading through the archives of blogger Julia. I have read her blog before, I knew that she had recurrent miscarriages but I guess I just didn't read her archives and digest the fact that she had ELEVEN miscarriages before finally conceiving her twins. She had her older son I think after two miscarriages if I read correctly... It turns out that her husband has a translocating chromosome and she has a blood clotting disorder. She is truly amazing and is now my personal hero. I'm not sure that I could do it. I hope that I won't have to make that decision but if you have suffered miscarriages and even if you haven't, read her blog. She's a hilarious writer and an inspiration.

We are still waiting for the appointment to have our blood tested for any problems with our chromosomes. I tried to follow up on our appointment and the receptionist at my GPs sent me on a wild goose chase between being transferred all over the hospital and then speaking to a lab technician. I finally called back and said, listen deal with it because I don't know where you sent my referral so maybe you should look into it. Today I received a call back from the GP's office letting me know that they were on it and surprise, surprise the referral was sent to the wrong office, even though they don't seem to know which office it was they sent it to. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to wait another month before we get the appointment. Ah, the NHS. Don't worry the receptionist kept reminding me that it was on the NHS as if I thought any differently. If I was paying for it out of pocket we would have had the appointment two weeks ago.

In the meantime, Sammy has called me back and my HSG test is all set in the afternoon on the 5th. I also have my follow up appointment with the Dr. at the RMC on the 24th. So at least I am making some headway in my appointments despite the setback of the chromosome test. I am sure that if I do have a septum its going to take a few months to have it resected so I guess we have time still for the chromosome test as we won't be trying again until all of the tests have come back and they have some handle on what it is that we are facing.

In other news, I feel like an idiot for jumping to conclusions about other people's lives. Particularly being jealous when someone announces their pregnancy whether it be someone I know personally or on a blog I like to read. As I've written about before I know that you really never know another person's history unless they decide to share it with you and even then you might not have the full story. It never ceases to amaze me how many shades of grey there are in the quest to conceive a child. In my defence its been the pregnancies which paralleled my own last one which recently rankled me the most. Time and distance and the evening out of hormones all helps the process of healing. And coming to the realisation that this is actually my life for good or bad (for good! for good!) and it makes no sense to compare myself to anyone, I am who I am, my body is my own and I need to respect it. These tests and doctors appointments all help too. Its helpful for me to know that even though we are months away from trying to conceive again we are somehow getting closer to having a child simply by possibly uncovering the reason why I miscarry and best case scenario finding a solution?

I also find because these appointments are so symbolically important to me I become irrationally hysterical if things don't go the way I'd like and I am trying to relax. S. and I got into a huge argument when I got off the phone after being sent on a wild goose chase by my GP's office as they had really no idea where we are to have the blood tests and therefore there was no way for me to check on the appointment as they suggested I do, um, who did you send the referral to? Silence... I didn't mean to take it out on my husband, I don't think I did, I think I was just emoting and needing some sympathy and he took it as me taking it out on him. Its all good now, I am removing myself from the equation and letting my GP take care of it. As annoying as it was for me to get in the middle of it as it lead me to blowing a casket and arguing with my husband I'm glad I did because otherwise a few weeks from now I'd still be waiting for my appointment and my referral still wouldn't have been sent to the right department.

Lastly, I know that there is a fine line between infertility and recurrent miscarriage. Its all somewhat related but not. I do have hopes that we will eventually have a child and somehow as devastating as it is having recurrent miscarriages at least, for now, we know that we can conceive which you know, I suppose is something. At least that's what everyone keeps telling me. However, regardless of whether I can conceive a child but can't hold a pregnancy or can't conceive at all the outcome is still the same. Childless. So I can relate to all kinds of infertility problems because essentially our answer at the moment is pretty much the same. Childless. And I've been reading a lot of blogs recently from women who are struggling through miscarriage or infertility or trying to add to their families after going through their own private hell conceiving one child and struggling through whether they want to do it again or can physically, mentally, emotionally, financially do it again. And I've read about those women who decided to stop and go on living their lives happily without children after years of various treatments and tests and maybe for them adoption isn't an option.

And while I promise not to get prickly and jealous of baby bumps and pregnancy announcements because this is life and well there are bound to be more coming my way before I get there. I also promise to forgive stupid women who post sappy declarations on their public facebook pages of only knowing true love after having their first child. And while I don't doubt her or her overwhelming love for her son its another example of the "us" club which I promise if we ever do get to the other side of this I will never join.

Best Pizza in London

2010-07-28T18:04:00.010+01:00

Franco Manca Pizzeria in Brixton Market

Yesterday S. and I went to Brixton to drop off some film S. wanted to develop at a lab off of Electric Lane. I love the name of that road it reminds me simultaneously of The Electric Company and of seedy 70's music. We wandered around Brixton Market and stopped to have lunch at Franco Manca which is definitively London's best pizzeria.

Sourdough Brick Oven Pizza with Capers, Anchovies and Olives

They opened another one in Chiswick which is good too but the original in Brixton Market is still the best. Nestled as it is inside the market, next to the fish mongers and vegetable stands, patrons cram together in booths inside and outside the two tiny storefronts which face one another. From your table you can see the pizzaiolo making the dough through the upstairs windows of the opposite shop and watch all the action of the market. It all somehow reminds me of Naples and the best pizza in the world comes from Naples so its no wonder Franco Manca's is so good. We got a seat fairly easily for lunchtime but it was Tuesday. On Saturdays, prepare to get there early or wait on line but its worth it, trust me, we take pizza very seriously at our house.

Sourdough Brick Oven Pizza with Home Cured Ham

Getting There...

2010-07-26T16:39:00.009+01:00

Bonnie from the HSG clinic, I don't know why I call it that as I doubt there is an actual clinic just for HSGs, its probably like the radiology department or something but there you go I'm only interested in the HSG therefore the whole department is the HSG department and furthermore in my mind it's an entire clinic and she called me back today, like that (snaps her fingers). I think I mentioned what fast friends we are now. But I wasn't expecting her to call me back today. But, she's a good friend. Such a good friend that her name isn't Bonnie it's actually Sammy - what's up with my concentration these days I think I need to start taken ginkgo or something. But that's alright she had the completely wrong name for me too so much so that I was worried that she thought she was talking to someone else entirely and giving me her appointment.

So, I got a call back from Sammy from the mysterious and ominous sounding cycle monitoring hotline which may or may not be a part of the radiology department, I don't know, I don't really care. All I know is that I have to call and leave a message on an answering machine when I get my period in order to book my HSG appointment and someone, Sammy, calls me back and let's me know if I have won the golden ticket, an appointment. I left a message and Sammy did indeed call me back later this afternoon and well I sort of fibbed to her. Okay, I flat out lied.

I was worried because when we spoke last month when I couldn't get an appointment she put me down for an appointment on the 9th of August which would be the 15th day after my period started if I got it today, which I was supposed to but didn't. I got it two days ago which would mean the 9th is actually day 17 for me and two days outside the window they apparently want to do the HSG within. I fretted. If I told the truth would she postpone me again??

Turns out I probably would have been safe but just as well she moved my appointment up to the 5th instead. I found this out after I lied to her. But I couldn't take it back. Yikes. I had it from good authority, my father in law who is an ob/gyn, that it would have been fine to do it on day 17 so I didn't want to take the chance of not holding the appointment on the 9th if there wasn't an earlier one available.

So I'm booked for the 5th which is better all around. But she couldn't tell me the time of the appointment already. She said she'd call me back on the 2nd to tell me the time. There is some serious scheduling going on over there. She said she was waiting for a 29ther to call her and she was switching her appointment with mine. Sounded like it was slow days at the HSG clinic if Bonnie, I mean Sammy was waiting for phone calls from three days from now.

My father in law was a little taken a back that they were doing an HSG on me because he says its kind of an antiquated procedure and better to have a combined laparoscopy and hysteroscopy. Funnily enough a fellow blogger I've been in touch with who has been through the whole process including having her septum resected but in the States said the same thing and also mentioned that an HSG is not the most accurate way to distinguish between a bi-cornate uterus and a septum. Apparently if you have a septum its easier for them to find it and remove it if you have a combined laparoscopy and hysteroscopy which is when they send a camera crew, I mean camera into your uterus to look around and from there they can resect the septum at the same time if needed. I believe this is ultimately the next step I would need to take, if they find a septum, following NHS procedure, in order to resect the septum but without the laparoscopy.

But on the other hand, a HSG does sound great to clear things up if I have any blocks or anything in my tubes which so far doesn't seem like is my problem but you never know, I thought a heart shaped uterus was cute, kind of like having a heart shaped face, who knew. The ladies who have had a hard time conceiving say an HSG can help make a quick clean of all the piping and sometimes get things back on track and well since my last miscarriage was natural I am wondering if that won't be a plus.

My only worry is how will they know its a septum if its not so obvious from HSG. Do they just go for it? Somehow I doubt that they just GO for anything at the NHS. What if I need to get another type of x-ray like an MRI which takes AGES to schedule. I love worrying about what hasn't yet happened. I need to remind myself to TAKE. ONE. STEP. AT. A. TIME. And repeat that back to myself 100 times or until my mind stops spiralling out of control into the land of what ifs and then what happens?

A Walk Along The Canal

2010-07-22T10:22:00.019+01:00

House Boats Along the Canal

Yesterday S. and I woke up early and went out for a long walk alongside the canal. It was such a beautiful day that the morning sun was already strong in the sky. We entered the canal at Angel (after getting a little lost on the way wandering through the quiet tree lined streets of lower Angel, admiring the old school local pubs with their woodwork and large thick glass 19th century windows and all the pretty Victorian houses).

Eastbound

We walked all the way up to Hackney and back, soaking up the sun, taking pictures, stopping to marvel at the wild blackberries growing along the graffiti scribbled brick walls.

Wild City Blackberries just Ripening in the Summer Sun

We watched the lock fill up to let a boat pass through, saw a group of children canoeing, dragonflies magically buzzed about, a boat nearly got taken away from its owner by the gentle wind and current (not so gentle when you are trying to moor a heavy boat on your own), bicycles rang their bells at us, the more nervous riders yelled, to your right! to your right! afraid one wrong move by a pedestrian on the narrow canal path and they'd find themselves drinking swampy canal water.

Canal Canoeing

One Boat Almost Got Away

We stopped to admire a rogue wild flower garden, to drink a coffee at a cafe tucked into the wall, to admire a vegetable garden growing in someone's canal boat. S. said I don't think that I could be that hippie (referring to the house boat garden).

Wild Flower Garden Canal Side

Wild Flowers

Canal Cafe

Latte? Why Thank you

A Floating Vegetable Patch

And I was relieved. Because my husband loves adventure and nature and somehow living on a boat with a garden didn't seem like it would be an inconceivable idea to him. But thankfully it is. Someday we'll have a farm and grow our own vegetables. For now our tomato plants on our window sill will do just fine. I am happy for the people with the eco boat in Hackney because their little garden boat world looks lovely but I need terra firma under my feet because some days my head is in the clouds which can be a good thing.

I Have Dust Behind My Radiators

2010-07-20T11:25:00.014+01:00

A few months ago I think I mentioned that I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I liked it. I was expecting to be annoyed by it but I appreciated her quest to get to the end of whatever she was fighting against herself for. To admit to herself that she was living a life which suddenly she realised was not hers and to change it no matter how difficult that was. There is a quote from the book which resonated a lot with me:

"Its better to live your life imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else's life with perfection."

During one of the many dark times over the past year while dealing with the roller coaster of hope and despair enduring three pregnancies and three miscarriages, one of the things my husband said to me, which cheered me up tremendously, was that we were happy, this is life and to look around this was the life I created. I stared at him through my tears, my amazing husband, our funny mismatched apartment in Islington full of our treasures, our plants, our pictures, my designer clothes smashed inside my closet with my vintage dresses from when I was sixteen next to my wedding dress, our kitchen filled with our cooking utensils and gadgets and worn cookbooks, our camping equipment stuffed into another closet next to boxes of books and wedding presents packed away waiting for special occasions or a flat with more space. Our fantastic friends, the coming together of our two loving and crazy international families, our decadent but rustic dinner parties, our cooking marathons, our gypsy travels, our mish-mashed Italo-English dialect our Britishism together with our Americano Italiano traditions. It was like he was opening my eyes to our wonderful world which I was only seeing for the first time.

So often I find myself wrapped up in trying to make things perfect that I forget to have fun along the way. When I used to live in Brooklyn I lived in the garden apartment of a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights which was owned by parents of a friend of mine growing up. My friend's parents lived in Connecticut at the time and he lives in Argentina, but they had such an emotional attachment to the house that they couldn't bear to sell it so my friends and I lived there, in its sort of run down loveliness, taking care of it, emptying the boiler, raking the leaves in the autumn, shovelling the snow in the winter, loving it like our own, paying below market rent for many years. It was an ideal living situation because I lived in the garden apartment and my oldest friends who are a couple lived above me in the house and we shared the backyard. As I had a pretty big backyard I often had BBQs when the weather was nice.

I remember one BBQ I had I was so stressed out because I hadn't finished cleaning my apartment and preparing the last of the 100th side dishes for the BBQ (hello, its all about the booze, I mean the grill at a BBQ, what was I thinking?), that I asked my friends who arrived on time or perhaps a little early to come back in fifteen minutes. Ridiculous, who was I? Sorry Andrea. Next BBQ after I think I had quit my job and so was a little shorter on cash and decidedly more relaxed, I made the decision that I wasn't going to drop a couple hundred dollars on food and alcohol and make a million dishes. I ended up just buying beer and hamburgers and hotdogs, I probably made a big pasta salad and green salad and that was that. My friend arrived early with his mother and instead of having my usual aneurism and turning them away I set them to work, right, you get the grill started and you..., well maybe I gave his mom a drink and led her out to the garden but every person who arrived after that I snapped the whip. Can I help? Yes chop this. It was the best party I think I ever had. I was not stressed, did not spend a huge amount of money, let people help me and I might not even have cleaned the apartment because let's be honest it was just going to get messy again and no one seemed to notice or care including me. Okay, who am I kidding I know I cleaned the apartment but maybe I didn't Windex the mirrors.

My point is sometimes I find myself being a perfectionist about things which I should probably just let go of. Who cares about a vacuumed rug if the party was in the garden. If I didn't make a potato salad and a pasta salad at a BBQ would my friends love me any less, of course not. I don't know where I get that from. I know its an insecurity. To make a good impression, people will then like me. People already like me, I really don't need to dust behind the radiators.

And then there is the part of me which sometimes irrationally wants things or wants to do certain things not because of any real desire but out of some sort of societal pressure as in this is what is supposed to happen next or this is what everyone says, does, wears, wants (who are these people by the way?) And this is the best way to do it and if you do it like that you are not a good person, wife, friend, career woman, mother (N/A) or you don't know anything until you are a parent, career person, have a mortgage, traveled to x destination, own a... And mostly I am not susceptible to it. Mostly I follow my own path, am my own person. Mostly I know that the way I am going and where I've come from may not be the right way for everyone but its the right way for me. Because I don't want to wake up one day and realise that I am living lie. And that I am miserable because I'm living someone else's life no matter how many pretty things come with it. And I need to remind myself of that when I find myself peering over the fence of someone else's life because no one knows how that person got there or if they are really happy. I know that for myself I constantly question and take nothing for granted, I chose this life as Jay Z says, its not the life that chose me.

And I'm learning that well, who said that it would be an easy path for me to have a child? Just because it was easy for the person to my left doesn't mean that it'll be easy for me because this is my journey. And I don't covet what the person to my left has because they don't have what I have and I love what I have, baby or no baby, its imperfectly wonderful.

Summer Dinner Parties

2010-07-14T11:49:00.014+01:00

The Day After The Night Before

Last night we had friends over for dinner and S. and I put together a lovely summer feast which I think our friends appreciated as these busy days not everyone always has time to cook homemade food. It was so nice to get together with friends we hadn't seen in a while and be able to cook the whole dinner for them from scratch. Everything was reasonably easy to make and turned out well even with our mistakes. I made the pastry for a spinach and goat cheese quiche and it was a bit crumbly when rolling it out probably because I added too much flour but it held together once baked and still tasted pretty good but you have a recipe with goat cheese and eggs and its pretty much a given its going to be good.

