Introduction

I love food.  I know it's not a very original way to start a blog, but it's completely true.  I feel like I was put on this earth to celebrate, appreciate and enjoy the amazing gift of food. 

I love food so much that after one semester of college studying apparel merchandising (NOT a good fit), my mom kindly suggested perhaps, a different career path.  Moms are so smart; mine especially.  Ironically, at the time, I not only loved food, but I was also totally in love with nutrition.  So, it became very obvious that I should study and become a dietitian.  That's what I did, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Oragnic chemistry???  Really?

After I graduated and completed my internship (a requirement necessary to sit for the RD exam), I set my sights on Chicago.  There were two main reasons for this:
1) Chicago is close to Indianapolis where my family lives. I would be geographically close to family, but not too close.  (Keep in mind I was 22 years old at the time)
and...
2) I had a friend here from college who needed a roommate.  I feel like this is always a good reason to move somewhere.

I landed my first job as a dietitian at an area hospital.  It was awful.  Seriously, I was not prepared for the urban hospital setting.  Plus, I had the amazing luck (insert sarcasm here) as being the dietitian for the psych floor.  Horrible.

Finally, I came to my senses and with much coersion and love from my friends and family, I decided to go to culinary school.  It was an amazing experience and a very eye-opening one too.  Let's just say not everyone going to culinary school is the next Rick Bayless.  It was a stressful time. I went to school in the morning and then went to work right after.  It was a long and grueling day, but totally worth it.  I graduated and began working for place that focuses on healthy cooking and it was a nice fit.

These days I wear many hats (as I like to say).  I am a chef, a dietitian and a teacher, but these days the role I want most is mom and this is where the story continues...

About two years ago my husband and I decided we wanted to start a little brood. Knowing that we were both super healthy (I think my biggest health catastrophe was a bout of chicken pocks when I was about 6 or 7 years old), we figured that it should happen pretty quickly.  No one I knew had any trouble popping out kids...why would I?  Oh, but I did.  After a year of no luck, we finally turned to some specialists.  My first doctor was not exactly helpful and the whole experience was awful.  I felt like I wasn't getting any answers or making any progress.  Instead of finding out the cause, they wanted talk about medication, IUI and IVF.  Whoah!!!

Needless to say, I didn't stick with him for too long.  I took about a year off of Western medicine after that.  I decided to go the route of acupuncture, herbs and yoga.  This did amazing things for me and still does.  I would certainly recommend giving Eastern Medicine a try.  It isn't as evasive and has a pretty good track record.  Although this didn't result in a baby for us, it gave me a new perspective and I decided to get a second opinion.  ALWAYS GET A SECOND OPINION!  (FYI- I can't stand when people bold type stuff, but this is so important.) Never trust one person's opinion when it comes to your health.  Do yourself a favor and get another set of eyes on your problem.

I love my current doctor.  The first time we met we talked for one solid hour about what we were going to do.  I have never in my life gotten that much attention from a doctor, it was amazing.  So, here I am today, still learning and still on my journey of starting a family. 

I started this blog for selfish reasons (as a way to cope with all of this), but I am hoping that it can become a good source of information and/or entertainment for you. This blog will be a source for healthy (and perhaps sometimes, not as healthy) recipes, nutrition information and my journey with infertility.  Now that you know a little bit about me, it is time to get this blog rolling.  So....time to go preheat that oven!!!!  (Get it?)