Which Came First?

First off, thank you all for the comments and support with the last post. I did NOT expect that kind of response. You guys are amazing and I could not be prouder and more honored to have you all on my #bumpsquad!

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The thing about infertility is that it feels so isolating. It’s generally just about you or you and your partner and no one really talks about it. It’s very personal, yes, but we talk about all sorts of personal things and don’t bat an eye. But no one really talks about struggling with infertility, even though one in eight women suffer from infertility. One in eight. That’s a lot.

I have been mostly doing all the work on my own, even when I was with the lying liar. He was just of the mind that it would just all work out at some point. Like it’s oh so easy. SEE: ONE IN EIGHT.

Side note: In fact, after our first IUI when his sperm counts were decent, especially since he’s a smoker and six years older than me, he made the comment like “well we know it isn’t my fault!” Yes. Because I haven’t already felt like a complete and utter failure already, since it’s my body failing, why don’t you just point that out and make me feel a million times worse. MAN, am I glad I got rid of that piece of shit!

I’ve read quite a few books on all of this. The one that has been the most eye-opening was It Starts with the Egg by Rebecca Fett. It is just like the title sounds like, talking about our eggs and egg quality and the effect of environmental things on our hormones and thus our eggs. It goes into a lot of the possible reasons why now one in eight women suffer with infertility.

In the book, it talks about all the things we’ve all heard about in the last 5 years or so. Things like BPA and parabens and other cancer-causing additives in our beauty products. I didn’t think too much of these things. I mean, I didn’t use a lot of beauty products, so how bad could it be?

Oh, it’s bad.

Let’s start with BPA.

I figured I was good with this. Because all of my Tupperware and plastic was BPA free! I’m in the clear, right?

NO.

See, those things are only BPA free if you don’t expose them to any heat. So that means heating it in the microwave or putting it in the dishwasher negates all that. And then you’re eating and drinking BPA-laden foods and drinks.

I read this book and I threw out all our plastic. My ex thought I was nuts when I did this and then spent a small fortune on replacing all the plastic with metal or glass. But BPA is a huge hormonal disruptor and can cause egg quality issues. You can’t get pregnant with bum eggs.

Did you also know that BPA is on receipts? Fucking CVS is making a whole generation of infertile women with all their receipts!

Side note: I try to forget this when I’m shopping for Instacart and holding receipts for extended periods of time in my shifts.

Next are parabens and phthalates. These are the things in our beauty products that make them what they are basically. They are the fragrance and the stuff that makes all those beauty products not spoil and last forever. Except they seep into our skin and our blood stream and then disrupt our hormones and then some sciency stuff that I don’t know, but know it can affect your hormones and eggs and those things are bad when trying to get pregnant.

Phthalates are chemicals in everything from plastics to cleaning supplies to beauty products. They are huge hormone disruptors and can affect the quality of your eggs. The FDA knows these are toxic chemicals, they banned them from children’s toys since 2008, but still put them in everything else. Way to go, government!

As a result of reading this book, I decided to go on a really deep dive into every product I use on my person and in my house. There’s an amazing resource called the Environmental Working Group that has a huge database of products that they rate of all kinds of factors, not just hormone disruptors. It’s been a lot of Googling and searching and trying out different things to make it work. If you have a ton of disposable income, you’re set. But I don’t, so finding cleaner things that don’t break the bank has been my mission.

At this point, I’m about 90% of clean products:

• I replaced all my plastic with glass, metal or silicone, except in a few instances. But if I use plastic, I have new plastic and I don’t put it in the dishwasher.
• I’ve moved all my beauty products to either EWG verified products, or products that are 1s. Shampoo, conditioner, face soap, lotion, make-up, deodorant, you name it. The only holdout is my Dove bar soap that I use in the shower. It’s a 2, and I’d like to switch it out, but I bought like an 18-pack before I started all this and since it isn’t the WORST, I’ll use those up.
• I just recently found out that toothpaste and floss are also full of all the bad things and OMG, I just switched those up last week. WHAT THE FUCK, CORPORATIONS? Why are you putting shit into FLOSS?!
• Cleaning products – I’ve worked hard on these. These are some of the worst offenders. Good thing I don’t like to clean! But I’ve stopped using liquid fabric softener and dryer sheets. I’ve switched detergents, bathroom cleaners and all-purpose cleaners. I don’t use any air fresheners or scented candles. I even recently made my own oven cleaner and started using a DIY dryer fabric softener made out of vinegar and essential oils (that surprisingly works!). Hippie status: UNLOCKED.
• The worst adjustment for me has been hand lotion. Because of the additional hand washing of all the things, the working with paper bags and receipts with Instacart, plus the dry winter air in the Midwest, my hands are SO. DRY. I’ve tried every EWG lotion out there and none of them do the job of those formaldehyde-laden lotions (RIP O’Keefe’s Working Hands, that shit is DA BOMB!). I finally actually bought rubber gloves to wash dishes and then use shea butter on my hands at night when I sleep, putting socks on my hands because it’s so damn greasy. It seems to have worked. I just have to be super vigilant about using lotion often, even when it doesn’t seem necessary.

The Lying Liar used to make fun of me for all this, and I can see that I went a bit crazy. But I will do anything to improve my odds. It kills me to think of all the damage I’ve done to my body with these chemicals (and all the BOOZE). And what the long-term effects will be, outside of it possibly affecting my fertility. Also, these things are bad for you. Not as a woman trying to get pregnant, not as a child, not as a female, it’s bad for every human. These chemicals are toxic. The choices I’m making now are just good choices for me and my future child, for now and for the future. And they are good for the environment. So it makes me feel good that I’ve taken this step, regardless of the outcome of all of this.