Foccacia

After the pizza dry run on Monday S. made another pizza from the same dough and tried his hand at foccacia which was just as delicious. He baked it in our roasting pan and covered it with rosemary and olive oil and it was the perfect side to our meal (and less expensive than buying a loaf of crusty bread for 2 pound 50 from our local bakery). We had a big salad and an Italian summer classic Vitello Tonnato, which is usually an antipasto (a starter) but as we had a little bit of everything altogether American style it went very well as our main meat dish. And instead of using veal which is expensive we substituted turkey and it was just as good.

Turkey or Veal Tonnato is a cold meat dish of meat boiled in wine and spices, sliced and then covered with a tunafish and caper sauce. Its great for summer dinner parties because you can prepare it beforehand and keep it in the refrigerator as its meant to be served cold. In fact everything we made was served cold or at room temperature, other than the pizza which we cooked until it was almost finished and then slipped back into the oven once our guests arrived, which made it much easier to put pretty much everything together in a day.

To top the meal off S. baked a honey polenta cake the night before. He added too much honey as he was following the recipe in Italian and they called for a tazzina of honey which is a little cup like an espresso cup but he translated it to mean the American measurement of a cup (8 oz). Yesterday going back and forth in English and Italian using our American measuring cups and trying to figure out grams to cups something was bound to get lost in the translation but the cake was scrumptious in any case even if it took twice as long to bake. And yeah, so what if I am over my dessert quota there are still a few pieces left and I don't plan to let them go to waste...

Spinach and Goat Cheese Quiche

Pastry Ingredients

150 grams of flour / 1 1/3 cup of flour

90 grams of butter/ 6 Tablespoons (keep butter in refrigerator until ready to use)

pinch of salt

1 egg yolk

cold water

Filling Ingredients

1 Onion

100 grams or small bunch of baby spinach (or watercress)

150 grams of rindless goat cheese

150 ml / 3/4 cup of Milk

2 large eggs

glug of olive oil

nutmeg

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 190 and butter and flour a 9" or 23 cm baking or pastry dish.

2. Take butter out of refrigerator and cut into small square pieces. Put flour in a bowl and then put pieces of butter in with flour and combine ingredients with your fingers until it becomes the consistency of bread crumbs. Add egg yolk and thoroughly mix. Add cold water a teaspoon at a time if necessary to keep the dough holding together and press together into a ball.

3. Put dough ball out onto a floured surface and roll out into a circle an inch or two larger than the circumference of your pastry or baking dish (depending on how much crust you prefer). If your pastry breaks a part at all it helps to put a piece of plastic wrap over the pastry to keep it smooth. Place the rolled out pastry onto a plate, pierce a few times in the middle with a fork and put in the refrigerator for at least a half an hour.

4. Chop up onion finely and saute in a frying pan with a couple glugs of olive oil. If you are using baby spinach after sauteing the onions for a couple of minutes add spinach otherwise chop regular spinach or long stemmed watercress into smaller pieces before adding to onions. Saute until spinach is wilted.

5. Beat eggs and milk together in a separate bowl and break pieces of goat cheese into mixture. Add a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper and then stir the sauteed onion and spinach into milk and egg.

6. Take chilled pastry out of refrigerator after at least 30 minutes and put into pastry dish pushing pastry down evenly covering all sides. With the back of a fork press along the sides of the dish making ridges into the dough. Cover dish with pastry paper and put in beans to weigh down pastry while baking (we didn't have any beans so I used rice instead which seemed to do the trick). Bake for 15 minutes.

7. Once pastry has baked for 15 minutes remove from oven taking off beans and pastry paper and cover with the egg and cheese mixture. Bake in oven for another 20 - 25 minutes or until the mixture is firm.

You could serve this with salad and ecco! A meal is made. Also a great option using this recipe is to make mini quiches for a finger food party or buffet. Just line the dough and add the filling in muffin tins for individual quiches. There are so many options for different types of quiches too, prosciutto, parmesan and basil, asparagus and gryuere, swiss cheese and ham to think of a few. Is it possible that I am getting hungry all over again?

How About Some Gluten with Your Fat and Sugar?

2010-07-12T17:51:00.014+01:00

S.'s Homemade Pizza

So, its great that my husband is cutting out the gluten and dairy from his diet. He also has cut out sugar for the most part. This morning for breakfast he had half a melon, black coffee and a slice of gluten free toast with some strawberry jam. Not that I was stuffing myself with danishes but suddenly I felt like my bowl full of wheat bran cereal with skim milk was extravagant. This is a man who has the metabolism of a sixteen year old, if he doesn't eat properly for a couple of his days his pants start to fall off of him. And here he is eating like a celebrity actress. But it doesn't stop him from cooking. Oh no. Remember that fruit tart he made last week? Guess who had to eat the whole thing because he suddenly couldn't have any of it. Muggins here. Not that I am complaining, oh I had to eat the whole thing...But I nearly cried when I got on the scale at the gym. I was all now, why do I weigh that much? Oh yeah, maybe it has something to do with the ENTIRE FRUIT TART I ATE LAST WEEK?

The problem is of course even though I am going to the gym most days and my metabolism is still fairly fast I am not twenty years old anymore although I still act and eat like I am and fruit tarts stick around in all kinds of strange places when you are in your ehem, mid-thirties. And now today, S. has been dying to make pizza and wanted to try it out before we served it to friends who are coming over for dinner tomorrow so he had a go at it. I convinced him to have a slice or two as it was his first try at pizza but guess who had to have the rest? I didn't want to be wasteful. I mean we are on a budget, every bit counts. Which leads me to the next point. There is no more farmers market in Islington. At least not where it used to be. So my healthy comparison shopping trip is suddenly looking grim. Or else I go ahead and compare the tasteless overly packaged produce from all the chain supermarkets in my neighborhood. I do live in LONDON as hard as it is for me to get out of Islington I know I can find a farmers market close, in fact I believe there is one in Clerkenwell, its just not nearly as convenient as being a few blocks away as the old one was. But that was annoying on Sunday, we got up early(ish) and everything only to find the farmers market gone and the Italian store where S. wanted to buy the yeast for the pizza was closed. Oh and the scooter fell over and on top of us when we were making a U turn. We're fine, everyone's fine, just a scraped ankle and knee but it made me realise how stupid I was to be wearing a skirt and flip flops on the bike.

Sangria

Sweltering Hot Summer Dress

On Saturday I met up with Charlie and we drank beer at our local and sat in the sweltering sun. It was so hot I wore this little number which looks like the love child of Lucille Ball and Madnum P.I. and boy was it the day for Hawaiian prints. After our beers Charlie wanted to get a bite to eat before going off to a birthday party at a pub. So we stopped by a newly opened Tapas place in the neighborhood and ate Tapas and drank Sangria because like Paul the octopus we knew Spain was going to win the World Cup (by the way, I really have a lot of time on my hands now that the world cup is over). Charlie ate this for dessert how happy is that? I only had a bite or two because you know, I've hit my dessert quota for the rest of the month.

Forbidden Dessert

Wish You Were Here

2010-07-09T13:18:00.026+01:00

Croatia

My in-laws are in Croatia. They sailed from Le Marche and have been living on the boat for a month. My sister-in-law and her family who all live in Canada joined them a couple of weeks ago. We are very jealous. So, S.'s Dad invited us to meet him after S.'s sister and the kids and his Mom all go over to Italy next week. Otherwise he'll sail back alone which he is more than capable of doing its just not as fun and is always more risky. Unfortunately, we can't go. Not only does my husband have no time off this summer, we can't afford the trip and there is the small inconvenience of our passports being in the hands of the British government for my visa. Bummer.

Fano, Italy at Sunset

But as much as we are mourning not having a summer vacation this year, having all this time on my hands has made me realise how small my problems are. At my new job I'll get 22 days of vacation, sorry ahem, let me repeat that in case my friends in America or Japan or other places with draconian work laws as in no work laws, didn't hear me, 22 DAYS OF VACATION, so hopefully next summer we'll be able to go sailing or go back to Corsica to camp which S. keeps talking about doing. On a side note Americans, 22 days is pretty average in the UK, ruminate on that for a minute. Most Americans get what, 5 days for the first year of a new job? But did you know that legally your company doesn't have to give you any days? Ludicrous, its one thing which keeps me from wanting to move back. Same with the healthcare system. NHS is certainly not perfect but its about as good as the private health care I had in the States and if were in my same situation in New York I most likely would be living uninsured and unable to have the miscarriage investigations I am having in London.

Propriano, Corsica at Sunset

So, I've surmised that when you take a stressful work environment out of the equation its amazing how many anxieties simply slip away, what was I so uptight for? Of course I would rather not be struggling through the abyss of recurrent miscarriage which creates the most amount of stress in my life at the moment. But I live in an age when its possible that they can find out and fix whatever problem I have and then can go on to have children and how amazing is that?

View of Saint Paul's from the National Theatre Balcony

And yes its true that now that I do have time on my hands S. doesn't and we don't have much money and when we have money there never seems to be any free time. But there are still plenty of things to do in London on the cheap like did you know that you can get 10 pound tickets for plays at the National Theatre if you get them first thing in the morning? We did and we went and saw Women Beware Women last Friday for the price of going to the movies and it was really good.

Hyde Park, London at Sunset

And so many museums around London are free too like the National Gallery and the V&A and the British Museum to name a few. Well, okay who wants to spend the day in the museum when its so beautiful out? There are also so many beautiful parks in London like Richmond Park and Hampstead Heath which even has a pond you can swim in. Not to mention the public pools, which are not free but a fiver for the day or 2 pounds fifty if you are short and are mistaken as a child like my friend Charlie was, hopefully they've warmed up by now.

Richmond Park, London

So, while we are a little disappointed that we're not going to Italy this summer or going sailing with S.'s Dad in Croatia, we really have so little to complain about. We're happy and healthy and in love and while we would be over the moon to share our life with a child or two hopefully that will come too. In the meantime if this sun stays with us I think I won't miss going south too too much and this optimistic outlook I seem to have these days will stick around for a while because no matter what problems I have big or small, real or imagined, its easy to be happy when the sun is out.

Healthy Eating Healthy Spending

2010-07-08T13:58:00.021+01:00

Brown Rice with Chicken and Mixed Vegetable Stir Fry*

S. and I are on a serious budget. Living in one of the most expensive cities in the world can be trying at the best of times let alone doing it on one salary which is what we are struggling through at the moment. We both have had times in our lives when we've had to stretch a penny so we are pretty strategic in our spending and saving.

The first thing to go (other than what should be my gym membership which I am still using...) is unfortunately, organic food. I still put my foot down when it comes to animal products (meat, poultry, milk, eggs) but with vegetables I have had to concede. Its pretty ridiculous to have to pay sometimes three times the normal price for organically grown tomatoes for example. What I have tried to do instead, besides buying the least expensive item, is to buy the local produce, the one grown in the UK instead of the organic one flown in from Israel. The taste to be honest isn't much different when talking about fruit and vegetables bought from big supermarkets, the produce in big city supermarkets is generally awful organic or not. And I won't get into how much packaging is used to bundle items together its outrageous.

Which leads me to my question. Of course in an ideal world I would buy everything from my local weekly farmer's market. We used to shop there quite regularly when we weren't watching our pennies. Now that we are the luxury of farm fresh organic produce which is generally better tasting and better for you is for the most part out of reach, or is it? How do you eat a healthy balanced diet on a budget? I guess the most successful budgeters understand not only to keep to a budget but how to spend the money they have in the most effective way.

Around the time that we looked into our long term finances and realised that until I start work again we need to rope in some of our spending (which is pretty modest to begin with) S. went to a nutritionist with hopes of finding a solution to an ongoing stomach problem. The nutritionist has put him on a two week trial of a gluten free diet which to an Italian is the equivalent of dying a slow death but he's handling it in stride if it will be the answer to his problem. So, we've got budget issues, dietary issues and a couple obsessed with their food. Solution?

Menu Planning

A couple of years ago I bought a book called The Kitchen Revolution which I think is a pretty great book for people who like to cook, want to budget and not waste food and for those who have little time to think up menus everyday. Its tiring to create healthy meals for your family everyday no matter how much you love cooking. So the book helps you out and gives you a menu of seasonal nutritious meals for a week and the shopping list for it. The premise is to have a big elaborate meal on say a Sunday and quicker easier meals building from the ingredients of the first meal and subsequent meals to put together throughout the work week. Its a great idea and we've done it a few times and I've used recipes from the book without buying a weeks work of groceries for it but as S. sometimes works in the evening its not realistic for us at the moment. But the idea of planning meals ahead is something I would like to do.

Plant and Grain Based Diet

One time when S. and I did a big shop we walked away from the store dumbfounded by how much we had bought and how little the bill was. Going through our receipt we realised that the majority of what we had gotten was vegetables. There is no doubt that a vegetarian diet is not only healthier and better for the environment but more cost effective. I was a vegetarian for 13 years and if I was told tomorrow I could never eat meat again I would be nostalgic for some dishes but I could do it and not feel deprived. I'm not saying that we are going to be vegetarians but I think that we'll limit our in take of organic meat to once or twice a week.

Comparison Shopping

Often times I am a little lazy and tend to do shopping for the house around the corner at a local Tesco which is small and therefore has a limited selection as opposed to going to our bigger local supermarket which is about a 15 minute walk away. For bigger shops S. and I usually take the scooter down to Angel where there is a bigger Sainsburys which for some things is less expensive and has a wider variety. I would like to do a bit of research and understand the prices of various products among the local supermarkets in our area. We are actually quite lucky in that we have about six different supermarkets so I should check them all out. I also would like to make it a habit of going to our weekend farmers market to compare prices maybe we can splurge on certain items depending on our meals for the week. They also tend to give deals at the end of the day which I could use to my advantage.

Interestingly and lucky for me everywhere I look these days other bloggers seem to be giving advice on vegetarian recipes and budgeting. I haven't yet tried quinoa but it seems to be all the rage and if we manage to pull our socks up now and get our budget working for us once I go back to work, we'll be such a well oiled machine we'll have a deposit for a house in no time. Budget strict, gluten-free, vegesometimearians with more money in the bank sounds good to me, I'll let you know about our progress.

* Instead of buying strips of chicken or chicken breast we bought a whole chicken, cut out the breast and used it for the stir fry. I roasted the rest of the chicken the next night for dinner and we saved about two pounds over the course of two dinners just on the chicken.

One Step Forward...Two Steps...

2010-07-07T09:32:00.016+01:00

Well, it doesn't look like I'll be getting an appointment for an HSG this month. I spoke for the third time to the nurse from the clinic who makes the appointments for the tests and Bonny said... when she finally called me back it was like we were old friends, Hi Elizabeth, its Bonny! Not Bonny from the HSG clinic no, just Bonny, but of course I knew exactly who she was... that she was waiting to see if there are any last minute cancellations for the appointment tomorrow. At this point it seems unlikely but she'll still call me at the 11th hour if there are. SO, she put me down for an appointment on August 9th, which is at least getting somewhere. Then I got a letter from the miscarriage specialist which was sent to my doctor asking her to give S. and I a blood test referral to check our chromosomes. I was a little confused because I thought that the NHS doesn't cover the test but I guess I was wrong. These sorts of misunderstandings make me worried because I feel like either I am not listening very well during the appointments or my brain is absorbing so much information that I'm not following everything the doctor tells me. Or else I am not asking the right questions or even any of the questions I want to ask because the conversation has suddenly focussed on a septum which I never knew was even a possibility.

In any case, I am glad that we are getting that test done as well at some point. I already got the referral from my GP now I need to wait until the lab sends us the appointment, here we go again. I waited on for 20 minutes with the lab to speak to someone to find out how to make the appointment only to be told that I can't its my GP who needs to send them the referral. Admittedly my doctor (GP) told me that she wasn't sure what the process was as she only does those appointments once a year. Her receptionist just gave me the hot potato and guess what, balls back in your court missy, after I got off the phone with the lab I called my doctor's office to let them know the procedure as in send the referral please. Now that my HSG isn't until hopefully August 9th we definitely aren't in any hurry. The karyotype (chromosome) test is just one more box to tick before we gather all of the tests together for my next appointment with the specialist to see if they can pinpoint what might be wrong. And that appointment can't be made until after the HSG test, got it? Not sure that I do. I think I need to make a chart.

In other news, I was told by a woman at the Italian consulate who clearly doesn't realise that skin can be stretched only so far and if two facelifts are not enough than six is just right that, breaking news, I am not the only American ever to be married to an Italian citizen. And that she was cancelling me from S.'s family as I would not relinquish my newly Apostilled marriage certificate over to the Italian government to be filed away in the giant filing cabinet in Rome where they keep such important documents of all the Americans married to Italians, the waste paper basket. I was very close to slapping her but stopped myself realising that I would have probably left a permanent imprint of my hand on her face, kind of like when you were a kid and would make impressions of your hand with silly putty. And even though the Italians are the worst bureaucrats you will ever come across in your life, to make an enemy of one would make our life so much more difficult than the ultimate satisfaction I would have received by setting this woman straight. Unless of course we never wanted to go back to Italy, but that's not an option, the parmesan! the prosciutto! the focaccia! the cappuccino! the bresaola! the pasta carbonara! the frutte di mare! the calamari! the porchetta! the mozzarella! the vitello! Sorry, I meant of course because of our loved ones in Italy, we would of course miss them too.

Fruit Tart

2010-07-05T17:28:00.013+01:00

Summer Fruit Tart

When S. and I were planning our wedding we went back and forth about what type of cake to have. The idea we originally had for our wedding was so far different from what it ended up being (although no less beautiful or special) but after gentle pressure from both of our families along with the logistical aspects of planning a wedding abroad from us with family and friends arriving from all over the world, we finally caved in with every traditional aspect more or less, including the cake. Initially we spoke about having my husband's favourite dessert as a cake, the fruit tart. Unfortunately, it was not easy to find a bakery which would make it big enough to feed over 100 guests affordably and so we finally settled on a traditional tiered cake (albeit a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing) which was delicious and certainly a good choice (our mothers had two servings each of it). Today, S. tried his hand at making a fruit tart which is a perfect summer dessert. Although he makes pasta all the time it was the first time he had ever made his own pastry and he did not disappoint. The tart was absolutely delicious and I thought even more scrumptious than the mini ones we normally buy from our local patisserie although we couldn't find any strawberries which are traditionally in a fruit tart but I prefer raspberries anyway.

Murphy's Law

2010-06-29T17:19:00.008+01:00

I don't know if I have ever mentioned that I am a Virgo. If you know any Virgos and you believe in such things, you'll know that we are a little, how can I put this, well... controlling. We like planning things and keeping to schedules. We like making charts and graphs and compiling lists, its a few of our many ways of being both organised and tricking ourselves into believing we are also in control of just about anything, our finances, our time management, our fertility.

Since I left my job last March, I've been blessed with the gift of time. Being unemployed is certainly wonderful in a lot of ways because I've been allowed time to heal after yet another disappointing pregnancy. I've been able to travel. I've been allowed time to change jobs and find one I really am excited about starting in September. I've been allowed time to write, to cook, to watch practically every game of the World Cup, to keep our house in order, to pamper my husband, pamper myself, to organise all the bureaucratic red tape in our life which comes with being an Italo-American expat couple.

And for the most part things are starting to work out. Paper work I thought would take forever to arrive finally has. I've gotten the job I wanted. I've finally been given a first draft of my contract and a start date. Visa issues seem surmountable and are actually not nearly as expensive or difficult as I originally imagined. I have finally seen the miscarriage specialist and have gotten the ball rolling...well rolling and somehow also bouncing away. I really can't be upset with the NHS because the level of care I have received from them over the past five years I have lived in London has been great. And how amazing that I am getting treated by a miscarriage specialist ostensibly for free (although our taxes obviously pay into the system). However I am at the stage now in my treatment when I am waiting for an appointment for an HSG (an internal x-ray of my ovaries and uterus) and if there are no appointments this month (you have to schedule the appointment only when you first have your period) I have to wait another MONTH to try to schedule another one and hope and pray that the same thing doesn't happen again. This seems a little bonkers to me. Apparently there is only one day a week they do the appointments and they need to make absolutely sure that you are not pregnant because the test can cause damage to an embryo which is why everything is scheduled around your period.

So, here I am waiting again. For the nurse to call me back. You are supposed to call the day you have your period and leave a message and the nurse calls you back and let's you know if they have an appointment available for you this month. I already tried this last week when I was spotting and not actually having my period and I was told there were no appointments. Now that I am actually having my period I am hoping that this week will be better. Waiting for the anticipated phone call took me back to my dating days. Did he get the message? Did I leave my number too quick? Did I leave a message at all? Is he ignoring me? Should I call back or wait? I'll wait one more hour. I'll wait until someone scores a goal.. I finally called the number again and spoke to a doctor who said that the nurse was going to call me back but she didn't think that there was an appointment for me this month. She was hurrying me off the phone so I didn't get to ask call me back when?

I have to keep reminding myself that it will happen. I will get an appointment. If not here then I am also fortunate enough to have my father in law in Italy who is a ob/gyn and can get me an appointment for an HSG at his hospital in Italy. Its just not neat is all. Its not all perfectly planned. I have two more months still of long days of sweet fuck all until I start head first back into a busy job and of course I know that's when I'll have all the appointments lined up back to back. And that my friends is what I believe is called Murphy's Law which is mortal enemy to the Virgo.

Strength Training

2010-06-28T21:33:00.009+01:00

I have a membership to our local gym which is around the corner to our house. Its not a huge monthly expense and did I mention the gym is like a five minute walk? But as we are living on one salary at the moment we have to keep to a strict budget in order to make ends meet. And I haven't been going. The gym membership at the moment is a luxury particularly if its not used regularly so my husband gave me an ultimatum go to the gym or quit it. So, now I've been going. I've actually been going quite a lot and you know what its really making me feel great.

I've always been athletic. I played sports when I was a kid, go jogging or do yoga when I need to work out, swim and bike in the summer usually at my in laws and as I am city person I'm always walking. But recently, probably even before our wedding last year I was so overwhelmed with work and wedding preparations and then work and then the ongoing cycle of pregnancy and miscarriage that I've let myself go physically. I worked out sporadically through the past year and half but I haven't stuck to a routine and I certainly have gained more weight than I would like to admit. I'm fine, I'm a totally healthy weight but I am not in shape the way I would like to be.

This renewed interest in working out is not just getting my body in shape to get back into certain clothes which no longer fit me, although that would be nice, its challenging my body athletically, setting goals for myself, getting physically and also mentally stronger. One of the hardest parts of miscarriage for me other than obviously the loss of the pregnancy is the distance it creates between me and my body. I have become mistrustful and unsure of my body and what its capable of (i.e. holding a life inside it). So going to the gym and jogging, cross training, bike riding, weight lifting, swimming, stretching, yoga are all allowing me to get to know my body again and feel confident in it.

Growing up I suffered from periods of depression and mood swings and playing sports certainly helped me get out of my funk. It helped my self-esteem, it helped my focus, it helped my energy level and adrenaline. And therefore I was overall a pretty well adjusted teenager through high school but was miserable my first year of college. My parents kept telling me to go out for basketball, why not join crew? I ignored them and years later told them that I knew they were right but was too stubborn to follow their advice. But after long periods of not exercising when I do get back into it, it never ceases to astonish me how much better I feel and its like duh, why haven't you been doing this all along? I don't know if I will actually lose weight through my efforts its not really my goal and well, if you have read any of my blog you'll know that dieting is out of the question (cleansing yes, dieting no) my love of food runs too deep. But if I manage to keep it up I might come out on the other side of this year long battle with myself even stronger, both of us.

Something's Fishy Around Here

2010-06-27T12:21:00.018+01:00

Ceviche

Yesterday S. and I woke up, got out of the house, ordered a couple of coffees and pastries from our local coffee shop to go, went over to Highbury Fields and sat under the shade of an Oak tree and ate our breakfast. Out in the park there were at least four different soccer games going on. World Cup fever has been going around big time in London. Little kids, their parents like us originally from other countries, sported various team jerseys from around the world, kicking soccer balls in front of them as they made their way through the park clutching their trading cards. Too bad the USA lost last night, I was proud that they made it as far as they did but Ghana definitely outplayed them. I also can't help but be happy that an African team made it through even at the expense of my team.

After breakfast we took the scooter to the market and bought food props for a picture that S. had in mind to shoot. A couple hours and a couple of small disagreements (I am not the world's best Assistant I admit it) later with the picture finished we called it a wrap and S. made us lunch from the ingredients of the shoot. On the menu? Ceviche and salt baked shrimp.

Ceviche is the easiest dish to make and is perfect for a hot day like yesterday. When we were on our honeymoon in Puerto Rico last year we stayed for a few days in a small surfing town called Isabela and had some of the best seafood we have ever eaten (which says a lot coming from my husband who has lived on the mediterranean most of his life and a girl from the North East who thinks that New England lobsters are the world's best) at the hotel restaurant where we stayed called The Ocean Front. One of the dishes we particularly like was the ceviche which was so fresh the fish (including Caribbean lobster) literally melted in your mouth.

If you don't like the taste of fish ceviche probably isn't the dish for you as its a raw fish dish. The fish is marinated in citrus juice and salt which "cooks" it which is why its best to use the finest quality and freshest fish available not only for the taste but for the sake of your stomach.

Ingredients

1 pound of fresh fish filet (we used salmon, shrimp and sea bass)

bunch of cilantro

bunch of parsley

2 hot chilies

1 lemon

1 orange

1/2 red onion

Sea Salt

1. Cut the fish into bite size pieces

2. Chop cilantro and parsley finely, slice red onion into small strips, chop up chilies

3. Juice lemon and orange into bowl add cilantro, parsley, chopped chilies and a tablespoon of salt.

4. Add fish into the citrus marinade, cover fish in marinade completely. Let fish marinate for five minutes before serving.

4. Dish portions into bowls and top off with red onion and fresh parsley and cilantro, serve with crusty bread.

Salt baked Shrimp

For the shrimp (prawns) S. put rock salt into muffin tins, put a shrimp still in their shell in each hole, covered them with the rock salt and blasted them in the oven for five minutes at 180 c./ 350 f. They were so flavourful that we ate them with their shells on almost like soft shell crabs.

The Little Rascals

2010-06-25T22:19:00.008+01:00

Primrose Hill

Its been really hot these past few days in London and I've been loving it. We keep all our windows open, put our plants out on the terrace and feel like we're in the woods shaded as we are by a big tree in front of our living-room windows.

Except we aren't in the woods, we are in front of a park in central London and that burning wood smell I thought was someone's BBQ was in fact a garbage can set on fire by the children who run rampant in the park on warm days. I would call the police but they have better things to do. The fire seems like its pretty well contained inside the can but the smell of garbage is now wafting into our flat. I have now closed all the windows.

I've lived in a city all of my life. I know the boredom which comes from a long hot summer in the city as a child. Thankfully the great majority of our summers were spent at least part of the time on the beach or in the country. But those summers which weren't seemed to slide by like mud, I almost couldn't wait for the school year to start, for the rhythm of the city to return. For the Fall breezes to come and take the bite off of the heat and humidity. To have a routine again, to adhere to a schedule, to be accountable again.

The kids in my neighbourhood gravitate to green open spaces, the trees in the park, playing with fire, with fire works, its nothing terrible just annoying if you live around the park. It would all be acceptable play if they were in the country. We yell at them all the time to leave the trees alone, they've just replanted them after children destroyed a few of the saplings last year. The gardeners had to put protective shields around some of the trees as they were taking off the bark. For the most part they don't seem like bad children just bored and undisciplined and doing what kids do if no one tells them differently. Unfortunately, most people turn a blind eye to their antics because there are usually lots of them in a group and they don't know what they are capable of as little as they are.

The thing about cities though, I believe this particularly after growing up in New York where everyone speaks their mind, is that we are all responsible for our neighbours, our neighbourhoods, for the quality of life which we want. I truly believe that we need to look out for one another and tell naughty children off when they are being out of order and have no adult supervision. A friend of mine once told me in response to my speaking my mind to some teenagers who were out of order, that I was like the nasty neighbour who wouldn't give the ball back to the children's game if it was hit over to my side of the fence. Probably not if I already warned them once not to do it. I played out of the street, I know the rules and followed them only fair to call others out when they don't.

Soccer Madness

2010-06-22T16:57:00.005+01:00

Brick Lane*

I've caught World Cup Fever. Its been a good distraction from: the mysterious uterine septum; a pill I've got to take up my bum; ink up my woo-waa; menstruation monitoring; NHS appointment haggling; job contract waiting; miscarriage guilt; pregnant women jealousy; carpet staining workman; rubbish power showers; certifying marriage certificate apostille bureaucratic waiting nonsense; screaming neighbours and/ or screaming teenagers who hang out in the park in front of our flat; budget cuts at home and the government's; visa transferring, more bureaucratic nonsense; trying and most likely failing (because I am relying on NY City and State, UK and NHS bureaucracy, good luck to me) to fit everything in before I go back to work in August; testing my patience and control issues because so much is out of my hands; new job jitters; regretting not doing enough with the free time I have/ had; fretting that I am worrying too much; afraid that the fretting about the worrying is bordering on lunacy; being a crazy person, I mean acting like one (hopefully there is a difference). So, although I am not actually hitting a ball or someone with a ball, its become incredibly satisfying to watch hot men do it and occasionally hit one in the net (balls not other hot men that is). Go USA!

* Photo Taken By S.

Gender Benders

2010-06-17T21:26:00.012+01:00

Nineteen Le Gamine

I called my mother on her cell phone yesterday when no one answered the home phone. She asked if I could call her back because she was getting a ladder down at the storage space. When I spoke to her later she told me that she was with my nephew retrieving a ladder, he liked to press the buttons in the storage unit, she said. He likes running errands doesn't he? I asked. And cleaning (he was once given a toy vacuum cleaner for Christmas such is this child's love to clean). Oh yes, my mother said, he loves to clean. When we were going through some things in the basement he found your old motorcycle and asked if he could play with it. I told him that it was far too dirty and so he said that he would clean it and he did. I gave him a sponge and a bucket of soapy water and he spent a good hour cleaning it until it was spotless. And then he scooted around on it.

When I got off the phone with my Mom I thought how much this particular family anecdote demonstrated to me so much of what I love about my childhood. I was not particularly a tom boy, not if you asked me. I loved playing with dolls, particularly barbie dolls and playing dress up, I had a doll house and loved needle point and knitting. But I also had an older brother who I idolised so I had a toy motorcycle, rode bikes and played soccer and basketball, wanted to be a boxer or a BMX bike rider, followed him to canoe camp in Canada camping in the wilderness for six weeks when I was eleven years old and four more summers after that. I wasn't particularly interested in wearing dresses, I much preferred pants and jeans and sneakers but I had definite ideas about my hair and changed my haircut every year. I also always loved boys, had crushes on them, wanted to be around them, around my brother and his friends, my guy friends but I'm a girl's girl too, always had a tight circle of girl friends and am lucky that I still do.

My parents have always had a pretty traditional marriage in that my Mom worked before we were born and for a few years at our school while we were growing up but she was a stay at home mom and home maker and my Dad was the one who went to an office everyday. I won't go into how thankful I am to my Mom for sacrificing so much of herself for our family, that's a post for another day, only to say that I am grateful to both my parents for their dedication to my brother and I. But as traditional as their marriage is, my Mom who's an interior designer, is the one who took care of the houses, she knew everything about them. Whenever a workman would come to fix something they would of course look to my father, who knows a lot of things but wouldn't know the first thing about the furnace for instance, that was my mother's department. Plumber, roofer, electrician, general contractor all for my Mom. In fact my mother was the general contractor for the house they built in the country. My brother and I grew up painting, spackling, putting up dry board, sanding, tiling, wall papering with our Mother, we could probably open our own contracting company, not to mention furniture moving company after all the times we moved the furniture up and down floors in their Brownstone in Brooklyn.

I guess now trying to figure out the role I play in my adult life as a wife, career woman, looking towards and trying to become a mother and my current stint as a housewife, I'm really happy that I never felt and don't feel put in box. If we could afford it and we eventually do have kids I'd love to be a stay at home Mom or maybe S. would stay at home? My marriage is flexible enough that we pick up the slack for the other person or at least we try our best to. I'm not working so I do the errands for the house and the housework and the cooking, when S. wasn't working he did the same, when we both work we try our best to do everything, sometimes we both end up doing nothing and sometimes we argue about it. What I find challenging about all this baby business is that at least for the beginning part, the burden is on me, that's the deal, that's ultimately what separates us, as post modern feminist as I am. And the men who say, I'd have it for you if I could, would you really? And do you think my brother and sister in law would let my nephew stay with us for a few months? This carpeting in our flat need to be vacuumed terribly often...

The Specialist Appointment

2010-06-16T13:48:00.017+01:00

Yesterday, we had the appointment with the specialist. It was actually the exact opposite of the atmosphere of the private appointment which was calm and serene, the office was modern and spacious and empty, besides me and the receptionist. The NHS appointment on the other hand was in a separate building and clinic, in a cramped area, buzzing with activity and needed a paint job and more seats. The whole process took well over two hours was filled to the rim with couples, nurses, technicians, doctors and interns and felt a bit like the DMV.

Aside from getting stuck in rush hour traffic because we didn't leave early enough, being somewhat rudely given directions to the NHS clinic when I mistakenly thought the appointment was in the private clinic because I was never sent an appointment letter so I went back to where I had my previous appointment - there was a reason that I was never sent my appointment letter - I apparently didn't have an appointment yesterday. There was a part of me which was going to call to reconfirm as I never actually spoke to someone at the RMC it was the nurse at my GP's office who confirmed the appointment but I stopped myself as my husband took the day off from work and I couldn't wait any longer if for some reason they said oh no, you are not booked in for this day and postponed again. I knew if that had happened I would have had a slight meltdown, so I took my chances showing up without a letter. And guess what, they didn't have me down for an appointment... but thankfully, they fit me in anyway. Probably because she saw that the look on my face, which looked something like a permanent grimace by the time we arrived ten minutes late after a traffic ridden, hour long scooter ride through the city and then holding back the tears, biting my lip after going to the wrong clinic and being given directions by Cruella Di Ville (nice bedside manner lady, who ever you were) to arrive and be told nope, sorry you are not on the list. PLEASE. CHECK. AGAIN.

I was given another internal sonogram, my height and weight was checked and scales are not my friend these days, had another consultation with the doctor (the one I already saw in January not Dr. Reagan which is neither here nor there), another blood test and then to the chemist for drugs I need to take before (one up my bum, the fun is never ending) and after I have an HSG (an x-ray in which they inject die into the womb, and along the fallopian tubes. The flow of the die is then tracked on an x-ray television -- cool, I am now tie dying my insides!)

The doctor checked the original tests I took in January and as I had already surmised myself from the results (negative, normal), I don't have Lupus and my blood clots perfectly normally. I need to do another two tests for other types of disorders which lead to thrombosis (blood clotting disorder) as well as have a HSG to check that there are no blockages in or damage to my tubes or malformations in my uterus which there is the possibility there might be. From the internal scan, which after having had so many this past year that stated that my uterus was normal, I was surprised that they found that the shape of my uterus is like a heart which could be normal or I could have a septum which is an extra wall which hangs down a bit in the top middle of the uterus and could be the reason why I miscarry. The theory is that if the embryo implanted at the top of the uterus, behind or on the septum it doesn't get enough blood and therefore enough nutrients to allow it to grow properly. This apparently can be rectified through surgery. On the one hand I am hoping that this is the answer, on the other hand how ridiculous to be hoping for a malformation which will lead to surgery. But the good news is that apparently the miscarriage rate among women with recurrent miscarriage who have this problem and have surgery goes from a whopping 80 - 90% to a mere 10 - 15 % after treatment which is well, the normal miscarriage rate.

If the HGS comes back normal and the blood tests find that I don't have any of the other thrombosis disorders (which is usually treated by injecting Heparin daily normally until week 34 of a pregnancy and orally taking baby aspirin) that's pretty much all they've got for me. It doesn't seem that the NHS pays for checking your chromosomes so we'll need to check them ourselves if we want to know for certain, not that there is any "cure" its only an answer to why if one of us has a translocating chromosome, I miscarry. This clinic does not believe in hormone therapy, their research has shown that it doesn't make a difference to give an already pregnant woman progesterone because if progesterone is going to have any affect it's got to be before your pregnancy implants. I know that this is pretty controversial but as unwilling as I was to listen to it in beginning, this clinic specialises in miscarriages and is constantly doing controlled studies with their patients so I trust their data.

Another interesting fact for anyone who is struggling with having had one or two or three or more miscarriages as we all know how much we love to learn about statistics - is that it's actually only 1% of all women who have recurrent miscarriage (which is defined as three or more consecutive miscarriages) and within that 1%, 40% will occur because of random or sporadic reasons, normally chromosomal problems with the embryo and not because you or your partner have a genetic or chromosome disorder or any other problems but because unfortunately, that's the luck of the draw. I guess no matter what the answer I feel we pulled out the short straw -- but are trying to turn our "luck" around.

When In Doubt Cook

2010-06-11T14:36:00.013+01:00

We love Jamie Oliver in our house. In fact I used to love him when he was a size or two smaller, a few years younger, drove around on a vespa and called himself the Naked Chef. I loved his little lisp and his English accent and the groovy flats he lived in and the mates he used to have around to eat all of the delicious food he would teach us how to cook throughout his program. I loved that he was partial to Italian food and that he was so enthusiastic about EVERYTHING and still is. The curiosity and love and sheer enjoyment of what he does permeates in each one of his projects and he is a busy guy. Yeah, so what if he's sometimes a little cocky, what chef isn't?

Bottom line, we love his food, his enthusiasm, his charm and that he gives his time to educate the world about eating right. Its always surprising to me how disconnected we have become to our food. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising at all considering even fresh vegetables are now sold in packaging, let alone pieces of meat or processed food, how would a city kid ever know the origins of anything animal or vegetable? So the other day when my husband picked up his magazine Jamie I've been hooked (no surprise) and am trying my hand at a few of the recipes. Unfortunately, I don't think its sold in the States yet as I don't see the US price on it and all the measurements are in grams and milliliters which leads me believe it isn't. But I know we'll be cooking a lot from the recipes in the magazine particularly from the last section called the "Monthly Menu" because the meals are so quick and simple, I'll share the ones we like. Meanwhile Jamie has an iphone application for recipes in addition to all his books and many mini meal programs for free on You Tube. I could go on and on, you'd think I was his publicist? I made this pastry pizza last night and it couldn't have been easier or more delicious. And my husband, my toughest critic, he loved it, only don't call it pizza.

Puffed Pastry Vegetable Tartlets/ Pizza - Adapted from a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Magazine Jamie

Makes 4 squares

Ingredients:

500 Grams/ 17 Ounces Ready Made Puffed Pastry
Flour for dusting
Olive Oil
Salt
4 tsp Pesto (store bought or use garlic cloves, basil leaves, parmesan for home made pesto)
Handful of Cherry tomatoes
1 Roasted Pepper
4 Asparagus
1/2 Zuchini (Courgette)
1-2 cups Parmesan Cheese
1 Ball Mozzarella Cheese
1- 2 cloves of Garlic (for pesto)
Fresh Basil (bunch if you are making your own pesto a few leaves if only using for the topping)

1. Take out Puffed pastry from refrigerator to soften, preheat oven to 200 C. or 390 F dust a flat surface with flour for rolling out dough.

2. You can easily use store bought pesto for the base but its easy enough to make your own pesto by throwing a fistful of basil leaves into a blender together with 4-5 tsp of olive oil, a handful/ cup of grated parmesan cheese, a clove or two of garlic (I put two as I love garlic) and a pinch of salt, blend until a smooth consistency. If you have pine nuts you can throw a few in too but they aren't necessary. Set aside.

3. Roasted peppers are also available in most supermarkets in a jar. But if you have the time it's really easy to roast one carefully on a low flame on your stove, obviously holding the stem or even using tongs to hold the pepper over the flame so that you don't get burned, rotating before the skin gets too scorched. You could slice them up in thin strips and oil a grill pan if you have one and grill them. You can also just use the peppers raw as they'll cook up easily if stripped in thin slices in the oven once added to the topping.

4. Cut the block of puffed pastry in half, store unused half back in refrigerator for next time. Roll out pastry with a rolling pin (a glass bottle works too if you don't have a rolling pin) onto a flat surface dusted with flour, into a 26 cm square (10 inch Square) and then cut into quarters with a pizza cutter or knife. Roll/ pinch in the sides of each square with your fingers so that you make a crust, you can also hide any imperfections in your squares by evening the sides out. Put the quarters onto a cookie sheet leaving space between them and spoon out pesto sauce evenly onto each square.

5. In a bowl mash tomatoes together with a fork so that the insides squish out and the tomatoes fall apart. You may have to cut the tomatoes in half to help them mash up depending on how ripe your tomatoes are and how big you want the tomato pieces to be, I liked mine a bit smaller. Snap apart asparagus into bite size pieces, discard wooden bottom piece of each, add to tomatoes. Slice up roasted pepper into thin strips, add to tomatoes and asparagus. Cut zuchini in half and peel thin strips of zuchini into bowl with a peeler (you will only need half of the zuchini). Add a couple glugs of olive oil and a pinch of salt into bowl and mix altogether. Spoon out vegetable mixture evenly on top of puffed pastry squares.

6. Quarter the ball of mozzarella and break off small pieces and add to each square. Finish with sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

7. Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the cheese is bubbling.

8. Top off with ripped fresh basil.

Serve with a green salad and voila dinner is ready. I think that there are so many variations that you can play around with using this recipe, like using an olive tapenade or sundried tomato paste instead of pesto, substitute other vegetables, goat cheese or feta instead of mozzarella, the possibilities are endless... Jamie you have done it again.

Swim

2010-06-10T16:54:00.009+01:00

Today I went to the pool. Unfortunately, the weather is overcast and windy and rainy so I went to the indoor pool at my local gym. I did ten pool laps which is pretty good for me as its been probably since last summer in Italy that I last went swimming (jumping in and out at Gospel Oak's outdoor pool doesn't really count).

I have to admit putting on the swimming cap and goggles I looked a little like a giant pinhead or like Woody Allen as a sperm from Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask but I wasn't going for a look, well yes I was, I was going for the serious swimmer look, serious swimmer going to do laps look. Which I did do, you know serious laps, in my amateurish way but hey, the old guy and the pregnant woman I shared my lane with were no better. Okay maybe I was almost being out lapped by the old guy but the pregnant lady, I was WAY faster than her. I did feel a little like an idiot when I saw her leave the pool with her big ol' belly after internally celebrating my superior speed over her, who knew I was this competitive, I'm unemployed, I need to compete somewhere...

But I love to swim, when I was a child I was called Elizafish by family friends because I never wanted to get out of the water. Usually by the end of the day at the beach or pool my fingers were shrivelled and lips were purple. I almost drowned when I was a toddler because I ran right into the ocean as I remembered how much I loved bobbing in the waves with my father. I got knocked down, swept up, knocked down, thrown back out and finally pulled out by my father and the life guard after swallowing bucketfuls of saltwater and sand. Thankfully the experience didn't make me fearful of the ocean only respect it more.

Some of my favourite memories as a child were of being at the beach on Long Island, trying to swim out past where the waves broke to reach my father who floated on his back for what seemed like hours, like he was suspended in jello, his big nose white with zinc, glistening in the sun. I remember coming back from the beach at the end of the day exhausted, my body tingling and achey from the sun and the seawater and from running back and forth into and through the waves, swimming, diving, jumping, tumbling in and out of the ocean.

I feel a little sore from the laps, my muscles ache a little, my hair is still a bit damp, its a cosy and familiar feeling. Even if I only went to the public city pool its still always nice to go for a swim.

Keep On Moving...

2010-06-09T21:01:00.010+01:00

Albert Bridge from the train

In an effort to get my Qi moving, clear my head, distract myself, stay a productive person, make my husband proud, make myself proud, keep my spirits up, gain back my confidence, cut myself some slack, start striking off a few hundred things from my to do list, I have not stopped all day since I got up this morning.

Its nine o'clock in the evening London time and my feet are up and while I still have the dinner dishes to wash, all my housework is done, this post is nearly written and I got a black and white cookie with my name on it.

Hobby Number 2 - Baking

2010-06-08T11:49:00.010+01:00

New York Black and White Cookie

I love to cook and even though we have arguments in my house about who is the better chef I can safely say that I am pretty good at it. Baking on the other hand, is another story... My baking abilities overall are uneven. I've had a few cake mishaps over the years including a cake on the bottom of my mother's oven and a birthday cake for my husband which was completely inedible, scones which could have been used as paper weights, the list goes one. Cookies I am okay with, I am improving. These cookies are a bit of of a compromise between cakes and cookies and not only are they are New York classic, they were one of my favourite deli treats growing up in Brooklyn. I don't know if this is true or not but apparently the original cookies were made from the leftover cake batter from the Italian bakeries, which makes sense as they are fluffy and very cake-like.

I decided after having a prophetic dream last month -- which ended with me bogie boarding down a fast flowing river away from danger, understanding that I have the power to manifest change in myself, while holding a black and white cookie -- to challenge myself to bake them. They are actually quite simple to make. Turns out my husband says that they are also very similar to a basic Italian cookie he grew up eating (not surprising as they did originate from Italian-American bakeries in New York) and probably can be used as a base for many other types of cookies, lemon frosting for example would go great with them. I found this recipe from All Recipes and modified a couple of things from the recipe because I thought the original cookies were a little more lemony:

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract (I used 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract)
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
1 (1 ounce) square bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used powdered bittersweet cocoa to taste directly into sugar mixture and added more hot water to keep consistency)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Butter 2 baking sheets.
In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the milk, vanilla, and lemon extract. Combine cake flour and all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt; gradually blend into the creamed mixture. Drop tablespoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
Bake until edges begin to brown, about 20 to 30 minutes. Cool completely.
Place confectioners sugar in large bowl. Mix in boiling water one tablespoon at a time until mixture is thick and spreadable. (Add more than the indicated amount if you need to).
Transfer half of the frosting to the top of a double boiler set over simmering water. Stir in the chocolate. Warm mixture, stirring frequently, until the chocolate melts. Remove from heat.
With a brush (or knife), coat half the cookie with chocolate frosting and the other half with the white frosting. Set on waxed paper until frosting hardens. (Frost flat side of cookie, the bottom of the finished cookie should be rounded)

Turning a Corner

2010-06-07T10:33:00.009+01:00

A Table of My Own

I saw the movie My Sister's Keeper over the weekend. If you haven't seen it, wait for a rainy day when you need a good cry and a wake up call. Its message was so loud and clear it made me feel a bit guilty when thinking about my own life. Particularly when I got into an argument with my husband and without realizing it he reminded me of the same thing, which I already knew. Its so easy to lose sight of the big picture when you are focussing on the details. I am trying to let go little by little, to ease up, to get back to myself and the things which make me who I am before I got wrapped up in the baby marathon but it doesn't happen overnight.

However clinging onto something for dear life also never makes it happen any faster, any easier, if it all. If experience has taught me anything its only when I set something free does it find its way back to me. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean give up, only it seems to fight this fight means to battle against yourself and unfortunately, sometimes with the ones you love and I am tired of it. I am trying to and intend to give myself and my husband a break and to trust, trust what I'm not sure, myself, my body, my husband, the doctors, the universe, fate what some might call God... and let small ripples eventually create big waves.

In the meantime, I have been given the gift of time and I intend on working on all of the things I complained I never had time to do when I was working, including finishing the novel I was writing before I moved to London. Sometimes turning the attention back to yourself in other ways can be scarier than going through a year of no less than 10 internal scans/ exams, local anaesthesia, minor surgery, giving bottles and bottles of blood, talking with everyone about my eggs, ovaries, uterus, miscarriages, periods, progesterone, pregnancies... but I am willing to give it a shot.

Poolside London

2010-06-05T11:24:00.006+01:00

Gospel Oak Lido

Its not exactly Miami but hey, on a hot sunny day in London it's not so bad either. The pool at Gospel Oak isn't heated but apparently the one in London Fields is where we I originally thought we were going, I may have to check it out during the week. I was bragging to my friends that I was used to cold water having swum in the Atlantic all my life, I guess I am becoming too accustomed to the Mediterranean because I got out soon after diving in, eating my words as I ran back to my place in the sun, nothing gets the blood pumping like a pool of ice water. Today is another beautiful, hot sunny day, it'll be too crowded at the pool but good thing this city is full of gorgeous green parks.

Canal Loitering

2010-06-03T22:02:00.008+01:00

My friend Charlie quit her job too (but sensibly has another one lined up). She took two days off before she starts her new job on Monday and called me up this afternoon to take a walk by the canal. We didn't go very far, our destination was a restaurant/ bar close to Kings Cross which is only about a fifteen minute walk from us. We shared a bottle of rose and sat by the boats and gossiped and talked about her new job and compared notes about different neighbourhoods and complained about the real estate market in London. Tomorrow we are hoping the weather will do as is predicted and stay sunny and warm so that we can go to the outdoor swimming pool in London Fields. Charlie warned me to pack my lunch as the cafe is really bad. I was thinking of making a variation of this yummy sandwich for us, we'll see if I can organise myself early enough to make it before we go.

Hobby Number 1 - Knitting

2010-06-03T09:00:00.009+01:00

I started knitted when I was a pretty little. I remember knitting a scarf for my friend's little brother just after he was born so I must have been eight or nine. Unfortunately, my knitting career has been sporadic so I've never fully mastered it or gone past scarves. When I was in high school I tried knitting a sock and was getting the hang of it but I am such a perfectionist that I kept unraveling every row which had a mistake in it until I finally unravelled the whole thing and never restarted.

During my second pregnancy I thought it would be constructive to start knitting something for the baby to keep my mind off the what I'll affectionately call "the crazy" which I and as I have visited multiple pregnancy/ baby boards I know what some other women also go through, while trying to get pregnant and during early pregnancy and probably onwards but as I haven't yet gone onto that stage, I can only speak for the pre/early part. The crazy looks something like this but can sometimes be oh so worse. So, hobbies, yes they are helpful, my doctor even suggested that I get one, it was practically prescribed to me.

I haven't gotten very far with my knitting and well, my baby blanket is looking a lot like the beginning of a scarf but I'm still practicing and at the moment I've got no use for a baby blanket. It is quite meditative and I am trying not to be such a stickler for mistakes. You Tube is a great source for refreshing the memories of stitches for us rusty knitters and maybe even getting you off the ground if you are new to it. I personally found Knitting Tips By Judy the most instructive. If you live in London, LOOP is a wonderful knitting store in Islington and they even have classes.

The Post In Which My Head Might Explode

2010-06-02T09:00:00.003+01:00

So, funny thing happened yesterday. When I was busy wasting 10 pounds to pee on stick to tell me what I already knew, guess what? I was missing my specialist appointment. So after six weeks of checking the mail everyday like a high school senior waiting for college acceptance letters, after a million phone calls to the wrong number at the RMU (Recurrent Miscarriage Unit) clinic (division of labor, private vs. NHS, don't get me started), after being told by a nurse at my GP (General Practitioner, i.e family doctor) to try calling myself and of course not checking the number with her or bothering again until today to speak to the nice nurse who I knew would look into the appointment for me because, well I'm an idiot. After going on and on about how no one was getting back to me to the internet and did I mention that for five minutes I thought I was pregnant? I. MISSED. MY. APPOINTMENT. Luckily, the universe is not always continually cruel as they managed to get me another one in two weeks. I better find a hobby before then.

Baby Blues = Slowly Losing My Mind

2010-06-01T13:42:00.008+01:00

I have mentioned before that operation make a baby is on the back burner for us. Its on the back burner until I see the specialist who may or may not ever give me another appointment and then may or may not ever find anything concrete as to why I miscarry.

So what on earth is this?

I think crazy speaks for itself, don't you?

Hello Brooklyn

2010-06-01T10:50:00.006+01:00

A few years ago Brooklyn got it's first baseball team since the Dodgers moved to LA (although we don't talk about that in my family, my mother was quite the Jackie Robinson fan) called the Brooklyn Cyclones. And so what if they are a minor league team, you can keep your Mets, you can keep your Yankees (actually, my father is from The Bronx so we are fans) we'll take the Cyclones. Truth be known I'm a fair weather fan, its true, I don't follow their progress throughout the season. But to go to a game, well that's summer for me.

Bleacher tickets used to be $5, now they're up to $8 which is still reasonable. Do yourself a favor if you live in New York, go get a ticket to a game, get yourself a Brooklyn lager and a Nathan's hotdog, you have the ocean in front of you, next to you the Coney Island Astroland (what's left of it) and nine innings of great fun. I promise. If I still lived in New York I'd take my husband to a game and we'd do the wave and sing take me out to the ball game and I'd probably ask him to buy me some cracker jacks and I'd teach him how to heckle Staten Island's batter with an old fashioned Bronx Cheer.

Oil Sick

2010-05-31T17:56:00.012+01:00

I'm having a hard time writing exactly what I am feeling about the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico without standing on a soap box. Suffice to say that this is one of the biggest ecological tragedies of our times and the world's approach to energy has got to change. Meanwhile BP wants us to call them with ideas as to how they can plug the hole because they are plum out of them? Terrific.

If anything other than the BP catastrophe might make one want to get rid of their car and quickly switch to solar and wind power it could be this video (one of many you can find on you tube) of the world's most expensive, customised cars gathered together in London's Chelsea neighborhood (home of Harrods) last August, most imported for the summer months from Dubai or Bahrain. To put it in perspective, any house that I could afford to buy in London I could probably pay for with the paint job of one of these cars:

Still My Favourite Vintage Dress...

2010-05-28T18:10:00.009+01:00

If you are in based in the UK and are looking for a one of a kind wedding dress I bought this one in London at the Vintage Wedding Dress Company where they have an amazing selection of styles from various decades. Unfortunately, most of the dresses run on the smaller side but I had my dress let out and lengthened by a seamstress VWDC recommended in Clapham who specialises in vintage dresses and they did an excellent job. When I put it on the first time I knew I had found the one, cheesy to say but true.

My Girls

2010-05-27T15:56:00.029+01:00

One of the many heartbreaking aspects of my parents moving from their house of 35 years in Brooklyn, was going through the last of my clothes, papers, journals, books, furniture and keepsakes which I had stored there throughout the years. Obviously its been a while since I "needed" a lot of what was stashed away in their basement or in the closet of my childhood room, some things were easier than others to dispose of.

I am sentimental and I am romantic and it is hard to throw away things that have symbolic meaning of a time in my life which I would like to remember. But I am also pretty practical and my parents were downsizing from a four story house to a two bedroom apartment, did I really need to ask them to pay for storage or did I need to pay for storage for boxes of sentiments? Needless to say I was pretty cut throat when it came to what I held onto. A box of letters from a long ago boyfriend, well that was SO satisfying to put through the shredder, why did I hold onto them for so long? College notes and papers, like I was ever going to go back through them, goodbye. Shoes, don't get my started... if I had a gigantic house with a walk in closet, where I could display my shoes with the admiration and respect they deserve I would have held onto every impractical pair of heels I have ever acquired through my years in the fashion industry. But back to reality and I am sure my mother made some very happy fashionistas day when visiting her local Good Will (d0n't worry most were actually already transported to London years ago and live in the back of my closet).

A little bit harder for me to get rid of was the vintage clothing I have collected throughout my life since I was thirteen years old. My mother and her best friend who didn't have any daughters also have added to my collection. I was hoping that those dresses or pieces that I don't really wear anymore but didn't have the heart to give away could be kept with the dress up clothes I used to play with and were stored in magical chest filled with my mother's old prom dresses, great aunts and grandmother's wraps and capes, tiny shoes and hats and slinky 1920s gowns in the country for my niece to play with. Sadly, the house where the trunk of dress up clothes were kept had a pipe burst last winter, that's right just as my parents were moving out of/ closing the sale on their house. So most of the contents of the house were destroyed or put away in storage. Again, as much as I loved these clothes it wasn't practical to hold onto them.

So, I managed to pick out my favourites or the ones which had the most sentimental value and packed them back to London with me where they hang out with my new acquisitions - because London has amazing vintage clothing markets and boutiques. Here are a few of the ones I love:

I love this dress because I wore it to the Paris Review's 40th Anniversary Party when I was 19 years old after I had spent a year as an intern there. It was a black and white themed party in the Hamptons and I stood out like a sore thumb but I was so naive that I guess I didn't mind. Thinking about that period of my life reminds me of the expression "youth is wasted on the young" but its better like that because I was unaffected and didn't know enough of what to be impressed by, but Lauren Bacall, yes I'd say I was impressed by seeing her at that party.

The label of this dress is "Cockney Rebel" no need to say more.

This dress is falling apart but I love it because it was a dress which was shared by a few of my girl friends when I was a in college. I think it was originally bought by the friend who introduced Andrea and I, then Andrea had it and I either traded something with Andrea for it or took it from her. I wear this dress when its warm and I'm doing housework. S. doesn't like me leaving in the house with it on because it needs to be mended and he says I look like a homeless person when I wear it but I don't mind, it reminds me when I was an angry, grungy college student.

This is the Tapemeasure dress my mother wore on a date with my father when he proposed to her as he drove her back home over the Brooklyn Bridge. This is also the dress I was graduated from high school in and what I wore to the Church rehearsal and rehearsal dinner of my wedding last year. Needless to say, if I ever have a daughter it'll be waiting for her for any of her special occasions, my niece will look beautiful in it too once she gets older.

I bought this dress at Canal Jeans right before or just as it started to suck. I was in my early twenties at the time and working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wore it to work when I gave you your button for the Museum and you asked me for change from your quarter.

Hey? How Ya Doing? Sorry You Can't Get Through...

2010-05-26T15:44:00.020+01:00

Please leave your name and your number and I won't be getting back to you...anytime soon.

I've been leaving messages on the voicemail of the miscarriage specialist's office for the past three days and I haven't gotten one call back. Not. One. Word. And I've been to that office, I was the only woman in their reception while waiting for my appointment and the phones were not ringing off of the hook despite the world reputation this clinic has. Okay, okay, I guess I answered my own question they have a world reputation, waiting a bit is par for the course. And I know it's NHS I should be happy that this isn't costing me what it would if I needed to do it privately, don't worry, I get it. And I should be happy that I have access to a world renowned clinic. But I live in London and well that's one of the benefits of living in a large cosmopolitan city and its not free, I pay into the system. But it has been a month since my referral and the fact that I haven't heard anything back from them is making me want to call them everyday.

We would go to Italy to get all of the tests done because as I've mentioned before my husband's father is a Obgyn and we could get looked after by his hospital. The only problem is then what? In the UK if you follow the NHS system your antenatal care is given by your primary physician (your GP) and the midwives of the hospital you choose in your area, so who then takes care of following my care if say the tests in Italy find that I need to inject Heparin everyday for the first six months of my next pregnancy, hypothetically of course? We discussed this with my GP when we went in for a referral. It seems that the specialist would follow my care, so we're back to square one, getting to see the specialist.

I don't necessarily feel like I am under a huge time constraint as I did maybe in the past. Perhaps because I thought, well stroke of bad luck, surely the next one will be the one I carry to term lets try again, also because that was sort of inferred from the first appointment I had with the RMC clinic. However, that said I would like to be able, if at all possible, to understand if there is an underlying problem which needs addressing and begin to address that problem now. Also I know that the results of these tests take time, everything takes time so why not get the ball rolling now? Particularly since I have nothing but time on my hands these days?

Here are few articles and the book which have been written about/ by the recurrent miscarriage specialist, Professor Regan at Saint Mary's Hospital, who I have been recommended by my GP to see:

The Independent; The Daily Telegraph; The Times; BBC; Miscarriage What Every Woman Needs To Know

She really does sound like a great doctor and I look forward to seeing her...um, soon.

Lazy Summer Days...

2010-05-24T16:58:00.035+01:00

Green Park

Oh wait its not summer yet? Please don't tell London.

These days have been full of long lazy evenings in the park and on Saturday a walk along the river and through the Broadway market. We stopped at another street market along the way back to Islington from London Fields, for coconut juice. I shared a bottle of prosecco with friends outside the pub and watched the late night sunset. Sunday brought a BBQ, the first of the season, where I caught up with friends in a garden in Brixton, soaked up all the sun possible, sipping on spritzers, munching on homemade ratatouille, BBQ ribs, chicken and hamburgers.

Wait does that Tabby have spots?

Unfortunately as this is England, the good weather is not here to stay and the cold temperature should come back any day now. But until it does, the windows in our flat are all open and the birds are singing joyfully around me like I live in the trees in the tropics and not in apartment block in the middle of London.

Isn't everything better when the sun is out?

Broadway Market

Vegetarian Scotch Eggs

Hot Salt Beef

Sweets with Bunny Ears

Fruit, Juice and Jams

Flowers in the Sun

Coconut Juice

Spotted Tabby

First BBQ of the Season

Park Quicknic

2010-05-21T12:43:00.018+01:00

Yesterday we had an impromptu quicknic (picnic of beer and crisps/ potato chips) at the park. I love that you can still drink beer in a park in the UK without being harassed by the police (unlike in NYC). It's a stupid thing to be grateful for I know but when its warm outside and the days are longer and you don't really want to go to or spend money at the pub, getting a couple of beers and a bag of crisps and sitting in the Park with your honey can't be beat if you don't have a garden to sit in.

S. took some pictures with his polaroid camera as the light was so beautiful. I am trying my best to pose for him with a chip in my hand. I am both an uncooperative and uncomfortable model which is too bad for my dear husband because he loves taking my picture. He took another polaroid of the ice cream truck and gave it to the woman selling ice cream who was surprised and appreciative, in this age of digital images, to receive an instant picture of her truck to keep.

Ice Cream Truck*

Quicknic of crips and Dab

Highbury Fields*

Photographer at work

Striking a pose*

* Photographs by S

The Waiting Game

2010-05-20T15:12:00.018+01:00

I feel like I am in a holding pattern for many things in my life. On the baby front we're waiting to get an appointment with the specialist to investigate if they can find anything specific which is preventing me from carrying a pregnancy to term. On the job front I have been interviewing and meeting with friends and colleagues and recruiters and dreaming a lot about my ideal job... and there is one job which might be as close as I get to perfect for me but it's only at the talking stage right now and there are so many variables as to why it might not work out that I am not holding my breath.

In the meantime I am waiting. I am doing this delicate balancing act of being hopeful and not getting my hopes up too much. This is familiar territory. The feeling of being cautiously optimistic. Its a lot like what most women experience when they go through their first trimester hoping to reach the 12th week unscathed.

With this last pregnancy I managed to stay in a calm and relaxed place, confident that I would carry to term, until we got to the early scan. I decided that I would prefer to know if the pregnancy was going to progress early on than go through another missed miscarriage and prolong the inevitable. I was of course hopeful that at seven weeks we would find an embryo measuring at the right size for its stage with a healthy heartbeat. We didn't. At first the technician couldn't get a proper read on the size of the embryo but it looked like a week and half smaller than it should have been. Then she couldn't tell us precisely what the heart rate was but she thought it was 60 beats per minute which is usually a grave sign that the pregnancy will not progress. From what I later learned the embryonic heart rate at 7 weeks should ideally be up to 120 bpm. We left with a whopping 50% chance and were told to come back in 10 days to see if things had improved.

My cautious optimism for this pregnancy slowly soured into wretched fear and dread of what was to come. The familiar black curtain dropped over me and I found myself stuck in another waiting room. There was nothing we could do but hold our breath and wait. We had already planned a trip to Morocco and were debating whether we should go or not, fearing the worst, hoping, praying for the best. I Googled early embryonic heart rates and the statistics did not look good. I tried to convince myself that there was a possibility that the doctor had misread the scan, there is a measure of human error in everything and prayed that our seedling was actually measuring on the small side because I had ovulated later than I realised, certainly that was in the realm of possibility given what my body had already been through these past months, the doctor said so herself.

A couple of days before we were meant to go on our trip I started spotting brown blood. I thought I knew what was going on. I wouldn't say it was a relief but at least it was an answer after days of beating myself up for not being optimistic enough or realistic enough to know there was no hope, I really couldn't win with myself. Funnily enough when we returned to the clinic the embryo was still fighting along and the heart rate had risen to 90 beats per minute which still wasn't fantastic but at least was progress. I tried to be pragmatic and ask practical questions knowing really that there was nothing I could do to improve my chances but at least to help us decide whether or not we should go on our trip. The nurse and doctor felt that probably we should go ahead and do as we planned as it wouldn't hinder the pregnancy. I was confident enough in my body that I felt as early along as I was there was no need to fear a natural miscarriage if that was what was to come even in a foreign country. But we needed something to distract us from worry while we waited it out, getting out of London would only be good for us no matter what was to come. I felt confident though, I felt strong and hopeful that the pregnancy would survive.

Unfortunately, it didn't. The day after we arrived in Marrakesh I woke up in the middle of the night with light cramping and red blood. Throughout the week we were there I passed the pregnancy. We wanted to travel to Essaouira and Agadir but that idea went out the window and we stayed put in Marrakesh. I had the foresight to pack Tylenol Codeine but I didn't take it at first in case I was somehow still pregnant although as the days passed it became rather obvious that I was miscarrying. I was happy for the peacefulness of the riad where we stayed and the daily prayers from the mosques. Although I am not Muslim, it was comforting to have the prayers all around us throughout the day as I relinquished the little life that was just starting to form inside me.

And now I wait again. I wait for my body and mind to recover and heal from the loss. I wait for an appointment which may or may not tell me if there is something specific which is wrong with me. I wait until hopefully I am in a supportive work environment before I even think about trying again. I wait to see if I can even get pregnant again. I wait until I can take all the next steps forward which will lead me through and ahead. And I try to practice patience and serenity while I wait.

Midweek Madness

2010-05-19T21:40:00.012+01:00

This is what I did today:

Ate a poussin

drank a glass of wine

at a fun place

peed in a pod

And laughed a lot with my husband and then later with an old colleague from New York who is in London for business. We went to Sketch for drinks and gossiped about old times.

Today's Lunch Special

2010-05-18T21:16:00.009+01:00

The best thing about being unemployed? Lunch city (although you can't tell in this picture hidden as we are by the tree in front of our house which has just finished acquiring its Spring leaves) al fresco cooked by your husband who has the day off. On the menu? Lemon roasted mackerel on a bed of potatoes and capers, mixed green salad and elderflower apple juice. Life is pretty good.

Art Anniversary

2010-05-17T14:50:00.022+01:00

Yesterday we had a wonderful anniversary day. We originally planned to make a picnic and go to Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park but the weather was not cooperative so we went to the Tate Modern instead. We ate at the restaurant at the top of the Museum which has beautiful views over London and the Thames. S took this picture of the view even breathtaking on a rainy, overcast day.

After a three course lunch, a bottle of white wine and two double expressos later we ventured downstairs to take in the exhibit in the main hall. Its the Tate's 10th anniversary this year and this exhibition was pretty interesting given how important the Tate Modern has become in London as a young museum of modern art.

It was like a Frieze Art Fair school project and I wasn't sure if that was the point or not. The irony was not lost on me or maybe it was... Regardless of the intention of the project the exhibition seemed much more of a happening and had more energy than most of the exhibits I'd been to at the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. It was either a performance art of what a contemporary art festival looks like or it really was and therefore it was even more absurd. It reminded me of something that my classmates and I would have put together at my independent arty school in Brooklyn (before it was hijacked by the upwardly mobile New Yorkers, I mean bankers - the only ones who can really afford to send their kids there now).

The exhibition was meant to be a weekend free art festival for independent artists but there were young artists dressed up in bee keepers outfits playing scrabble against another wearing chemical cleanup uniform and pizza was delivered to one booth which was dressed up as a stall in a souk complete with arabic writing, I almost thought that they were giving it out as some sort of statement on Pizza Express until I saw a young volunteer dig in. Later an empty discarded box pizza box was added to a collection of garbage? artwork? on the floor. Two older guys (middle aged) sat fiddling with their ipads and iphones in one booth and probably it was real exchange as they sat bored and comparing notes on their apple apps but maybe because there was so much rib poking at the modern art establishment you didn't know what was real and what was farcical. The chocolate bars in litter boxes of kitty litter seemed somewhat appropriate given what I have seen in other contemporary art exhibitions but mostly everyone seemed like they were having fun and not taking themselves too seriously which I believe can only have a positive affect for art in general.

J'adore Provence

2010-05-14T17:47:00.041+01:00

One of the trips I recently took post miscarriage was to Provence in the South of France. Friends of mine had rented a house and invited us to come along. Unfortunately, S had to work and couldn't come but I went and spent a week relaxing with good friends, their two kids and another friend of ours all of whom I don't get to see as often anymore as they live in New York.

We ate baguette and smelly cheeses, foie gras, pate and macaroons picked up at Pierre Herme from their trip to Paris a week earlier. We wandered around the small hillside villages and bought linens and lavender soap and pottery from a local artist. We spent a day in Marseille and ate bouillabaisse and drank a bottle of the local dry white wine. We visited Aix en Provence and saw inside the studio where Cezanne lived and worked and then ate steak with pomme frites and gorged ourselves on profiteroles.

Every night we made a big feast of vegetables and would roast a chicken or a duck breast and light a fire in the fireplace. I read three books that trip including The Road (which I read on the train on my way there) as well as Eat, Pray, Love. Both books were so moving in different ways reading them made me feel a little less lonely in my thoughts. It also helped to be with old friends who I felt completely and utterly myself with.

I would love to go back to Provence it is such a special place. The people are really warm and lovely, the food is outrageously delicious and the beauty of the landscape is breathtaking. Some days we didn't get out of the house until the afternoon as we'd lull over our baguette and fig jam breakfast with fruit and yogurt and cafe au lait outside in the patio taking in the Spring sun and absorbing the view of the cypress trees and vineyards in front of the house.

Motherhood

2010-05-13T09:00:00.010+01:00

The due date of my first pregnancy has come and gone and actually its a game I decided I wouldn't play with myself particularly three times around as its not healthy. Maybe for some women taking special note of the due date of their miscarriages is cathartic but for me I find it defeatist. These days, however, as I have been concentrating on finding a job (well and cleansing myself) operation make a baby has been put on hold so I am feeling generally more relaxed about our baby making future and not so rushed to have a child, now, now, now, right now! We would also like to have all of the relevant tests done before trying again to make sure that there isn't something else we can do to improve our chances of having a successful pregnancy, please?

I do occasionally have pangs of grief which creep up on me at weird times and not for instance when I am holding a friend's newborn (which is just such a lovely feeling). And as unjustified as I know it is, after so far failing at having a baby, my self confidence is sometimes in the shitter. I feel particularly amazing about myself when interviewing for a high powered job at a well known fashion conglomerate and having the recruiter tell me that she's not sure if I lack confidence or have too subtle a personality... hmm, I'll take a subtle personality thank you very much and how about a punch in the face to remind you that while I may not always seem like it I actually am from New York. I think most likely what she read as my lack of confidence or subtly was actually hesitance on my part, wasn't I quitting the fashion industry? Or at least big fashion conglomerate industry? Yeah, to have a baby. How'd that work out?

So while I still love hanging out with children even if they aren't mine and so many people are giving birth these days and well not me and I didn't really mind that it was mother's day last weekend and guess what, I'm not yet a mother, try as I may, there are other times that it does hit me unexpectedly which is almost worse because I didn't see it coming. During my last miscarriage I tried so hard to identify the crazy emotions I was going through, it wasn't quite grief because how do you grieve something you never had? It wasn't exactly anger because who was I angry at? It wasn't really dread because I knew already what to expect. It was a bit of all of those things together mixed with a profound undefinable sadness which I am still not sure has left me entirely. But other than being subtly confident (how about that you silly recruiter) that I will some day have a child, I find comfort and unexpected love in the words of some of my favorite Mommy bloggers like Andrea from The Mitchell Method, and Rebecca from Girls Gone Child and Stephanie from The Nie Nie Dialogues who share Mother's day with us wanna be Moms too which makes that undefinable sadness feel ever more distant.

One Year Later...

2010-05-12T15:50:00.015+01:00

This weekend will be our one year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's only been a year and I can't believe it's already been a year. So much has happened these past twelve months it's hard to take it all in. I feel incredibly blessed with my life and even grateful for the bumps in the road. If everything were easy I'd never appreciate how good I've got it. Being married can be difficult just like any long term relationship and we're learning and making mistakes and making it up as we go along.

And I love our imperfections and I love that our life hasn't been figured out yet and just when we think it is the game plan switches up on us but we roll with the punches even as hard as the punches can get. I love that our destination is still unknown but we'll know when we get there. I love that we dream big and laugh loud and cook because we love to eat and eat because we love to cook. I'm so grateful that we have families which love and support us and an extended family of friends all over the world that love and support us, all of whom have helped us through the hard times because even in the first year of marriage there are hard times, or particularly during the first year? And party with us through the good times and hang out for everything in between.

So five years on, one year of marriage later and I still can't believe my luck because when I first set my eyes on my husband at a birthday dinner all those years ago I thought to myself, self, he looks like he'd be a good husband (I actually thought he was married to friend of a friend already) little did I know, guess what? I was right.

Ode to the Sun and FOOD

2010-05-06T14:20:00.009+01:00

Sunny Islington Pub

Today the sun made a reappearance, just in time for the last photo ops of the Prime Ministerial candidates. Who's it going to be? Who's going to be leading England into the new millennium? Nick Clegg would be a great pick, he seems to be the more realistic of the bunch but probably is a long shot. Don't get me started on Cameron and poor Brown is really just such a dud isn't he? My money is on Clegg, this country needs a big change from the Tony Blair years and Brown hasn't seemed to improve on them but going Tory is in my eyes a big step backwards, come on England, YES YOU CAN!

So aside from speculating on the election and sitting in the sun in Camden waiting for an appointment and drinking peppermint tea, today I also have been able to eat which is an even bigger improvement from yesterday. I ate all of the leftover vegetables from the minestrone soup we made yesterday and I even shaved parmesan cheese on top even though probably I wasn't supposed to. We also cooked it with a a rind of parmesan because hey, my husband is Italian and that's how we roll when we make minestrone soup. Tonight we are going to roast some more vegetables and eat them with rice, I am so excited.

Tomorrow, when the cleanse is really officially over, I will get into the nitty gritty, the goods and the bads of this whole process. Overall I would say that its been a very good and positive experience well, except for the bad breath but more on that later.

Come Back Spring!

2010-05-05T18:34:00.006+01:00

This is what happened this past weekend after huge rain and wind storms, all the flower blossoms fell out of the trees. It was beautiful to look at for about a day but it would have been nice to have them in the trees a bit longer. The dark overcast cold days are back and I already miss sunny London.

The good news is that my cleanse is over. I am on the post part of the cleanse which I suppose is the equivalent to the cool down on your treadmill, your workout is over but you are not quite done yet. Yesterday all I had was all fresh squeezed orange juice which was already an improvement on 10 days of lemonade although I did feel a little hungry. Today I had fresh squeezed orange juice in the morning and we made a big pot of minestrone soup which I only could have the broth of but I was happy to finally ingest something savory!

Tomorrow I finally get to EAT FOOD. I'll report back the final outcome of this whole adventure.

Rainy Day Okay

2010-05-01T18:33:00.011+01:00

Another day of rain here in London and for me it couldn't have come at a better time. I have no choice but to chillax on one of the final days of my cleanse. Today is DAY 8 and I've got to tell you I am dreaming about food. I know that probably seems preposterous given my last post but its true. Last I was dreaming particularly about the New York famous Black and White cookie. I had a very intricate dream which turned out to have a very positive ending with me eating a Black and White cookie. I have therefore come to look at the Black and White cookie as a symbol of equilibrium in my life an edible yin and yang if you will.

I have decided that its a sign that I should attempt to bake the classic New York Black and White cookie and will try to next week when I can actually enjoy baking and more importantly eating. In the meantime, I have started a new book (Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs) and am making my way through The Guardian. I also have probably cleaned every last corner of our house. Well, I could most likely find a few more corners to conquer (like our overflowing closets) but at the moment I'm enjoying being peaceful and listening to the rain and pretending I'm reading the paper as I stare out the window at the tree in front of our house which has just started to bloom and sways gently with the weight of the rain.

Springtime For London

2010-04-30T21:35:00.008+01:00

I am on DAY 7 of the lemonade cleanse and as I went around the neighborhood today running a few errands, I started feeling a little annoyed still being on the cleanse. Springtime in London if its warm is fantastic, its green and lush, the flowers are blooming, people are happy and out in cafes, outside of pubs, in the parks, filling the streets, the tempo is upbeat, there is a buzz in the streets. Then there is the added benefit of the sun which we've missed all those winter months which is just the cherry on the cake, CAKE? Did somebody say CAKE?

So, walking along our high street, or main street in American, my mind wandered of course into every restaurant, cafe, bar, pub and tapas joint I came across and Islington there are a lot... I was conjuring up meals in my mind quicker than I passed each place, a burger and a beer, roasted lamb and a glass of red wine, latte and a pan chocolate, spaghetti bolognese with a side of garlic bread and a glass of chianti, black bean burrito with guacamole and tortilla chips, hummus and pita with Kalamata olives and tall glass of chardonnay... I couldn't stop smelling garlic in the air and roasted meat. No I'm not exactly hungry I just need to taste food and savory food at that. I swear my sense of smell has gotten better over these days.

And not that I want to rain on anyone else's parade but... tonight I elected to stay home and not tempt myself going to a dinner and out for drinks with my husband and our friends, hi yeah, I'm on a cleanse please pass the water. So is it wrong that I am somewhat relieved, as I am stuck home and not able to enjoy the Springtime gallivanting, that with Spring sometimes comes rain, we're still in April afterall? Its raining cats and dogs at the moment and me and my lemonade are doing just fine thank you very much.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

2010-04-29T10:50:00.014+01:00

Today is the sixth day of a ten day lemonade cleanse I had decided to do. I have wanted to do this cleanse for a while and never had the opportunity. When I was working I didn't think my workplace was the right environment to be doing a cleanse (which for me it wouldn't have been) and whenever I went on vacation I wanted to indulge and not necessarily deprive myself.

Not knowing how I was going to react to just drinking lemonade for ten days I am surprised to see that I am actually doing quite well. The first few days were a little rough, I am not going to lie to you, I had to take a nap in the middle of the first day and the rest of the time I was on the toilet. I also had a dull headache for the first couple of days. My energy was low and I wanted food but mostly because I love the taste of it so much not that I was necessarily hungry. I also kind of hated the lemonade.

Yesterday though I feel like I turned a corner. My energy went up, I started feeling more positive and upbeat and don't really mind the taste of the lemonade. I wouldn't say that I love it but I like it better than on the first day. I think I found it too sweet so have been adding less maple syrup. Also, I am only drinking the diuretic tea in the morning as I found that I don't need more than that.

Other than the surge in energy I've felt, I definitely see an improvement in my skin and my eyes look a little brighter than normal. Also, inevitably I have lost a bit of weight and even in the places where I usually lose weight last -- my thighs and backside.

Ultimately, my goal in doing this cleanse was not to lose weight although there is no denying that I need to shed a few unwanted pounds, but to lose all the baggage I feel I have carried over the past year after losing three pregnancies and all the physical and emotional turmoil that went with that. Its probably more symbolic than anything but a little Spring clean is good for the body and for the soul.

The cleanse for those who are interested is basically this for a minimum of 10 days:

6 - 12 glasses daily of (and nothing else other than water and herbal teas):

8 oz Water (preferably filtered or distilled)

2 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

2 Tablespoons of Maple Syrup (Grade 2 or B/ C in the States, the darker the grade the higher the mineral content so better)

1/10 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

herbal diuretic tea

There are plenty of websites now dedicated to the cleanse which you can find if you do a search for either Master Cleanse or Lemonade Cleanse, like this one. I went out and bought a book by one of Stanley Burroughs' students but his original book is this one.

No Fly Zone

2010-04-22T16:53:00.004+01:00

I am so glad that all my traveling was finished with by the time the Volcano erupted. We've had such beautiful days this past week it was a bonus not to have any planes in the sky just pure, deep, clear blue everywhere you looked which is rare in London.

The days since the no fly ban has been lifted have been just as beautiful but now the sky is smudged with trails of exhaust from planes like white chalk on a clean piece of slate. No messing with mother nature. Its ironic that today is earth day, thinking about how much fuel emissions this one volcano saved the ozone this past week, the earth is helping itself more than we are.

And now that the sun is out I have made a promise to myself to sit in the sun for at least 15 minutes everyday. Apparently there is a huge amount of Vitamin D deficiency in this country because of the lack of sun all year round. I do eat oily fish and eggs and milk but most of our vitamin D comes from our skin absorbing it from the sun. Apparently achey joints and bones are a sign of a deficiency. Its gotten so bad here that rickets is back in children. That's why its so important to send your kids and adults too, outside to play.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

2010-04-20T17:12:00.019+01:00

Oh internet, I've not been a very faithful blogger these past couple of months. I am sorry to anyone who actually was reading my posts. I admit I was even thinking of abandoning 88, shame on me but a lot has happened recently although things somehow are very much the same... I have been traveling quite a bit recently which is nothing new but for myself instead of work, which is something new. I also got pregnant again and sure enough had another miscarriage. I've given up telling people when I'm pregnant unless they ask (i.e. they notice I'm not having a glass of wine at dinner) as it's become a bit like your good friend's boyfriend, the one she keeps breaking up with, you are not sure if you should be happy for her when she tells you that they've gotten back together because your not sure how long it's going to last.

Okay, okay I know it's not exactly the same thing but I feel a bit like it is and I have enough problems disappointing myself when I actually don't stay pregnant let alone disappointing various friends and family. In any case, I'll go into the details of this particular miscarriage at another time. I am feeling better and stronger everyday since it happened and am now considered a candidate for the NHS to investigate why I miscarry as it's the third, so will be going to a specialist to see if they can find any specific problems. I will also continue to do acupuncture and perhaps look more into Chinese herbs without being roped into a program which will bankrupt us as I am gainfully unemployed. Have I mentioned how grateful I am to my husband for allowing me this time for myself?

Now sit back relax and enjoy a bit of Marrakech, we really did:

Old Giant Moroccan Tree

Telephone Center

Snail Cart

Fresh Mint

Dried Fruit Cart

Djemaa El-Fna Market Sunset

Moroccan Can of Coke

Cart Against a Wall in the Medina

Camera Parts, Souks

Butcher

Adventures With Flat Stanley

2010-02-28T18:53:00.006Z

A few weeks ago my brother asked me if I would do his daughter a favour. Her class was doing a project on Flat Stanley and he asked me if I would take him and take pictures of him around London and write a journal about it, so I did. Here a few pictures from our adventures together:

Flat Stanley on a Double Decker Bus

Flat Stanley in Front of The London Eye

Flat Stanley at the Gate of Buckingham Palace

Flat Stanley in Front of Big Ben

Onto the Next One...

2010-02-27T21:15:00.007Z

Friday was my last day at work. It came and it went and there were a few tears shed but mostly it was uneventful. Other than a couple of colleagues from other offices asking me when my baby is due, huh? And telling my boss to stop spreading the rumor that I am having a baby until I ACTUALLY am, all was left on good terms. Let's call it champagne was served, a very nice gift was given and colleagues old and new and former got together at the local pub to toast me into my new life.

Everyone kept asking me how I felt throughout the week and then the day before and then the day. I guess quitting your job is a bigger deal than I realise. For me it's just another decision. A major decision sure but so was moving here for the job in the first place. Which is why I actually have nothing negative to say about my experience. Sure there were negative aspects but what job is perfect? I didn't like it anymore so I left, which is what most people should do if than can, instead of complaining about a situation and dealing with it past the point when its bearable. That's not to say that I didn't have a hard time first making the decision because of the practicalities behind walking away from a pay check without something except savings to fall back on. But once the decision was made I didn't feel that it was anything but the right one.

I left the party while it was still full and now in the words of fellow Brooklyner Jay-Z I'm onto the next one, onto the next one...

The Grrrrl With the Most Cake

2010-02-20T21:32:00.008Z

In honor of the pending birth next week of one of my best friend's daughter and for the grrrrl rock star in all of us who wish we learned to play the guitar, I give you one of the originals of my generation. I am sorry I missed this gig last week in London.

Don't get me wrong Courtney Love is certainly no role model but what rock star is? I'm only hoping my friend's kid will be able to thrash a guitar when her time comes because rock 'n roll lifestyle or not we need more women who rock period.

Big hEArTs

2010-02-17T19:44:00.008Z

This past weekend, Valentine's weekend respectively, was another foodfest here at 88. I started the weekend food shenanigans out on Thursday, sharing a couple of bottles of wine, a gossip and a cheese burger and some of the most delicious fries I've had in a while with two old work friends at Soho House. It was my first time at the private member's club and although the food was good and I loved the feel of the house it didn't feel that exclusive. We still had to wait for our table albeit not for very long and the bar had open stools which in a normal pub on a Thursday evening wouldn't have been likely but it just seemed like any other central London bar/ pub/ restaurant. When my father came to London last year he stayed at High Road House which is owned by the same group in Chiswick and we had a lovely dinner at their restaurant there which I much preferred the whole atmosphere seemed more special.

Then on Friday my husband and I went to our local and scored our favorite table by the fire. I had fish cakes and a beef shin with roasted vegetables and mash, he had sardines with horse radish and a steak with fries. For dessert we shared an apple and pumpkin strudel a la mode which we weren't so convinced by. After a round of Baileys we were ready for bed at oh, nine o'clock, I had to reserve my energy for all the eating still to come...

Saturday I woke up early, (army whistle sound) and continued to feed my pie hole meeting friends for pizza at Franco Manca where they do very delicious sour dough pizza. It's within the Brixton Market so you feel a bit like you are in Napoli what with the market and all the yelling going on (inside the pizzeria that is). We arrived at 11:30 AM to score a table (they start serving at 12:00) as they fill up quickly and then they usher you promptly out the door (not before the cafe!) as the line is literally down the market road by the time you have said Bon appetito! Eating with Italians they gave us the authentic experience gently mocking my friends and yelling at them when one arrived late after we ordered and then had the audacity to ask for another pizza which of course they had to oblige. There are only four pizzas to choose from, I got the home made prosciutto from british reared little piggies (most likely not so little) and a bottle of their home made lemonade both were worth the rush.

Onto Saturday evening, after an afternoon of watching rugby I met up with other friends at the Barnesbury pub The Drapers Arms which was nice but it was the atmosphere and company that I enjoyed more than the food this time. And it is still a pub so its a little silly that they made up all the tables with wine glasses and then failed to take them off the table when no one ordered a bottle of wine because glasses were literally breaking all over the place all night long. The lamb and mushy peas I had were a little on the dry side but the chocolate cheesecake made up for it.

Then Sunday we couldn't help ourselves, we went to the American diner and ate pancakes, eggs and milkshakes and if that weren't enough later that night S cooked us a lovely dinner of mixed vegetables, lemon sole and potato puree. Enough food for one woman? Am I ever going back to the gym? These are not rhetorical questions.

I hEArT Valentine's weekend.

Fashion Outsider

2010-02-11T23:30:00.012Z

I don't really see myself as a fashion person. I have been struggling for many years to get out of fashion because I don't see myself in it. I don't know if it's the role I am in or the jobs I've had but I find myself turning into a person separate from who I am and no job is worth losing yourself over.

News like that of today's however, remind me that I am a part of a community, a business and an insular and rarified world. A world in which although I may not have met all of the characters who are highly regarded within the industry, I have heard their stories, competed against them theoretically for others and held them up as an example.

Alexander McQueen was a pillar of my fashion world which has just fallen. He was talented, dark, brooding, tough, British, private, revered and an artistic genius. He was a true artist with a vision far beyond just designing clothes and he died way too young. I am really humbled and saddened by his death.

Charlie Rose's Interview with McQueen 1997

It's All Downstream From Here

2010-02-10T21:38:00.008Z

Today Stefano and I almost got into an argument. Almost because I managed to turn it around. He called me forty five minutes before I had to leave the office to ask if I could buy him a USB stick to put his cabaret job onto because he wasn't going to have time to before he had to give it to the client.

It was one of those moments when I get upset because A. if he had thought about it earlier he could have done it himself when he did have time; B. why didn't he ask me earlier in the day when I had time during my lunch hour? C. As most stationary stores close at 6:30 PM when I leave the office I didn't know where I would find one.

As we hung up the phone both nervous and sensitive and my not quite committing to the errand being asked of me, I walked to the tube with the lingering dread of both feeling badly that I couldn't help my husband -- even though I was annoyed that he was putting me in a position to scramble for him and also sad that there might be any bad feelings between us. And then I passed Boots (pharmacy for the 21st century) and low and behold they had an ELECTRICAL section. And yes they carried USB sticks.

I may have turned a corner. It's not that I don't always want to help my husband, listen I forget things at the last minute and am shit at planning ahead myself, I get it. It's just that normally I am so full of what I need to do/ remember/ take care of with my own job I can't possibly be responsible for something (i.e. a memory stick) for someone else's. But now, guess what? I am available. I have set myself free. And I feel like I did in this picture letting the flow of the water take me gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a...

Weekend In London

2010-02-08T20:25:00.009Z

Last night my husband shot a cabaret in Piccadilly. We were dumbfounded by this particular act. How did she manage to do that and continue to sing?

After the show we ate soba noodles at a Japanese restaurant around the corner. The restaurant was where I had my first meal in London and with my boss when I arrived almost five years ago. Wow it seems like just last week and many years ago at the same time. Its funny thinking back on that time and how new and groovy everything in London seemed to me. Now I need to remind myself when I am walking along purposefully home from work, head down to keep the cold out of my face, to look up! Look around! Double decker buses! The Ritz! Green Park! Piccadilly! And I have to pinch myself to remember that I live in London. Back then just shopping at Marks and Spencer was a treat.

On Friday my husband and I went out with friends of ours who just recently got married and we both hadn't seen together since. It was so lovely to go out on a date night with another couple, we also haven't done that for a while. We met in Chelsea where I never venture over to and had a couple of drinks at an American type Tex Mex bar (raspberry margaritas, glasses rimmed with salt and sugar yummy) and then made our way to the restaurant we had booked for dinner.

The place we chose is a restaurant and bar called the Bluebird which looks over the Kings Road and also has a downstairs clothing store. We had never been there before and our friend had found a dinner deal in the Evening Standard for a set course meal which was slightly less expensive than what they normally offer. Being in Chelsea is a bit like being in another city, it's so pretty and pristine and for some reason has less traditional pubs per capita then other parts of London (therefore the Tex Mex raspberry margaritas) particularly compared to Islington where there is a pub on practically every corner.

For dinner I had a parsnip soup and we all had the beef stew with cabbage as a main course. The food was good but really no better than our local pub and slightly more expensive although with a better wine list, we got an amazing bottle of 2005 Chateau Neuf du Pape which was almost worth the meal. The view over the Kings road was also well worth the trip and in our corner by the window we felt well isolated from the rest of restaurant/ bar which seemed to be filled with young people on the prowl. I felt a little old yawning into my decaffeinated coffee at the end of the meal with drunken cavorting unfolding around us, even as we planned a trip to go camping on the Isle of White for the festival this summer.

Hey I might be older but my heart and soul are still young right? And we still have a camping stove we haven't broken in yet... although maybe that declaration right there is reason why I am too old to go to festival, I don't know I'll have to figure it out soon before we buy the tickets. Because it'll be a lot of this, but running around naked in field (yes they are dancing on top of a school and yes I believe that is a bottle of whiskey he is chugging and why they are dressed for tennis while at a street festival dance party, I don't know and no I didn't mean us running around naked in a field although anything is possible):

Notting Hill Festival 2006 (before Boris Johnson)

Organize Me

2010-02-04T21:41:00.010Z

I don't know if its because I was sent to a Montessori school when I was a child but there is something entirely satisfying about cleaning up and putting the house in order. I also tend to have an almost OCD about routine. I think that Montessori had a very positive and lasting effect on me.

I read an article in this month's Harpers Bazaar about "tricks" of career women who are always prepared and look amazing. Do you want to know what their "trick" is, aside from having a Personal Assistant to take care of their appointments, a Nanny to take care of their children and money to finance their "tricks" of asking the manicurist and personal buyer to come to their office? They are organized and spend time taking care of themselves or else spend time making themselves look as if they do. I learned early on in my career that particularly in fashion you get a lot further ahead by looking the part. And I'm only realizing now that those who are the most organized in their work and personal lives and dream pursuits are the ones who get even further.

One of the exercises from either The Artist's Way or Wishcraft is to go back to when you were a child to discover those activities you really loved to do. After watching the Oprah guru speak about discovering what makes you strong at work or find what it is that you want to do for work, this is essentially the same point. At some time in our life we get so bogged down with what we think that we should be doing we get away from what it is we really love to do. And I think a lot of what I know about myself today I first learned at Montessori. I know that this is not a new concept. Aside from learning clarity in order I was taught to use my imagination in concrete ways whether it was narrating a story or expressing myself through words or images or craft which was like opening a door to me which I never have fully closed. And in my work life I've gotten away from that and followed a different path for other reasons and I have always kept the door ajar but not flung it fully open.

I often think that we as a society are so youth obsessed because we limit ourselves so much by the time we are adults. We are jealous of young people's inhibitions and ability to take risks and live unfiltered lives. I always am so sad when I see self conscious children. I feel somehow the innocent bliss of being their natural self has been thwarted out of them too early.

One of my biggest problems now that I am an adult is handing myself over to my dreams, as like most adults I've lost that blind faith and have lost myself within pedantic minutia of modern life. As much as I am a dreamer, I can't help but see the reality in front of me. Or is that called pessimism? I always have a plan B and it's never a bad plan B, hell I know I have a job/ career which many people would themselves dream to have, only its their dream not mine. So what do I do? Dance around my objective or hit it right over the head? Blind faith or careful reasoning?

My other problem is that I tend to like the idea of the routine, the structure, the formality of having a job, a career and an office and a title and paycheck. But I sometimes wonder if it's the idea more than the reality or if its because I am just not doing what I ultimately would like to do. And how do you make that leap of faith and pay the bills and build for the future at the same time? Be more organized.

And We're Staying in London...

2010-02-03T23:40:00.005Z

Because Bushwick is now apparently the new Hoxton. And Brooklyn as I know it is going to hell and that hell has a name, some liked to call it BoomBox.

London Calling That New York State Of Mind

2010-02-03T20:03:00.007Z

I go back to New York for a couple of weeks in March. My last day of work is at at the end of February and then it's off to help pack up what was 35 years of a family's life. My parents have so many things tucked away in their house even after throwing so much out before putting the house on the market, it will be tough going through everything.

When I was last home I tried to be brutal with the things which were still left in my room and closet. I gave away bags and bags of clothes I loved but knew I would never wear and have no space for. I shred boxes of love letters from former boyfriends which felt liberating and needed to have been done ages ago. I consolidated keepsakes and my writing and pictures and journals. I organized the last of our wedding presents and managed to carry many back with me along with my wedding dress and other vintage pieces I couldn't part with. Now the hard part, walking away when I finally need to board the plane to go back to London, knowing that it will be the last time I'll be in my house. Knowing that I will need to finally give it up to another family, well really my parents will but ultimately we all will have to give it up, relinquish our house, my brother, his wife and children, me, Stefano.

Stefano and I have been talking a little about moving back to New York recently. I have mixed feelings as I love living in London and there are so many advantages of living here. Firstly we are close to everywhere in Europe, Paris is two hours away by train and everywhere else is two hours by plane. The city is much like New York but not as frantic it's a little more calm and spacious and clean. I'm inclined to want to have a baby here as silly as that may sound as I already feel comfortable with my doctor and the midwife system and like my hospital. I also like that they encourage natural birth here and that my hospital has a birthing centre with a pool. In the UK you also have 20 days holiday average and the NHS which means even without work our healthcare is covered. We are also close to Stefano's family and I would miss my friends here if we moved to New York.

On the flip side, we can probably earn a better living in New York although have worse vacation time. We'd get good private healthcare but only if we get a full time jobs which would mean me as Stefano is normally freelancing. I've seen a few nice two bedroom apartments which we could afford which are the same price as the one bedroom we are renting here (although not in the same central area as we are). We'd be close to my family and all our New York friends, we'd also have a larger support system if we have children. We could probably afford to buy a little house in Upstate New York or Massachusetts. Stefano could probably get more photography work as so many shoots are in New York now.

So many decisions to make, so many things to think about. All I know is that I am feeling happier than I have in a very long time. I feel a sense of purpose and calm and reassurance that everything is going exactly as planned. As Stefano said to me a few weeks ago when I was beside myself with grief, its exciting not knowing what our next move is because we can do anything.

Satisfaction

2010-02-02T20:39:00.007Z

We collectively, as modern Western society, spend so much time analyzing our past, taking our pulse, reading our tea leaves, looking over our shoulder, next to us and ahead of us, are we there yet? Am I happy? Do we have enough? More than you?

We feel depressed that we're not young anymore when we are, we don't spend enough time enjoying our youth when we have it and think about taking on more responsibilities before maybe we really need to. Often we also don't respect our elders and the experiences and perspective they have to offer.

I would like to start trying more to enjoy the moment, every moment, like this moment right here, writing this post, sitting on my sofa eating a delicious chocolate chip cookie I baked yesterday. I would like to enjoy this feeling of being exactly where I need to be in my life, the life I have created for myself which works and makes sense to no one else except maybe to me and hopefully my husband.

True satisfaction in life I think comes with letting go of measuring your accomplishments, your stories, your abilities and dreams against anyone's except your own. Its not easy, particularly when those around you constantly want to size you up but let them, who cares. As long as you stay true to yourself does it really matter what anyone else thinks about where you are or what you should be doing?

Superstylin' Saturday

2010-02-01T19:14:00.011Z

Saturday the sun finally came out. It knocked on our bedroom door in the morning and it said wake up, get up I am back. I've never been so happy to wake up early on a Saturday morning. We were like two solar panels soaking up all the sun we could. The sky! There was a sky and it was clear and blue. We put all of our plants on the window sills in the living-room into the direct sunlight. We danced around the house listening to Superstylin' and felt higher than all those kids at Glastonbury put together. And then we went for a walk following the sun's trail. Imagine if we actually lived somewhere where the sun shone all the time. Everyday would be a dance party. And if it were, the DJ would always play this song.

Friday Highlights

2010-01-29T22:25:00.016Z

I think I have no excuse now not to make Wild Boar Stew. All of the stars have been aligning themselves over the years towards me cooking a big old pot of day long stewed wild pig. First in Lucente we find him (see above and here) then over Christmas we eat some and now thanks to The Daily Candy I know where in London I can find me some wild boar or cinghiale in Italian, they even have them in sausages, yum.

Next off, I'd like to thank the Sunday Times Style which quoted Oprah Winfrey self help guru Marcus Buckingham in their new year new you, yadda yadda yadda, 20 things to make yourself better article. Which led me to Oprah's website - which I hadn't realized has become the one stop shop for self help addicts, how had I never shopped around there before? And what makes you think I'm addicting to helping myself?

Just a little light reading over the winter season. Funnily enough that picture was taken last winter but I was planning a wedding from abroad and therefore was ready to lose my marbles and needed any help possible. So Oprah and her guru Marcus have an online seminar on Oprah's website for those like myself who are feeling a little stuck in their current work situation. I have only just started but I am already finding it pretty useful and making a lot of sense, its also just the kind of exercise I need to help me brain storm. Speaking of self help books I also cannot recommend this book enough as well. I'm planning to go back to read it now.

Lastly, I rediscovered the photographer Tierney Gearon who's fashion photography I knew but actually it's the photographs of her children and mother which I love. I am a huge fan of Sally Mann as well and their styles are definitely not the same but the art that they both find in everyday life with their children and family is truly beautiful and haunting. I was happy to see that she has a book which one day I hope to own. Her photography and outlook on life -- she quoted as saying you can do anything you put your mind to, are really inspiring.

I Feel Sunshine On a Cloudy Day

2010-01-28T20:32:00.005Z

So for the past, I don't know, month more or less, this little corner of the world we like to call England, specifically London, has pretty much been without any sort of sunlight. Actually I would like to correct myself, some days you can see an illuminating section of the sky where the sun should be, behind the cloud cover. But yet, despite the lack of light which this time of year normally gives me the all around feeling of living in a deep dark hole and drives me to heavy drinking, I jest (sort of), I am feeling uncharacteristically upbeat and positive.

Maybe this feeling of content is because I can finally see the end of the tunnel as my job winds down. Maybe its because I went back to acupuncture last weekend and felt like my whole body had had a work out and now can feel that my pulse is getting stronger. Maybe its because I'm not drinking and have cut back to a cup of coffee a day and have cut down on sugar. Maybe it's because I am keeping myself warm all the time and am eating warm and nourishing foods that I cook. Maybe it's because I went to the miscarriage specialist and had a long talk with my father in law and I don't feel so scared about trying for a baby again and don't feel so desperate to have a child right now. Maybe its because I am going to go to Brooklyn in March to properly say goodbye to my childhood home and see my family and New York friends and be there for the birth of my dear friends' baby. Maybe its because I am starting to get excited about my next job possibility and all the roads ahead. Maybe its because I am in love with a man who knows exactly what to say to me to fill me with so much joy. Maybe this feeling of content is because I know just how good I've got it and I feel grateful for my life everyday.

Throw Out The Television

2010-01-21T20:52:00.008Z

The last year I lived in New York, I had quit my full time job and was freelancing and temping, trying to finish a novel and pay off a large amount of debt I had accrued by living as a New York fatalista fashionista. As I was essentially broke, I was forced to make one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, I got rid of my cable which meant I no longer was able to watch television.

My brother and I were never allowed to watch very much television growing up (absolutely nothing during the weekday) and we never had cable television when I lived at home (my parents finally caved after September 11th because Brooklyn didn't get reception anymore). And when we were growing up there were only SEVEN channels to choose from back then, we're talking back in the day when the WB (which stands for Warner Brothers) was WPIX and channel 9 used to go off the air after a certain hour. We're talking about back when channel 11 (WPIX) used to air the yuletide log for hours during the holidays. They didn't start laying the cables down for cable television until I was in high school and I know that was in the olden days but it was practically the nineties. I mean wrap your head around that, no cable television in all parts of New York City only a little over twenty years ago?

I never had a television in any of my rooms or apartments in college or one which worked after college and we had a TV in my apartment in Rome but we hardly watched it as we were always out or busy cooking and gossiping in the kitchen. But yet cable television was something I really wanted to have when I moved back to New York from Italy, like some kind of rite of passage I hadn't yet experienced.

So for four years I am embarrassed to admit I overdosed on television. I wasted my precious time and lost a part of my soul watching such brain killing programs like MTV Cribs and VH1's The Surreal Life and E! True Hollywood Stories and the Anna Nicole show and The Osbournes and Newlyweds and The Bachelor and Pimp my ride and The Real World and Road Rules and although I ate it up I became so depressed from the overload of mind numbing consumption and stupidity. And although I take full responsibility for my actions as it was only me who got myself into debt, make no mistake, television's main purpose is not to entertain but to sell you something. After a binge session of celebrity's it's great to be, the program which dissects the amount of money famous people spend on their face creams made from a baby whale's blubber you go out and by yourself something because you feel like shit. Why do you think advertisers are so important? Let's put it in perspective Conan gets $40 million to walk out of his contract of the Tonight Show how much do you think that the advertisers are paying? And the viewer do they get a say? Yes you do to switch the channel or better yet turn it off.

There are so many things that we just accept to be a part of our modern life and never question whether they are good for us or if our life would be better without them. Television I think is one of those things. The headmaster of my childhood school was a bit of mad genius and he used to tell students to take a sledge hammer to their television sets. We of course all thought that he was crazy which he was, but that's besides the point, who could live without a television? Imagine how it might change your life? You might not even know who Heidi Montag is and of course you'd be better for it. And don't get me started about the "news" channels.

I told my mother that if Stefano and I ever have kids we're going to move to the country and my children can forget about having a television, they'll will have pine cones for toys. And for now we can of course now scratch Massachusetts off the list of places we want to move to, thanks for nothing Scott Brown. What happened to the revolution? One Television at a time...

In The Absence of Words

2010-01-18T21:22:00.015Z

I give you my ongoing love affair with Italy (not including my husband):

Handpicked Kiwis in the Window, Lucente

Porcini Country, Lucente

Dark Alleyway, Urbino

Before the rainstorm, Florence

Empty August Piazza, Lucca

Summer Sunset Over Fano

The Balancing Act

2010-01-17T13:52:00.014Z

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had my first experience with acupuncture last weekend. I have been feeling really disconnected from my body and emotionally uneven these past few weeks/ months so in addition to altering my diet (cutting back on coffee, alcohol, sugar adding more seeds, fish, vegetables) I thought that I should invest in a massage and a session of reflexology and acupuncture. All treatments are referenced to be helpful for infertility and miscarriage not to mention good stress relievers so I was looking forward to it.

In London there is a chain of Chinese Herbalist stores that do these treatments pretty inexpensively. Last time I went to one in South Kensington getting a massage there was somehow the antithesis of relaxing as I could still hear the noise of the high street, the banter of Mandarin being spoken outside and inside my treatment cubicle and the jarring background noise of Chinese xylophone music piped in throughout the store all while getting my massage. Despite the chaotic atmosphere, the massage itself was quite good and as I hold a lot of tension in my feet I was happy that I could feel and see the difference in my toes after the reflexology session.

So, I knew what I was getting into when I booked my appointment last week. I knew that its a bit Hong Kong meets London high street, you get what you pay for. I wasn't, however, prepared for the hard sell after my sessions by the "doctor" who wasn't the person who treated me and his saucy side kick who translated his sleepy pot (he reeked of marijuana) induced prescriptions for me after briefly asking me to open my mouth so that he could glance and my tongue and taking my pulse for under a minute. They also asked me a bunch of generic questions about my periods and my sleeping habits and digestion. I stupidly shared the fact that I had had two miscarriages and understood that acupuncture was helpful to get a person back to being balanced. With that they jumped all over me.

I was of course expecting to be prescribed herbs. I go every year to the Hale Clinic for colonics and an occasional massage, I know the hard sell, most times it works and I pick up a new tea or supplements for 10 pounds. I am there to cure an ailment even if it's just bad digestion or stress of course I want to help myself. But when they came up with a 700 pound treatment plan of herbs and acupuncture I was already ready to walk away. To make matters worse the translator continued the hard sell by asking me if I didn't want a baby? This might be my only chance...with that I put on my coat and asked to settle my bill. In hindsight I probably should have told her exactly what I thought of her unscrupulous selling tactics but I was so relaxed from my treatments I didn't want to work myself up and ruin my peaceful constitution (before my massage I might have shown her my New York side which mostly comes out these days when speaking to the telephone company or telling people to move into the middle of the car in the underground).

I definitely will go again to get acupuncture. I immediately felt the benefit as soon as the third needle went into my left shoulder. I felt a tremendous release of stress flow from out of my body and I started to cry. It wasn't an emotional cry it was just tears of relief I think of letting go of something which I was holding onto. The problem now is finding a new place to go to get the treatment for under 30 pounds.

The same day as I got acupuncture I went to the bookstore and bought this book which I had mentioned before and has just been published. It's interesting because it's a fertility specialist who combines Chinese and western medicine to help couples get pregnant. It's not easy to pin point my specific type (even though the high "doctor" at the Herbal Store seemed to think that I am yin, I also have a tendency towards yang) so really I think it's about overall balance as we all have been forced into understanding about every aspect of our life.

On Thursday I also went to my first consultation with the miscarriage specialist. A few things struck me after the consultation: firstly the expense; secondly he thought that most likely we would find our problem to be a couple of spontaneous bad chromosomes combinations (bad luck basically); thirdly he said after I questioned him about progesterone treatment that it's rubbish to which I told him I found that surprising as there were so many people being treated by it to which he said that I put too much faith in doctors. His statement made me think about what he said from the onset (that he thought that basically our case was just bad luck) and then think about my first point -- how expensive it all was going to be.

So the miscarriage specialist investigation goes something like this: test for thrombosis (thickening of the blood which I think is treated by taking baby aspirin and heparin); test for chromosomal abnormalities in the couple (no treatment basically identifying if you are at a higher risk for having more miscarriages or child with a disabilities); test for autoimmune disorder which means your body attacks the embryo (there is a very small chance of having this and I believe that there is something you can take throughout the pregnancy to stop from having a miscarriage) and lastly a scan of your womb to make sure that there aren't any problems.

So, even though I got two of the blood tests done I wonder if it's all really necessary at this stage and for the first time in a while am feeling hopeful and am thinking that maybe we are jumping the gun. I have heard anecdotal evidence time and time again of many women who have two miscarriages and then go on to have healthy pregnancies maybe in our case it is just the luck of the draw? We are going to speak to Stefano's father as well who is a obgyn doctor and see what he thinks also because if we should do more testing we can most likely do it less expensively in Italy overseen by my father in law.

In the meantime, we have all sorts of plans to make, our lives to live and I need to get back to myself , I am almost there. A baby will come for us, I don't doubt it now and I am thankful for the time to get myself healthy and strong.

Hopeful

2010-01-14T21:03:00.006Z

I feel incredibly blessed today. Our friends are both unharmed and safe and my appointment with the specialist gave me a feeling of confidence and hope. It's days like today that I don't take anything for granted and know how good I have it. More prayers for missing loved ones in Haiti.

The Bigger Picture

2010-01-13T19:53:00.009Z

I was going to blog about my first experience with acupuncture. My diagnosis from a Chinese doctor who smelled like he was smoking a joint in the back room before taking my pulse and reading my tongue. And coming to the conclusion that I am cold, lacking yang. I was going to write about my emotional upheaval these past few weeks and how I am trying to reconnect with my body both physically and emotionally so that we can finally try again to have another baby. I was going to go into what I've learned so far and how now that I am actively on this journey the appointment I've been waiting weeks for with the miscarriage specialist is suddenly tomorrow, arranged through my GP with no warning. Life tends to throw these curve balls at you both good and bad.

And then this morning I woke up to the news that Haiti had a terrible earthquake, hundreds dead and missing, then later in the day it was thousands and then my mother called me. A close family friend she reminded me was living in Haiti and her mother was visiting her. Her father still in New York had received a scratchy phone call from her mother and then an email, they were in separate places yesterday and they were both fine but they haven't been heard from since. The mother worked for the UN for 30 years, grew up in Africa and has been in many war zones over her career so if there is anyone you would want to be with in a disaster situation it would be her.

Needless to say our friend is a savvy and intelligent, worldly career diplomat but who still makes time every Christmas, together with her equally savvy and intelligent and worldly daughter, to bake from scratch five, count them 1, 2, 3, 4, five, of the most delicious desserts you have ever eaten, for my parents' Christmas Eve party. We often wish we could be flies on the wall of their kitchen when they whip them up. I always find it hard to picture them covered in flour, hair speckled with chocolate and egg, cursing at the oven, probably because they wouldn't be. Because they are that poised and equally good at doing whatever it is they set out to accomplish for themselves, even baking desserts for a family Christmas party.

So you can understand why I don't feel like posting about my yin right now. Like most times when disasters strike all my problems seem so laughable its hard to take myself seriously. This is one of those times. I know our friends will be safe, if anyone can get off a desperate island it would be former a UN official and a employee of Bill Clinton's but I pray for their safe return and for the people of Haiti who already have suffered too much.

I am donating to Oxfam please help Haiti if you can.

Homesick

2010-01-10T19:15:00.004Z

Happy Befana!

2010-01-06T16:02:00.031Z

Just when you thought that the party was over... today in Italy is the celebration of La Befana. On the eve of the Epiphany a good witch (La Befana) sweeps down the chimney on her broom and leaves a present for good children or a piece of coal for bad children. She must know Santa Claus.

Father Christmas

The Great Wall of San Marino

Empty Pebble Beaches

Squid ink Spaghetti *

Lights over Urbino

Romantic balcony filled with flowerpots in Urbino

Starry Urbino

Fliers on a wall in Bologna

Archway Art in Bologna

Calm waters at twilight

Bottle Rockets

La Dolce Vita

Winter Sunshine

Christmas Nuts

Bouquet of artichokes

Gypsy folk songs

Bless this coffee

Magical winter Mediterranean

Good Night Le Marche

* Photo By S.

For The Love of Italian Food...

2010-01-05T08:49:00.004Z

Happy New Year! We are back from our Christmas culinary journey in Italy. We are as always well fed and well rested after spending a week with my husband's family.

Have you ever eaten spaghetti with squid ink? We did and it was delicious and requested to be cooked by her grandmother by my husband's 6 year old niece who is Canadian. We also ate artichokes which were as beautiful to display as a table centerpiece as they were to eat...Not to mention the clams, and cod and prawns and wild boar stew on Christmas! And the porchetta (roasted pork) and zuppa inglese (something like a sponge cake and a pudding) and the wine and coffee and chocolate and champagne!

Back in London where it's freezing by the way, I am slowly weaning myself off of sweets and large meals and would like to think that I would already be back in the gym if I wasn't so happy just to be snuggled up in my cozy apartment with my husband, dreaming about his mother's tagliatelle in beef ragu.

Peace on Earth

2009-12-23T15:11:00.010Z

And a good snowball fight!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year --- here's to the next chapter 2010.

(Snowball fight picture, Brooklyn 1978 courtesy of SAAA)

Press For More Champagne

2009-12-22T20:39:00.008Z

When I was a child my parents, brother and I went out for a Mother's Day dinner with my brother's and my two grandmothers. Which I believe was the first and the last time that ever happened. Family legend has it that when asked what I wanted to have for dinner I said I wasn't sure as I was torn between the steak and the lobster. To which one grandmother nearly fell off of her chair and barely missing a beat the other grandmother suggested that I order both.

I have never been a frugal person by any stretch of the imagination however, I rarely spend money on anything other than restaurants these days. I think that the best way to describe myself is as a simple person with expensive tastes. Somewhere between both grandmothers. So if I have to think of one thing I will miss about my career/job it's got to be the champagne.